A child is having outbursts at school, or at home, or wherever else, on a pretty regular basis. And at some point, someone suggests that they need to learn better coping skills.
They suggest therapy, or maybe there’s even a special program at school. Because yes, better coping skills/self-regulation skills/frustration tolerance really would solve everything, wouldn’t it?
Well those are fine skills to have, to be sure, but more often than not, it’s not what that child (or adult) needs most. What they really need is someone to figure out what’s stressing them out so much and then do something about THAT.
Because it’s not actually weird to be distressed over distressing things. Maybe *you* don’t understand what’s so distressing about school or the grocery store or that new person in the house, but that doesn’t mean *their* distress isn’t legit.
People reeaalllly like to suggest better coping skills for autistic, ADHD, and otherwise ND folks. (Since we already have a diagnosis, it’s that much easier to locate the problem in US.) And what they’re really saying with this an awful lot of the time is, “Can you please stop being so distressed by distressing things because it’s making a lot of work for us and we’re not about to change anything for you.”
So before you put someone in some sort of therapy that will teach them that they’re wrong to be upset about the things that upset them and how to get better at pretending to be okay, maybe consider that you might be expecting them to “cope” with more than they can reasonably be expected to.
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One thing that really gets me about Urianger comforting Minfilia in Amh Araeng is that when she says Thancred hates her, Urianger never actually says, no, he doesn't. He says instead, none of this is your fault, and the original Minfilia wouldn't hold anything against you, and in typical Urianger form he says some things about fate and faith, and his words are kind and beautiful--but he also completely sidesteps the question of how Thancred feels about her.
And I think this moment is very reflective of Urianger's relationship to Thancred and child!Minfilia as a whole. It reflects what we see when we first see all of them together in Il Mheg.
Urianger knows that the way Thancred behaves toward the girl is hurting her. He's spent enough time around the two of them to see that plainly. Theoretically, he could say something to Thancred about it; they're obviously close friends, and if Thancred was going to value anyone's opinion, it would be his. But he doesn't say anything, because he still feels guilty and responsible for all of it: about their Minfilia going to the First and what happened to her there, and thus for what both Thancred and child!Minfilia are going through now. Even though Thancred has never outright blamed him for it (however he may feel privately, which I think is hard to say), it seems like Urianger still feels like he has no right to say anything.
So he tries to compensate instead. He's kind to Minfilia, connects with her in his own way and gives her books, and by the time we see them together he's obviously become something of a familial figure to her. I would say that he and Thancred aren't so much raising her together as they're doing it... around one another. Thancred is gruff and cold and holds Minfilia at arm's length emotionally so that his protectiveness comes off harshly even when it's well-meant, and Urianger dotes on her and tries to make up for it all while avoiding the actual problem.
So that conversation in Amh Araeng is both touching and maddening to me, and it really drives home what's maddening about it when, upon overhearing it, the Warrior of Light turns to Thancred to ask him if he has anything to say to Minfilia--who has just said, out loud, that she thinks Thancred wishes she was dead--and Thancred just says, "Not today."
And so they both go on avoiding the actual problem, for just a little longer.
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Another small Clone^2 thought
Danny's hands are scarred.
Really, every part of him is. His arms, his legs, his torso. All of them littered in nicks and scratches and scabs that he's picked at over, and over, and over again. And then bigger ones, jagged scars from debris stabbing at him, and burns of ectoplasm blasts that melted through his regular clothes and hit his skin.
The one thing that never really got scarred were his hands. They were callused, of course, from all his climbing, and hitting, and hanging on for dear life to things. But never really scarred, not really. Maybe he just got lucky, maybe it was the fact that he wore gloves and they leather, and leather is harder to get through than cotton. Maybe both.
But, well, that's no longer case. But the scars on his hands take place on his palms. Two clean, thick lines going diagonally over his palms. Not from any enemy he's ever faced, but proof of his meeting with the little boy sitting between his knees, running his tiny fingers over those same scars.
Damian, his little brother. He scarred them, with that katana of his.
First when they first met, when Damian called him an imposter and proceeded to attack him. It was really only from Danny's exposure to the quick movements of ghosts that kept him from getting shish-kabob'd by Damian's sword.
And it was only because he was an idiot, and his brain was not faster than those reflexes that he kept grabbing the blade with his hands. That it kept cutting into that leather until it started cutting skin.
And then numerous times over on those rocky first months of Damian staying with him, when he didn't know any English, and Danny didn't know any Arabic. When Danny would piss him off or go looking for him when he ran off, he would have to grab his katana while Damian was swinging it at him.
His hands wouldn't heal for months because of it. The wounds kept being re-opened. Kept bleeding. Kept hurting. Until they slowly stopped hurting, and he knew that it wasn't a good thing.
Danny's parents were very upset when they saw his hands. It was hard to lie about where he got them - the lines are too clean, too consistent, to have been accidents. Danny didn't know how to lie and say it wasn't because of Damian. That it wasn't his katana that they knew nothing about that was stained with his blood.
He found a way to anyways, because he thought Damian was worth it at the time. He was a kid. He was scared. He was hurting other people and that's all he was ever taught to do.
So Danny thought a little pain was worth it.
(He still does.)
Oh, fun fact. There are three nerves in the human hand. the radial nerve, the median nerve, and the ulnar nerve. From what he could find on it, the ulnar nerve traveled up into the pinky and the ring finger, the median went through the middle of the palm and the ring, the middle, and the index, and the radial nerve went into the thumb and the index.
Fun fact, did you know consistent (or deep enough) lacerations to the palm could end up cutting a nerve? And that such lacerations can cause numbness, loss of feeling, and weakness in the hand, fingers, and thumb?
Here's a final fun fact: Danny had to go to physical therapy after his hands finally began to heal. Because Damian's katana had cut his radial nerve. There are seventeen thousands touch receptors in the hand, Danny's lost some of those.
His hands still hurt when he closes and opens them, the scarring pinches a little. He doesn't know why but his fingers hurt now when its too humid or too cold, or when its about to rain. It sucks. It's worth it.
He lied about before; here's the final fun fact:
There is a deeply, deeply, guilty look on Damian's face as he runs his little hands over Danny's scarred palms, carefully closing and opening his fingers in a slow rendition of his physical therapy workouts.
(Because even if it's ended, he still has to do them. Pain doesn't go away even if it's healed.)
"I'm sorry." Damian says in a meek, thick voice. He's said it before, when they've done this before at all hours of the day. Danny's wondering if Damian does it on purpose - hurt himself with this, that is. Not apologize. "I hurt you."
Danny sighs, deeply, and leans forward to press his face into his little brother's hair. "It's okay." He mutters, again. And he'll say it again, and again, and again, until Damian finally believes him. "I'm not mad."
"I am." Damian insists, his voice wobbles. "I hurt you, Danny."
"And I say it's okay that you did, Damian." Danny repeats, and wraps an arm around Damian's middle to sit him on his leg. Damian doesn't look at him, just curls his fingers around Danny's other hand and looks at the scar there. "Like I said, I'm not mad. I would do it again."
"Do not."
So, Danny's hands are scarred.
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