...to listen

She was screaming at us through her behavior… to listen.

It was this sentence which caught our attention most acutely and wouldn’t let her poignant story be forgotten. 

It was her heartbreaking journey to discover her eight-year old daughter’s diagnosis, and the need her daughter had that kept her odyssey of despair and desperation in our minds.

It was her pain and anguish, along with her heroic perseverance, that compels us to share her story - and her discovery - with you.

You see, Amanda Bacon-Davis, wrote a 2023 article for the HUFFPOST -  

“When My 8-Year-Old Said These 5 Horrifying Words, I Had To Change Everything About My Parenting” - about her daughter living with persistent anxiety.

She describes throughout her article the specter of anger, intense crying, resistance to going to school, massive and violent outbursts, the scariness that marks every single day, and how hard it’s been to feel so consistently helpless and hopeless. Of not knowing what to do. 

No moment ever felt more helpless and hopeless than when her daughter, repeatedly while banging her head, screamed, 

“I JUST WANT TO DIE!”

It was a devastating, yet watershed moment.

But, with the help of the right mental health professionals and clinicians, the right school staff, and the right support system, she was ultimately able to understand this very significant truth,

As I sat in the back, holding her and observing their interaction, it suddenly clicked. All this time, she wasn’t just “behaving badly,” she was screaming at us through her behavior… to listen.

To listen. 

That is first what she needed them to do.

She needed them to notice what was going on within her. That’s what good and effective listening actually does. It notices others’ distress, their frustration, their pain. It notices what’s not being said and how that can convey very acutely that something isn’t right. It’s not only what we say, but what we don’t or can’t say because we don’t know exactly how to. And for an eight-year old, it can be incredibly hard to articulate precisely what is going on or how they are feeling - and why that way. 

Ultimately, through the help and example of the clinicians caring for her daughter, she learned exactly that. She learned that her daughter wasn’t ‘behaving badly’. She was living with acute anxiety. She was desperately trying to convey that something wasn’t right, even if she didn’t know precisely what it was or exactly how to say it. 

The professionals met her daughter in the place where she was. Rather than trying to change her they found that meeting her daughter in this place resolves outbursts much faster than meeting her with their frustration. She came to understand that, and now she urges all parents to evaluate their children’s behavior through this prism. She advocates for other parents in difficult situations, encouraging them to trust their intuition and to seek advice for answers. And please know, she asserts, if you are experiencing anything like what her family experienced, you are not alone.

But first, it’s vital … to listen.

That’s ultimately what we all want, what we all need. We want others to listen to us. To notice us. To know us. 

Listening is a supreme act of love. Listening is the key to opening up the doors for real human connection to happen. For when we connect, we open our hearts and our minds and our spirits. And with that, we begin to understand and feel safer, and then we begin to heal. 

For then we begin to know that we are not alone. 

Photo by Sharon Carr on Unsplash