They believed her

504 meetings, our inner kid + setting ourselves free

A year ago, I walked out of a meeting at my daughter’s school with tears streaming down my cheeks. Quickly wiping them away, I hugged my fifth grade daughter and smiled. She turned to head back to class with a tiny bounce in her step. I turned to head back to my car with fresh tears and a tiny bounce in my step.

We’d just finished a 504 meeting with her counselor, an administrator, and her teacher. We crowded around a small kids table and took turns sharing strengths we see in my daughter. It was beautiful. Then we went through some questions and emerged with a list of accommodations that would support her when anxiety bubbled up during the school day.

It’d been months of morning tears and fears. “What if’s” and dread. Piles of tissues in the van while we sat in the parking lot as big emotions did a number in her body. Months of me trying to find the nuanced balance of parental empathy, every anxiety technique I’d ever seen, and the worry that I wasn’t being tough enough with her.

Her new anxiety diagnosis led us to learn she now had access to these supports. We figured we might as well give it a try.

Photo by Zhivko Minkov on Unsplash

I sat down in my car and closed the door. A deep breath escaped my body. My inner fifth grade self wept something beautiful right there in the elementary school parking lot.

My life would have been so different if I had a meeting like that when I was eleven.

My daughter advocated for her needs like a badass. She sat at that tiny kids table and claimed what she needed to thrive.

And they believed her.

She asked for what I never thought to ask for.

I cried that day for all the days her future school years will be far different from mine. I did okay in school. But all of it was dependent on me never showing anyone how anxious I felt inside. It’s disconcerting to feel so overwhelmed inside while presenting such a competent version of yourself to the world. It never occurred to me to tell people I struggled inside because all my external markers got the praise I wanted. So my young brain assumed I was doing well. This must be how life feels.

My favorite part of the 504 meeting was hearing her teacher say that he saw few signs of her anxiety during the school day. We both got to tell him how she covers it up and never wants anyone to see it.

He believed us.

He understood there was a lot more going on under the surface than he could see.

My inner fifth grade self breathed through the tears in the parking lot because I think that’s all I ever wanted.

Can someone please believe me? I’m barely keeping my head above water and you’re all telling me I’m wonderful. I want to be this great kid you think I am so it’s hard to tell you how chaotic it feels inside. If I told you, would you believe me?

Hearing her teacher believe her healed something in me that day.

Me in kindergarten or 1st grade in midwest Ohio

The beauty of inner child work is that every single one of us can go back and heal the parts of us that didn’t get what they needed when we were young.

I’ll walk you through a recent moment I met with my sixteen year-old self.

I found a quiet moment and put on some quiet background music. Sitting in a comfortable chair, I took a few quieting breaths. I imagined my younger self sitting in the bleachers at the school I went to back then. I imagined my current 41-year-old self going over to sit down with her, asking if I could sit with her for a few moments. She nodded yes. After a few moments in each other’s presence, I asked if there’s anything she wanted to let me know.

I felt emotion well up in me as I heard the phrase, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” over and over. This connected with an insecurity I’d been processing earlier that day. I allowed myself to feel what my sixteen-year-old self was tapping into. All those experiences that brought a sense of wild uncertainty and embarrassment. I felt the shame and discomfort. For me, that looks like tears. For others, it might look different.

Sometimes this part takes five minutes. Other days it meanders for twenty minutes. Once I sense the emotion settling down, I shift into validation and comfort mode. I will often hold my hands together in my lap as if I’m holding her hand. Sometimes I will hold my arms with my hands, as if she’s sitting in my lap and I’m rocking her a bit. Any movement or motion that feels soothing. I echo back to her what I’m hearing, making sure she feels like I really heard her. That must have been hard. I see you. I believe you. For me, there’s usually a few more tears because damn, that’s powerful to hear anytime, but especially for our younger selves that hold some pretty core wounds.

Photo by Liv Bruce on Unsplash

After a couple minutes, I ask if there’s anything else she’d like to say. It usually feels like “Thank you” or “I love you.” Or my absolute favorite. After I got my autism diagnosis, she said, “Thank you for coming back for us.” I melted.

I do a little more soothing of self as the moment comes to a close. These connections feel holy and sacred. They’re healing. I often feel deeply grounded and at peace with that part of my life. Later in the day I typically feel more tender as daily life unfolds. I try to make space for this and acknowledge the hard inner work I engaged earlier in the day.

The beauty of this work is that we often wish others would validate or believe or see the parts of us that ache the most. Sometimes they do. But let’s be honest, there’s so much of us beneath the surface that they’ll never see. But we know it’s there. It’s still in us, running the show. The old wounds we carry that never seem to fade. That grudge or self-protection we hold, hoping it will hide how insecure we feel. That anger or grief or sadness from that one season of life. It’s all inside us. Our bodies remember.

The beautiful news is that we’re invited to go back and bear witness to it. We can feel it. We can believe our younger selves when maybe no one else did. We can offer ourselves what we ache for from others.

I invite you to set aside a few moments to connect with your inner child today. Maybe they’re five. Or 21. Or 54. It’s all valid. Let’s be brave and courageous together.

Maybe we all need a little 504 meeting sometimes. To advocate for what we need in this season. And for someone to believe us.

Grace, my friends,
Jenny

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Happy one year book birthday to Still Here! It’s been absolutely wild and beautiful to watch this little book make it’s way through the world. I didn’t need anything back from this book. It was written as a survival tool for the first year of my grief journey. To watch it connect with others deep in their own grief felt surreal. I still don’t know how to react to kind notes from strangers. Except to say, “Go Jeremy!” It feels like his love is embodied on every page and that’s what people are experiencing. What a freaking gift. To bear witness to a human who loved me so well. To bear witness to my own pain. To watch what love can do when it’s freely offered. I’ll never forget this first year. May this book continue its great adventures in years to come.

Thank you to every single one of you who got copies for a grieving friend. You are love embodied.