Abby Connolly
If you’ve ever been in therapy, there may have been moments when you were asked to bring a family member or friend into your sessions to work out an issue.
However, some people turn that opportunity down, as bringing someone else into a meeting with your therapist may feel invasive.
One teenager has never connected with his stepmom and recently upset his dad after refusing to sit through a therapy session with her.
He’s 17-years-old and has had a difficult few years. When he was 12, he was formally diagnosed with mental illness, which took a toll on him. At the time, he needed stability to figure out a plan for his mental health, but instead, his life was uprooted.
“Two months after my formal diagnosis, [my dad and I left] to live with his then-girlfriend, now wife, Emily,” he said.
“I left behind everyone else I knew and loved, and during the move, some sentimental stuff was destroyed. The stuff was my mom’s, and [my] dad had put it in the wrong pile after I tagged it, so it wasn’t handled with care. I was pretty much destroyed at that point. I already hated that we were moving, and then [I lost] some of the stuff [my] mom loved the most.”
After he and his dad moved to Emily’s house, he was a wreck for a few years. He had a very hard time finding doctors for his mental health treatment and couldn’t choose a therapist or psychiatrist for three years.
Because of all this, he grew to resent Emily. She always rubbed him the wrong way, and things worsened when the move happened. Unfortunately, Emily never understood his predicament and always encouraged him to move on a little too soon.
“She’s made comments about it being good that we moved, so I can learn how to ‘miss people,’ which is really insensitive,” he explained.
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