A High School Student Reaches New Heights with Help from Resolve Community Counseling Center, Inc.

Michaela is a junior at the local public high school. A friend suggested she seek help at Resolve. When she came in she was experiencing a great deal of anger, sadness and feelings of hopelessness. She was cutting herself, experimenting with drugs and not eating. She was engaging in frequent fights and conflicts with her peers.

Recently Michaela had a big disappointment: she was a gifted gymnast but had a shoulder injury which appeared to end her career in gymnastics. Aside from this recent setback which led her to seek out counseling, Michaela had many other ongoing stressors in her life. Her parents were divorced a year ago, and had a rough relationship during the last few years together. Her father was a drug addict and in and out of jail for violent confrontations with the police. After the divorce, Michaela and her brother lived with their mother. Their mother was hardworking but could not give them all the attention they needed.

Michaela was not doing well in school. She suffers from dyslexia, which makes it hard for her to learn through reading. It turned out, however, that she is smart and able to learn in other ways.

Michaela received 21 sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Her therapist is a young man whom she came to view as a father figure. He gave her support and encouragement, and he helped her find new ways of looking at things and better ways of relating to those around her.

For someone of her young age, Michaela was very quick to respond to therapy. She enjoyed the handouts she was given and enjoyed showing her therapist how she is changing her way of thinking and even her way of talking to be more realistic and healthy for her. She stopped cutting herself, stopped experimenting with drugs, and started to eat healthily and to take care of herself. She learned how to get along with her peers, and now has many friends. Her self-esteem has improved, and so have her school grades, as she has discovered that she is indeed smart and just needs to utilize her resources. She has gotten closer to her mother, and has learned to have more realistic expectations of her father and to forgive him for his shortcomings.

Not only has Michaela benefited immensely from therapy, she has taken her newly acquired knowledge of cognitive-behavioral therapy and has brought it to her mother and to friends. She reported to her therapist that she has taken her handouts and explained them to her friends. She has helped her friends whose parents were also going through separation and divorce to stop cutting themselves and engaging in other self-defeating behaviors.

Michaela’s shoulder has healed better than expected, and she may now be able to go back to gymnastics. However, having thought that this was no longer a choice for her, Michaela has discovered several other interests, and gymnastics is only one possibility for her future.

Michaela continues to come to therapy but only once a month now. She gives her therapist a hug at the end of each session, and then leaves to lead a fuller and happier life than she has ever thought possible.