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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: GENTLE (10/21/21)
A Gentle Word

She had been a therapist at the Community Mental Health Center for Adolescents for thirteen years. Helping adolescents with mental health issues was her true passion in life. She had counseled many depressed and Bipolar teens and pre-teens. But nothing makes her feel as important and as needed as helping others. One case really changed the way she viewed life and life’s meaning. The case of a fourteen year old girl named Teresa always stuck out to her. Teresa had told her she had been named after Mother Teresa, a Christian patron who had an exceedingly gentle hand of servitude toward the poor and peoples like Teresa. Teresa was born to a mother who was a crack addict and sex worker. Her mother delivered her while she was strung out on drugs. She was stereotyped and labeled another crack baby. She had all the withdrawal symptoms that your typical crack baby has. She had extreme agitation, a low birth weight, and breathing troubles. She was placed in the neonatal intensive care unit for eight weeks. She weighed 3.5 pounds at birth. She was delivered at 34 weeks. She was your typical drug baby preemie. Her mother Mary had been named after her great Aunt Mary, and not for the Virgin Mary in the Bible.

Her mother, Mary had suffered from Bipolar since the tender age of eleven. When she began puberty she began to become overwhelmed with feelings of sadness and mood swings. Sometimes her mood swings would become violent where she would attack her mother. She would kick and slap at her mother when her mother tried to discipline her. She developed an early onset of Bipolar disorder right after her father passed away from prostate cancer. Months later she was exhibiting many symptoms of Bipolar. To ease her pain, her mother Mary would steal alcohol form her mother’s alcohol cabinet. She was an alcoholic and crack addict by the age of seventeen. Even after discovering that she was pregnant with Teresa, she refused to quit using crack. Teresa was taken from her mother after she was born and went to live with a foster family when she was finally released from the hospital after her birth.

Teresa’s grandmother wanted to adopt her, but she was now disabled and had to use a walker and sometimes a wheel chair to get around. She just wasn’t in the good health to take care of her granddaughter. So, Teresa’s livelihood fell into the hands of foster parents. In foster care, Teresa suffered verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. She had to be removed from a third foster home when she was thirteen for verbal and physical abuse. Her foster dad would beat her and call her profane names when he felt she wasn’t doing her chores well enough. He was an alcoholic just like Teresa’s mom. That is how Teresa ended up in therapy with Dr. Nelson. Dr. Nelson had a gentle personality. She was extremely gentle in her dealings with Teresa. When she found out about Teresa’s bad foster home experiences she recommended a foster couple to child services that were good Christian people that would be happy to take in Teresa. This couple was acquaintances of Dr. Nelson. They couldn’t have any children of their own and have always wanted a daughter.

Helping girls like Teresa was a part of Dr. Nelson’s passion and purpose in life. Dr. Nelson had vowed that she would never deliberately give up on a mentally disturbed child. With therapy and placement in a new foster home environment, Teresa’s depression began to fade away and her Bipolar became manageable with the use of Bipolar medications. Dr. Nelson’s goal for Teresa was to get her off all medications within the next year. Teresa’s mood swings had gotten so bad she would often cut herself with sharp objects. She had to be hospitalized and after hospitalization she was placed under Dr. Nelson’s care. Dr. Nelson was very gentle with Teresa because Teresa was so used to rough treatment. She showed Teresa that not all adults are bad. There are still some gentle caring adults out there living to emulate, Christ, their Savior.
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This article has been read 169 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Marlene MCPherson
10/29/21
Had seeds of great story because it was engaging, however, it ended abruptly.
Sue Botte 
10/31/21
Indeed very engaging.

A small red-ink.
You have at least another two articles in your story. Focus on one to make greater impact on your reader.

Thank you for your good work thus far in terms of adolescents needing help.

Keep writing.
Laura Manley
11/03/21
I found your entry very worth reading and enjoyed the story. There were a couple things that were distracting and that was in two places you changed tenses in the middle or beginning (I don't remember which) of your sentences. Also, I agree with Sue, you seemed to be writing two entirely different stories; however, all in all, I felt you had a good basis for your entry. A little more showing, than telling would have been good as well. Truly, your passion for the mentally ill is obvious. Keep writing and God bless!