SUPPORT WHEN IT'S NEEDED MOST
F ive months ago, Nathan*, a 13-year- old teenage boy, was brought to AnglicareSA by his mother who was concerned about changes in his behaviour. She knew her son was suffering from a vision problem, but said he was becoming more withdrawn, running away from home for hours and unable to concentrate at school. He didn’t want to come to counselling, but his mum was worried that Nathan was at risk of self-harm or depression. Nathan was slowly losing vision in both eyes due to a rare degenerative disorder. What started as temporary bouts of blindness which he described as, “the bottom half of my eyes goes dark and then I get a complete black out for a few seconds”, turned out to be an irreversible medical condition that will lead to total blindness in both eyes. He was terrified of this situation and becoming more and more anxious. The counselling sessions with Nathan were slow at first, but our counsellor worked with him to voice his fears and concerns. Nathan’s counsellor told him it
was ok to be scared and they talked about acceptance of a different future without his eyesight. That’s hard for kids to understand, but Nathan now seems to be more positive about it. We were able to arrange for Nathan to meet other teenagers who had lost their vision, which he found really helpful. It’s made him more comfortable with his friends and confident to go back to school. With a few more sessions left, Nathan is a lot more relaxed and better prepared for life at school and beyond. We’ve connected him with rehabilitation services to teach him adaptive independent skills to help him once he loses his eyesight. We have also had two sessions with Nathan’s family members to provide them with the necessary resources to support Nathan and keep them up to date with his development. To enable us to appoint more counsellors and have better resources to help people like Nathan through loss and grief, please go to anglicaresa.com.au. Thank you. * Not his actual name
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page 10 — News about AnglicareSA, Autumn 2017
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