Interview #1 (Published with permission)
Dr. Swim: When we first started doing this in 2007 we started working with teenagers that did not want any type of services. They had been in foster care and they were so tired of therapists because maybe they had had seven therapists in seven years.
They distrusted parents, they distrusted therapists, they distrusted foster parents and the last thing in the world that they wanted to do was have therapy sessions.
I really felt that it was divine intervention that helped me to decide to bring the horses and we started to do this for free for a year or more with these children that I still talk to today.
They graduated from college, one right now is about to have their baby. They are all so wonderful and doing so wonderful.
No one, unless they would want to tell, would ever know that they didn’t have this amazing upbringing where there wasn’t any type of trauma whatsoever.
So maybe, I want you to talk about whatever you want to talk about but one of the things that we were talking about with this other woman is that when people come to the Institute it’s so different from having “therapy.”
I remember talking to your daughter about this a year or two ago and her saying that they were trying to get her to have these coping skills and essential oils and lavender… but she hadn’t decided whether she wanted to live, right?
Mother: Yep.
Dr. Swim: And so they were doing these things that are nice things to do but it didn’t at all address the seriousness and urgency of what was happening at that point in time.
Mother: Yep.
Dr. Swim: And I think unfortunately what happens and what we’re starting to teach about is that therapists learn in schools to do certain things.
Mother: Mhmm.
Dr. Swim: And they don’t know what to do when that person doesn’t fit into…
Mother: that box.
Dr. Swim: The box.
In fact I remember that your daughter was told that she did not want to get well.
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: And how old was she when she was told that?
Mother: I don’t even know [thoughtful pause] as young as fourteen or thirteen.
Dr. Swim: Yes, I think before she was going into eighth grade.
Mother: Mhmm.
Dr. Swim: Or she had just finished eighth grade.
And I remember her telling me that and I remember thinking to myself, how could someone even say that?
Mother: They did say that.
Dr. Swim: It’s like saying “I don’t want to breathe today,” you know?
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: It was just so foreign to me hearing something like that.
So maybe you could talk just a little bit about that because what we are doing is that we are trying to talk to these new initiatives. They have a senator involved and they have some other people involved of how we can provide treatment that works.
Not just treatment, but where people have options to treatment that works with these populations of children and teenagers.
Mother: Okay, okay.
And then you said that my face and my voice is going to be masked right?
Dr. Swim: Yes.
Mother: Perfect, perfect.
Well just ask me the questions and then that would be easier for me.
Dr. Swim: So in just remembering when your daughter first came, how is this different than the type of services she was receiving? And I know that she was receiving services even when she was seeing us.
Mother: Yes, well they were different because a lot of the places they just wanted to put her in hospitals and give her medication to keep her sedated. And I just felt that the medications sometimes made it worse and she was dependant on them.
There’s times that I’ve to go home because she forgot her medicine and she was getting panicky and saying “I need to have this” and “I need to have that.”
It was making her more codependent.
Not only that but they wanted her to be isolated and hospitalized.
I don’t think they ever treated the actual cause.
She wouldn’t open up, she never told anybody.
Dr. Swim: Right.
Mother: We just figured the problem out with the police officers, the social workers all that stuff that was involved.
Dr. Swim: Right, right.
Mother: They were prescribing her pills or saying “let me put you in college hospitals, any type of hospital.”
But they didn’t know the cause of why she was cutting herself, what was going on and she didn’t tell them either.
Dr. Swim: Right.
Mother: Just her drawings and her behavior was the only thing that you would know, right?
Dr. Swim: Right, right.
Mother: And I think that’s what happened is that the treatment was not the right treatment.
I changed HMOs (Health Management Organizations) I don’t even know how many times.
I even took her, I borrowed money from my mom, to try to take her to the Cedar Sinai the best treatment center and even then that turned out to be horrible.
And apparently she had the background… you think of the best, private treatment centre like Cedar Sinai, I couldn’t afford it on my salary. But yet I borrowed money to try to figure out how to help her.
Dr. Swim: Right, right.
Mother: I changed HMOs four or five times.
I went to Blue Cross which was expensive for us and they said “we will help you” but it turned out to be the same thing.
If it wasn’t for our last straw that we went to—my husband was helping me—we found Now I See A Person.
[Tearful, voice trembling with emotion] Everybody gave up on our daughter and you didn’t.
I’m sorry I’m getting teary eyed because [deep breath and pause]
I remember that time, I remember that you saved my daughter.
My daughter is going to be twenty-one next month in February and you saved her.
You saved her.
Dr. Swim: [Nodding, softened expression] Mhmm, yeah.
Mother: The other doctors, the other hospitals, everything.
Many times we live in a two-storey house she could have pushed herself out.
Dr. Swim: Right.
Mother: My husband pulled her from the windows so many times Dr. Swim.
Dr. Swim: Yes.
Mother: And I’m getting emotional because [deep breath] I can’t believe she is going to be twenty-one and that’s not the person anymore.
You helped her, you helped her.
You and that treatment.
The horses.
That was the best for my little girl at that time.
And I tried everything Dr. Swim.
I borrowed so much money.
And nobody helped me.
You were the only one.
I was seeking out so many doctors and nobody, nobody helped me.
Everybody said “put her in a treatment, put her in a home, put her this, put her there.”
That’s all they wanted for my little girl and if I wouldn’t have put her with you we would be talking about something else Dr. Swim.
But because you helped me, those horses.
That type of treatment not only for my daughter, for me also.
For my family and my extended family.
You guys were there.
You opened your ranch to us and there were times that I was there all day.
Dr. Swim: [smiling and nodding] Yeah, yeah.
Mother: I was there all day, all day.
Dr. Swim: [smiling and nodding] Yeah, yeah.
Mother: I had to quit my job, I couldn’t. I was getting phone calls saying “she’s here, she’s there” from the schools, from everywhere.
Yes so if it wasn’t for this intervention—this horse type intervention—honestly I don’t think that my daughter would have survived.
Dr. Swim: You know I remember it like it was yesterday.
And I remember the first day you guys coming in and it was your husband that brought her in.
Mother: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Swim: One of the things that we’ve been so incredibly fortunate with is that because the horses are so loving and welcoming they make us look okay as therapists, you know?
Mother: Mhmm.
Dr. Swim: They make us look different.
I think when teenagers see us they think well maybe I’ll give them a try because they own these horses, they must not be bad people to talk to.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: I think that gives us a leg up where the teenagers can start to trust us to be able to talk and to be able to talk about things that I think are very important and they decide that they want to live.
That was one of the things that I saw with your daughter is that she was so lovely and so wonderful and so brilliant and talented and beautiful.
And because of the events that had happened I do not think that she had decided that she wanted to live and because she didn’t love herself she could not really love anybody around her.
Mother: Mhmm.
Dr. Swim: And that’s why she wasn’t safe because if she didn’t love herself she couldn’t keep herself safe for anybody.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: And during that period of time, Emma, what we did…
Because at the Institute it’s not like we have a plan.
The client comes in and the client teaches us what plan to have.
And so it became obvious that she became worse at night after she took the medication because the medication would make her less inhibited and then she might be more in tune to try to harm herself than if she didn’t take the medicine.
And her mom started sleeping with her to make sure that she was safe throughout the night. And it was lovely.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: You know how many times I’ve said that it’s either a mother or a parent’s act of love that saves the children and she allowed you to come in and be there with her.
And she wanted you there right?
Mother: Yeah, she did.
It was hard because I had my younger daughter was a toddler and I had to do that just to keep her safe because I didn’t know what she was going to do.
There was many times that I rushed to the hospital because of something or I had to call the paramedics because she wasn’t taking her medicine.
She took all of them at once and I had to hide everything, lock up everything.
Even the knives, we had to put them away in storage.
Dr. Swim: Right.
Mother: We didn’t have knives in our house because we knew she would do stuff.
Dr. Swim: Do you remember the day that she came in, and this was when I could tell she was starting to trust us? Or maybe I could tell she was starting to trust me.
She had had all of those unfortunate relationships with those children that only preyed upon her and she had cut on herself something like “no one loves me.”
And then she had cut on her front and back as well.
But she was so open to showing those.
Not because that she was proud that she had cut, not because she was manipulative or all of those words that you were told that didn’t really represent who she was.
She wanted help.
Mother: Mhmm.
Dr. Swim: She wanted help.
And I think that day for me was a turning point because she was so transparent in wanting things to be different.
And she just had a series of good luck.
You guys finding that school for her…
Mother: Yes [softer, lighter voice]
Dr. Swim: was a miracle.
Sometimes it just takes a lot of good fortune, miracles whatever…
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: divine intervention.
She found a school that I remember the first day that she came back from that school and she said “I found my people.”
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: [smiling] and I was just like, “things are going to be okay.”
She’s not going to be alone, she’s not going to be lonely.
She’s going to get over this.
Mother: Yeah, and she did because the art saved her.
The fact that she had caring teachers that were thinking outside of the box and that’s why, even myself as a parent and a teacher, I have to think outside of the box. How can I help? What can I do that’s different?
I’ve never been one to say “okay this is it and I’m going to take it.”
I was like, “no let me look at something else. Let me see what else I can do.”
And this is what Now I See A Person did for us because it gave us something out of the box that would help her.
She’s in college now and she wants to do art therapy which I never thought she could even do.
I always knew she was really smart and talented but no one really tapped into that.
Now she wants to help other kids too, teenagers.
Dr. Swim: And she will.
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: She will make such a huge difference in this world, she will.
Mother: Mhmm.
Dr. Swim: See one of the things that I don’t think that ordinary people understand is that these children are not mentally ill in any sense of the word.
They have no business ever being on medication or being put in a hospital or being in residential care.
It is very easy to work with these children if you see them as a person.
If you listen to them.
If you care.
If you have the time to spend with them because they give you their trust and they share with you their pain.
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: It’s so simple.
But too many times you get people that are too busy and they think that they should follow a treatment plan, right?
That they should do it this way.
Mother: Right.
And you can’t do that with human beings.
Mother: No, no.
Especially with children because the medication maybe they might help adults but it’s not the same when you give it to a child.
Dr. Swim: Right.
Mother: It was far worse Dr. Swim, I have to tell you far worse.
Dr. Swim: I always knew that but she really was the one that taught me that because we spent many a night together on the phone.
And she would tell me that what would happen is I think you would give her the medication at eight or nine that was prescribed and she would stay up past it.
And then she would get a little loopy from the medication which is uninhibited and then she would remember all the bad things that happened at a certain time.
And then that inhibition would kick in and she would want to harm herself.
Mother: [completing Dr. Swim’s sentence] harm herself.
Yep, yep.
But I was told that I had to give it to her and I even told the doctors that she gets worse and they said “no it’s fine.”
Many times my husband because he worked the graveyard shift would find her, if I wasn’t sleeping in her room, ready to jump out of the window. The second story tom window that we had.
Dr. Swim: Yeah, yeah.
It’s almost like they disregard that the parents have any knowledge of their own children and that they are the experts in these children’s lives. And they see them for what, fifteen or twenty minutes?
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: And they’re the experts in these children’s lives because they read a book on the symptoms that these children have?
It’s ludicrous, it doesn’t make sense.
And that’s why we have so many children throughout the world that unfortunately do not survive.
Mother: Yes, yes.
Dr. Swim: And what our big mission is at this point in time is to let people know there’s alternatives.
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: It doesn’t mean everybody needs to come see us or some of our colleagues.
People are free to go see whoever they want but they have to know that there are alternatives that work.
Mother: Yes, yes, yes.
Yes and I have always been a strong advocate.
People ask me “what happened?”
And I told them she went to the horse ranch and it was Dr. Swim.
Anytime that I see something like that I try to give them your number and I just wish that the HMOs would make it more available. That we could still do that, you know?
Dr. Swim: Mhmm.
Mother: But everything is so costly and you have to conform to whatever they want you to conform to.
If it’s the medicine, I feel like they were drug dealers with a license.
Dr. Swim: Yes.
Mother: Because they were cocktailing, they were like “give her this in the morning, give her that, give her that.”
And the behaviors and the outbursts were just so much worse.
Dr. Swim: Yes, yes, yes.
And once she was titrated off of the medication it was like night and day.
Mother: Yeah, it was night and day.
And it was the help with everybody in our family, I needed a village.
I needed all my family to help me.
My cousin that was a pharmacist was like “give her a placebo.”
We had to do things like that because she was so dependant and people were telling her that it was prescribed from the doctors. And then they would get mad at me because they would ask “why aren’t you giving it to her?” and “why are you doing this?”
My sister in law in Oregon… everybody was helping me to get her off all of these cocktail medications that she was on.
Dr. Swim: And what I see today is that mothers do not have enough support.
That they want to do things like this.
We were talking to a mother today that wants to give CBD oil, it’s a derivative of marijuana in some way but it doesn’t have the THC in it but it has the relaxation for the anxiety.
And in many ways this little girl reminds me very much of your daughter when she was going through some difficult times.
This little girl is on—I’ve got to give you our article so that you can read this—this little girl is on anti-psychotics.
And one of the adverse reactions of the anti-psychotics is a condition called Tardive Dyskinesia.
That means that they give these shakes or they give these mouth movements.
The movements are comparable to Parkinson’s Disease.
Mother: Oh wow.
Dr. Swim: Some people only need to be on this for a few months in order to get it.
Some people it has to be a longer period of time.
It’s playing with fire.
This little girl is not one inch better than she was before.
And she’s also on Paxil and something else.
Mother: Oh my gosh.
Dr. Swim: And the mother has no choice.
Because the authorities are involved and she doesn’t have a village.
I think it’s just very, very, very difficult.
Mother: I mean I don’t even know how much money I spent on all these people just to try to help her.
And nothing worked.
You were the only one.
Dr. Swim: So if you were to describe in a nutshell how everything kind of worked together for you and both of your daughters.
Because we saw the whole family…
Mother: Yes you did.
Dr. Swim: your parents…
Mother: my sister…
Dr. Swim: your sister who I had to talk out of the pamphlet.
Mother: Yeah, they were ready for me to send her saying “you have to send her there.”
It’s was so expensive and I was wondering how I am I going to afford this?
Dr. Swim: I was so happy it was so expensive because she pushed that pamphlet towards me.
Mother: Oh yes.
She didn’t even care she was like “we are going to help you pay and we will figure it out.”
And honestly I was just so sad.
I just wanted to cry.
I couldn’t believe they were giving me this stuff after all the times that she’s been in and out of those hospitals.
She even broke out of one Dr. Swim, do you remember?
Dr. Swim: Yes.
Mother: She broke out of one of those, her and another girl.
Dr. Swim: Yes.
Mother: There were three of them, I don’t even know how many, but they broke out and it was just like wow.
Dr. Swim: Yes, yes, yes.
She has so much gumption.
She will go so far in this life.
So what we’re trying to do is we are trying to help people understand.
Mother: Mhmm.
Dr. Swim: And what this person said before you, who had been hospitalized multiple times before she came in to see us.
She said what happens is that things happen organically.
So there’s no plan.
It just happens…
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: from people being with people because we care and we want to see something happen.
And we want people to always leave with hope and some direction of where to go until the next time that we see them.
Mother: Yes and that’s what that is with Now I See A Person.
It’s hope.
You guys spend time helping us with the kids and their issues, how to resolve them.
Not necessarily relying on medication or cocktailing or hospitals that are not there.
I visited those hospitals because of visiting hours, I just cried every time.
It was such an emotional thing just seeing her there and all of those patients.
Dr. Swim: Mhmm.
Mother: And how manic they can be because of all of the medications that their under.
Dr. Swim: Yeah [nodding]
Mother: So it was sad and disappointing that this nation would have those type of hospitals.
It doesn’t matter where you went, even the nicest ones where you could see from outside it looked beautiful.
But inside what they’re doing is that their cocktailing them.
Their keeping them sedated.
Dr. Swim: Their doing the exact same thing, that’s right.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: So you can go to Hillsides Malibu or wherever…
Mother: Yeah, it doesn’t matter.
Dr. Swim: And be paying so much money but they are doing the same thing that they are doing at Olive View.
Mother: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Swim: And what they’re doing is that they don’t know how to listen to their clients, that’s one of the sad things is that they don’t know how to listen to these children.
Mother: No.
Dr. Swim: And to accept them.
So for example when your daughter, this was an example Emma, we had an intern with us—I don’t know if you remember Emily, she was really skinny…
Mother: I don’t know…
Dr. Swim: So anyways Emily was there with me doing co-therapy and one of those boys had just broken up with your daughter and she was heartbroken.
Remember that was the one that she cut herself and was feeling “no one is ever going to love me” type of thing?
Mother: Yeah, yeah [heartfelt, softened voice]
Dr. Swim: And so we took a walk.
I don’t know if you remember that day?
Emily stayed with you.
And so we were just walking and talking and sat on the bench in the office watching the horses and Emily came with us.
And your daughter was like “I just want to stalk him, I’m so upset that he’s broken up with me and their going to think I’m crazy because I’m stalking them. But I don’t know if I can help myself.”
And I said “oh my gosh you know when I was young I wanted to stalk people” you know? [smiling]
Mother: [smiling and laughing]
Dr. Swim: Except we didn’t have cell phones so we would just call them and then hang up on them but of course they knew it was us because we’re calling again and again and again.
Mother: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Swim: And so Emily’s looking at me like I’m crazy like “you’re telling this girl to go ahead and stalk him?”
No, I wasn’t telling her to stalk him…
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: I was commiserating with her that this is perfectly normal instead of telling her to do something that she couldn’t do at that moment in time.
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: And she ended up not stalking him.
I think she called or texted him once and then she decided he wasn’t worth it and just moved on.
But if I would have said “well you need to learn the skills to be more in control” talking that psychological babble to her instead of talking to her as one person to another.
Mother: Mhmm.
Dr. Swim: And Emily’s eyes were like saucers and then afterwards, I remember after you guys left she’s like “I was surprised that you said that to her.”
And I was like “well, you know she’s in pain.”
She liked this little boy who we were all so happy that she wasn’t seeing anymore but every little girl wants a prince charming in their life.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: But she was so talented and so intelligent and so brilliant.
And so good with that baby horse, she had no fear.
She could have picked him up and put him over her shoulder, you know?
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: She was amazing, amazing.
So is there anything else, I know that you have to get back to work, but is there anything else that you would like to say?
Mother: That you know what I think that society too doesn’t give parents the option and that’s hard because they tell you “no you have to do this.”
Especially social services and if you have ex-husbands or ex-wives they tell you “no you have to do this” and even the advocates do this.
They don’t tell you that “no this is just an option, if you want to do holistic things or you want to do things different you can.”
They don’t give you the option.
No you have to give the kid the medication, you have to.
Because I got in trouble all of the time, I had social services and everybody all of the time asking “why aren’t you doing this, why aren’t you doing that?”
I had the school, I had everybody on me.
And I said “no, I’m going to try this.”
And they look at you like you’re crazy when you’re asking for other options.
Dr. Swim: Mhmm, mhmm.
Mother: And I think that they need to open up what they’re doing because yes they may have a doctor’s degree and a license to give medication but you’re cocktailing it and it’s just like a drug dealer.
Dr. Swim: It is.
Mother: To me, that’s how I felt.
Dr. Swim: Mhmm.
Mother: That’s how I felt.
Dr. Swim: In four decades I’ve never put anybody—child, teen, adult—on medication.
It just never goes through my mind.
If they asked me to I would do it but I wasn’t trained that way where it’s like “okay if someone’s not getting better, okay well let’s put them on medication.”
I was trained if someone isn’t getting better, what am I doing that’s not helping them to get better?
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: I was telling somebody the other day how easy things can be.
Because one time your daughter was out there with your little daughter, who’s now not little anymore.
Mother: Yes [laughing]
Dr. Swim: And she was riding that tricycle, remember?
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: She would pet each of the horses as she went down the barn.
And so she came over to me because your other daughter and I were sitting on the couch and she came over to me and she said “my sister calls me demon words.”
I said “she does? So what kind of demon words does she call you?”
And so she was so honest.
And your older daughter heard her say these words out loud.
And do you know that she stopped calling her any of those words?
It was that easy.
Mother: Mhmm.
Dr. Swim: That easy.
You know you don’t shame somebody.
I didn’t tell your daughter not to say those words, she loved her sister and she didn’t want to hurt her self-esteem.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: And she’s a wonderful girl and you’re a wonderful family.
Mother: [laughing softly and sighing out a breath of relief]
Dr. Swim: And your mom’s up in heaven looking out after you guys.
Mother: Yes, yes.
I know that she was so grateful because my mom you know they come from a different background.
She just couldn’t believe it that the horses, simple animals, would help and you guys there.
And she knew we would stay there hours and hours.
She was just so grateful, you know?
Dr. Swim: Yeah [smiling]
Mother: They always prayed, always.
They did the Rosary for Dr. Swim and the horses and the horse ranch [laughing]
Dr. Swim: Oohhh [with affection]
Mother: And you know I will always have a soft heart for you and anytime you need me to do anything really.
If I can help other parents by telling them there is other options.
Dr. Swim: Yes, yes and this is so helpful for us because as I’ve always said when the words come from you…
When the words come from us it sounds like we’re marketing and that’s not the purpose whatsoever.
The purpose is for us to really expand so that we can reach so many more teens.
Emma: It’s a social justice mandate happening out there, it’s criminal.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: Yeah with Emma being from a different country she’s shocked, just shocked.
Mother: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
It’s really easy for kids to get medication on medication for anything really.
Dr. Swim: Yeah, yeah.
So you don’t have to let her know we called.
I don’t like to open up these stories to them very much until a little bit more time goes away, maybe when she graduates.
Mother: She knows that I talk about it and she knows that my whole family we’ve all talked about the miracle of the fact that we found you and the horses that saved us.
Because we were at the point that I was so exhausted I had to quit my job.
I couldn’t work anymore.
It was that bad.
My husband wasn’t sleeping, no one was sleeping you know?
Dr. Swim: Yeah.
Mother: It was just exhausting.
That was it.
I thought that I was going to have a heart attack or something horrible, you know?
Dr. Swim: Yeah.
Mother: Because I couldn’t deal with it, I just couldn’t.
Dr. Swim: Yeah.
Mother: It was just so much.
And it was unpredictable and I had to quit my job and it was hard.
It was the hardest thing I had to do, you know?
Dr. Swim: I heard another mother say the other day that going into her daughter’s room each morning was like her daughter had cancer and she didn’t know if her daughter was going to be alive each morning that she went in.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mother: [sighing] and that was me. I would sleep on the floor or on a mattress just to try to keep her safe, you know?
Dr. Swim: Yeah, yeah.
Mother: Because you didn’t know what was going to happen.
So my nights were long and sometimes I would only get two hours of sleep and then go to work and try to keep her safe and that’s it.
Dr. Swim: And it worked.
Mother: [laughing] Yes, it did.
Dr. Swim: Right?
Mother: Yes, yes.
Dr. Swim: It did work.
Mother: Thank God, it did.
Dr. Swim: And she will continue to flourish, they both will.
Just looking at your other daughter, they are strong women.
Your mom must have started that right?
That legacy.
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: Or your grandmother, I don’t know…
Mother: My mom was very strong willed and she would always say “you don’t have the patience for them.”
Dr. Swim: Emma, do you know what my daughter said the first time that she met her daughter?
Emma: No…
Dr. Swim: Do you remember?
Mother: Yes, she said “oh she reminds me of me.”
Dr. Swim: She could see that strength and stubbornness that was in your daughter that was also in her.
And then I think she brought her something or she wanted to bring her something, remember?
Mother: Yeah I’m not sure, I have such a bad memory Dr. Swim.
Dr. Swim: She was quite taken aback by your daughter it was wonderful.
Mother: Yes I just remember her spending time with her and she was so gentle and loving.
And she didn’t really know her, but I just remember that.
We were there because something happened with Jack, he wasn’t feeling well.
And we went there and my daughter wouldn’t leave the horse and we were just there.
She was just so sweet.
Dr. Swim: She wouldn’t leave him.
Mother: Nope she wouldn’t leave him.
We stayed there I think it was really late.
Dr. Swim: Yes it was getting dark, I said “you guys can leave” and she was like “nope I want to stay here.”
Mother: She wanted to be with the horse.
Dr. Swim: It was great because all the help that I could get was okay with me.
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: So we send you a huge hug and to your whole family.
And I am so sorry for your loss, I do know what you’re going through so if you ever want to call me give me a call.
Mother: Okay.
Dr. Swim: It is the circle of life and everything works out in the end.
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: And if we get a new ranch we will have your daughter come and help us with the horses.
Mother: Yes, definitely.
We will have my other daughter too, we will take you there.
Dr. Swim: You know that she could help work for us when she gets out of school.
Mother: Okay I’ll tell her, she’ll like that.
Dr. Swim: The art therapy because it’s the out of the box therapies that help people.
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: And the art therapy is the same type of thing, it’s a medium.
It’s not like you’re going into a room and you’re just sitting and talking to somebody.
You get to draw, you know?
Mother: Yes.
Dr. Swim: It’s wonderful.
Mother: Yes, I know so hopefully she will do it and she will be fine.
We’ll send Dr. Swim her graduation invitation.
Dr. Swim: Yes, yes, yes!
So was there anything today that I told you that was surprising at all?
Mother: No, no I think it was good I mean that’s what we’ve always talked about it was normal.
I always knew this, it’s just it’s hard sometimes for parents.
You helped me.
I got my Master’s degree because of you.
Dr. Swim: Isn’t that wonderful I’m so happy for you.
Mother: I quit my job and I got a Master’s degree!
Dr. Swim: I know, I know.
No one can ever take that away from you.
Mother: No, no [smiling joyfully]
So in the midst of all of this I was able to do that and achieve more and I think that motivated the girls, especially my daughter.
Dr. Swim: Yes, yes and you were able to stay at home.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: What a gift that is to your girls.
Mother: Yeah, yeah.
And I’m still doing part-time work but this time because the teacher retired and they called me and we’re like “please” and so I said “okay.”
Dr. Swim: Is that the one with the second language or the other one?
Mother: Yes it is, it’s the ESL kids.
I’ve always loved ESL.
That’s just my thing, kids that are learning English and I just want to help them.
I’ve always had a soft, soft, soft heart for them.
Dr. Swim: And it’s wonderful that you can put yourself there and be able to do that.
That’s one of the things at the Institute is that we’re able to have those soft hearts for a lot of our clients, we went through similar things that they went through and we know that their as normal as everybody else.
We just go through hard times in life and it makes us strong.
Mother: Yes, yes it does, it does.
But I will always be thankful to the horse ranch and to you mostly because I know that you didn’t give up.
Everybody else did, but you didn’t.
Dr. Swim: I believed in her.
And you.
And everybody else.
I knew things would be okay, I wasn’t afraid.
Mother: Yeah.
Dr. Swim: Except of your sister with that pamphlet, that probably was the biggest thing that I was afraid of.
Mother: Yes oh my gosh Dr. Swim.
Everybody pushed for that, they were like “no you have to do it, you have to do it.”
And I was like “I don’t feel comfortable doing that” because she had already been in there, I don’t even know how many times she was in and out of that hospital.
Almost ten times I bet.
Dr. Swim: Yep, yep, yep.
Is that your better half?
Mother: No it’s my youngest daughter.
Dr. Swim: Awe, well tell her we say goodbye.
Mother: Okay goodbye and please if ever you need me…
Dr. Swim: We will reach out.
Mother: Always reach out and thank you so much.
Dr: Swim: Thank you bye, bye.
Emma: Bye bye, take care.
Mother: Bye, take care.
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