When a topic shows up in my world through more than one avenue, my internal radar goes off. Perhaps this is a lesson I’m supposed to be learning now. The idea of naming (labeling) someone and how that affects them came up three times yesterday.

This is the tangent that occurred to me as I was reading the article about Developmental Trauma Disorder and Dr. van der Kolk’s efforts to include this as a new diagnosis in the DSM.

Dr. van der Kolk says in this article:

“What you call someone has large implications for how you treat someone, even though you may be describing the same phenomenology [using different terms].”

Earlier that day, I was reading this very helpful book, Building a Joyful Life With Your Child Who Has Special Needs (more on the book later, when I finish). But the chapter I was in yesterday was talking about looking past the child’s label and being aware of what you were “naming” the child in your mind. Of being able to see more about your child than his/her disability, and by calling forth those other names for your child, causing you to treat her/him differently.

As if this wasn’t coincidence enough, I crawled into bed early (sinus infection is wearing me down) and flipped on the TV. There was a local pastor of a large church preaching a sermon on “being called by a new name”. He talked about how God renames you…calls you by a name you may not live up to at the moment…but will grow into. He cited Old Testament examples of changing Abram to Abraham. And New Testament examples of changing Simon to Peter (the rock), when Peter was acting like anything but a rock, at first…and of course the changing of Saul to Paul. The renaming is a conversion from the old life to the new…

He gave an example of a major league baseball coach that called a very hesitant, but talented pitcher “Bulldog”. The young man was anything but a bulldog at the beginning of his career…yet, he became one of baseball’s greatest, most tenacious pitchers…Orel Hershiser.

That gave me lots of food for thought. What is it I’m calling LuLu? How do I name and label her each day? Do I ever see past her disability to the child she is or could be? Do I call her that so she, too, will embrace it?

I’m ashamed to say that I do not do this very often. It is difficult for me to list the traits I like about my child when asked to do that on evaluation profiles. It’s not because I don’t love her…not at all. It’s just that the disabilities are SO BIG that I haven’t been able to shrink them and look around them to see what else is there. “What you call someone has large implications for how you treat them…”
Earlier this week we were out for a walk. The weather is very spring-like here and I’m trying to keep my Lenten commitment of walking each day. LuLu started to complain, whine and run herself down as she often does. All at once without much forethought, I blurted out, “I don’t know why you keep acting like you’re still an orphan and still trapped in all that horrible stuff from the past. Don’t you see you are a survivor?”

The name “survivor” hit her squarely in the face. Her eyes flashed and you could see the wheels turning. I kept going. “You lived through that orphanage experience. To keep seeing yourself as weak and helpless is so not who you are.”

I didn’t think much about this conversation, until I got the “naming” message three times yesterday…but after reflecting on it, I realize that LuLu has called herself a “survivor” every day since our conversation. She has latched on to that name and is receiving strength from it.

It saddens me to realize I have not “named” her with positive names, encouraging names, nearly as much as I should. And maybe that was the point of the lesson about naming I was supposed to learn this week.

Or maybe there was more in it for me…about naming me…

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