When a wild bird gets trapped inside a boy.

A Therapeutic #Children Story on #ADHD and other conditions not specifically labeled.

Conversations under the sky- Between a wild bird and a boy.

CHAPTER 1 THE BIRD

“I was born inside the boy”, the wild bird said to the sky.

“If he only knew it, he would have let me go or made a nest for me to fall asleep in, but he doesn’t know I’m here.” the wild bird added.

“Why don’t you tell him that you are trapped inside him,” the sky said.

“You are the sky, so how on earth would that be possible!” I’m only a wild bird and he is a boy. I can’t speak 'human' and he can’t speak 'bird.'"

The sky noticed – that the wild bird was so strong that the boy became the bird, and the boy was so strong that the bird became the boy.

CHAPTER 2 THE BOY

“I’m confused,” the wild boy said. “One day I’m a boy and the next day I become a wild bird.”

”My sister is confused, my parents are even more confused and my teacher doesn't like wild birds. School puts me in a classroom cage when I want to flap my wings and that makes me feel even wilder and trapped.”

“I wish I could tell the boy’s family and teacher that I am trapped inside the boy,” the wild bird said.

“Why don’t you?” asked the sky.

“I don’t know how to”, said the bird.

“Maybe the boy must train you on how to speak 'human',” the sky said.

That night when the boy was still climbing trees like a wild boy after his parents called him many times to come inside, the sky started to rain. He hated the loud thunder and the eerie feeling of the wet clothes rubbing against his skin. He just hated how his mind started to spin. He hated feeling like nobody understood him and felt so alone, so he spoke out of frustration to the wild bird.

“I hate you! ", the boy said.

"I hate it when I know you're here and I can’t get rid of you. I hate feeling how you creep up under my skin, starting to slowly flap your wings. It tickles me from the inside. I hate it because I know I cannot stop you from becoming wild and shrieking inside me! I just hate how other people judge me for having you inside of me. I’m always getting the blame, but it’s you who needs to be punished for being wild and acting out, not me!"

CHAPTER 3 THE RAIN

For the first time, the wild bird saw how the boy cried with the rain. The wild bird was so extremely delighted that the boy spoke to him that he only managed to utter a single sentence. Although it was just a single sentence it was enough for the boy to notice that the wild bird was acknowledging that he was part of him.

“Then, train me to be YOUR bird”, the wild bird said.

“I will train you!” the boy cried out.

“From now on you are MY wild bird and from now on I will make you, MY warrior. I’ll teach you to fly over oceans. I will make you even stronger than you are now! “

In a moment of doubt, the bird spoke too load to the sky and the boy overheard him.

” I’m a wild bird, he first needs to conquer me before he can train me”, he said.

This made the boy think. He even thought about it that night when his mother read to him his favorite book “ The Knight of the Islands of Neverwas”, at his bedside. And for the first time, he told his mother about the wild bird he had discovered inside himself, and his plan to conquer it.

That night the parents decided to help the boy rather than ignore the bird.

CHAPTER 4 THE SKY

First, I need to learn his ways, he boy decided.

“I need to outwit the bird,’’ the sky heard him saying it repeatedly, whispering it like a personal mantra, chanting in the moment. It irritated the bird and made him hide.

“I’m a wild bird,” the bird said to the sky. “It’s going to take more than words to tame me. The boy needs to act on it and prove to me his worth to be my master.

The sky seemed distant but when it heard the boy’s needs and the bird’s power struggle it was concerned.

“How on earth are they going to figure this out,” the sky said.

No one answered.

In that moment, the sky decided to become the guide. It opened the path with light and insight and closed off the ways of no entry, with shadows and darkness.

For the next few days, the boy waited for the wild bird to come, but the bird kept hidden. Later he changed the words to “I need to outwit you, you stubborn featherless bird!” Instead of getting angry, the wild bird found it funny, and couldn’t help but laughed at the boy.

Deep inside, the boy felt relief.

CHAPTER 5 THE WARRIOR

The boy created a strategy just like the warrior in "The Knight of the Islands of Neverwas" his favorite possible, impossible story. He did everything the same as every day. A strategy to see if something different would appear. The difference would be the bird. So, he waited behind his mask of observation. That was clever of the boy. The warrior learned it from the sky.

His motto was : " What they deny, I defend.- for only those who notice the sun's sameness see the clouds gather."

The wild bird was quiet, and the boy kept the sun inside, shining from himself. From behind the faint shadow at the edge of his vision he started to notice a subtle shift. The boy waited, just to see WHAT would lure the bird out towards his nature of becoming wild again.

He noticed that other people started to miss the bird and were looking for it in him. Some of his classmates were even annoyed with him, and he realized they had been friends with the bird the entire time, not him. Others teased the bird and tried to invoke it, in an attempt to get the boy in trouble, but the boy ignored even the slight feeling of the bird trying to flap its wings. It took a lot of effort, but the boy reminded himself that he was a warrior, and a true warrior embraces hardship. Later, some of the boy’s peers left him alone and he learned to see deeper with the eyes of a warrior. He noticed that there were other children in his grade also dealing with birds of different feathers. One girl had a silent bird, so sweet and subtle that it made her distant and drowned her in a flock of absence. He wished he could tell her, but it wasn’t his place to and he didn’t speak "girl".

The boy started to enjoy some relief, mostly for NOT being in trouble. But the bird was only willing to be mastered by a master who deserved him and had earned his respect through self-control.

CHAPTER 6 THE STORM

One skyless , empty night the boy’s parents became engaged in their usual activities and his sister started to tease him about some hair growing on his chin. When he mentioned it to his parents and they didn’t respond, he suddenly felt overlooked. He even realized with a slight nostalgia, that he missed the attention he always got when everyone noticed him for being out of place. So, he turned to his online games and ate his whole stash of sugary sweets at once. The clouds started to build up. He stayed awake engaging in things that overstimulated him until the early morning hours, in an attempt to dim those unsettling feelings. Although the wild bird was being sneaky trying to hide away from the sunny boy, that morning it couldn’t help himself.

When the boy woke up the wild bird was even more vicious than in the past. It flapped its wings unstoppably, creating the strongest wind ever.

The boy was too exhausted from lack of sleep, that he failed to control the wild bird. The bird made him feel so crummy that he would rather become the bird than be the boy that day.

The wild bird was so rough that it harmed the boy from the inside. The sky felt like crying at seeing this, but it couldn’t make rain that day to stop it, because the wind was unbearably strong. Every wing flap of unknown feelings confused the boy and hurt him even more, and the pain was worsened by everyone else trying extremely hard to control him from the outside.

He heard them saying hurtful things like,

“ I told you it was only a front he put up in the last few days.“ "This child is a disaster!”

“I wonder what happens at home if he acts so undisciplined?”

Even his friends said things like:

“We don’t want to play with you, you are a bully.” Adding harsh words when they walked past him.

It felt like the judgments were like bags full of stones thrown at him! He felt like he was in the middle of a battlefield. They didn’t even see the boy that day, they only saw the wild bird acting out.

His teacher punished him for not being able to complete the tasks set for the boy. His friends were scared of the bird, which led to the boy getting into a fight on the playground at lunch break. That afternoon he felt useless and exhausted when he got back from school. His parents were disappointed, but by grace, the sky pulled a cloud over them so as not to worsen the situation. It made them realize that maybe the boy needed their help to train the bird.

In fact, he was only a boy.

CHAPTER 7 THE STILLNESS

“I just need some time alone” the boy pleaded with his parents. “Please just let me be.” he cried.

The boy went to his room and made a little book from one of his old schoolbooks. He said to himself:

“Don’t forget, I am a warrior of the Islands of Neverwas, a place only I know of. I’m the master of my impossible story. I won’t let the wild bird defeat me!”

He wrote his first strategies down.

1. “Get enough sleep,” he wrote. The wild bird sees tiredness as a weak point and then attacks.

2. ” Eat healthy.” Avoid food that makes me too energetic and spike my energy levels, the wild bird feeds on it.

3. ” Don’t ignore the wild bird, for then he becomes angry and breaks loose and harms me. Rather give him some time and attention when I feel like it and when I feel I can manage him. This way, he will learn who is the master and who is the trainee.

4. Other people will not be able to train my bird. They confuse me with the bird and don’t see me for who I am. I am the master of my own bird, my impossible story. The knight of my islands of Neverwas.

The mother and father spoke to the boy’s sister and explained to her that the boy had a wild bird in him that he needed to train, and he needed their support.

Don’t give the wild bird the attention he is seeking, but when you do see the boy, make him feel bold and important. Don’t feed the wild bird and try to lure him out with negative comments and poke him to get a reaction. Don’t give the bird attention when he seeks it, but rather reward the boy for acting with control.

And as time went by the boy discovered more strategies and wrote them in his book.

5. The wild bird is not my enemy, he is my willpower, my drive my adventure. BUT when I don’t control him he becomes my shame, my punishment, and my weakness.

6. I need to plan, warriors are prepared. The wild bird gets tamed by routine. He loves to act when I’m not prepared.

CHAPTER 8 THE LIGHT

The parents spoke to the teacher and the sky convinced her to listen and learn more. They gave her a different set of spectacles and asked her to put them on when she looked at the boy and many others, dealing with wild birds of different kinds of feathers, inside them.

The spectacles were bright and colorful and made of understanding. Like 3-D glasses enabling her to see the battle they had inside them. Most of them were not even aware of their bird and she had to explain to them. The teacher made her classroom and routine a predictable and happy place. She learned about the many types of birds and that sometimes some kids had more than one to deal with - a big bird with small little chicks and even birds that could change color. She noticed that some kids had uncontrollable, black wild crows. Others had impulsive peacocks, fanning their tail feathers separating them from other ordinary farm chickens. Pecking at anything that caught their eye, gleefully seeking out and devouring all manner of destruction from insects and crumbs. She also started to notice the girl in her class, flying off with her flock of birds to a faraway place of imagination, all while she was teaching.

CHAPTER 9 THE WINGS

Time passed and the boy and the bird started to understand one another in a special way. The boy grew up and discovered later in his life, that if you can train your wild bird it gives you an advantage - a special way. He also learned that if you focus on its uniqueness it becomes a powerful skill.

One day the teacher invited him to come and tell the other warriors in training, still in school, how he became one of the warriors of an impossible story. He told them about his conversations with the sky and the wild bird on his islands of the impossible land of Neverwas -how he transformed then into islands of many possibilities.

He wrote down some strategies he learned when he got older.

7. Never bounce away from who you are, bounce back. Your disadvantage can be your greatest advantage.

8. Silence doesn’t heal. By sharing your story, others can learn from it.

9. Be careful to label your bird, by doing that you position the bird and not yourself and it inhibits you and your bird from growing out of the fixed idea. To label differs form acknowledging.

10. Warriors don’t get admired for the battles they have won, but for the ones that went wrong, and how they handled and learned from them - in many unique different ways, on many different days. On many battlefields, on impossible islands. T

he biggest battles were won ... over time.

“Keep on, just keep on going and become the master of your own impossible story”, the boy said.

The sky smiled. And the bird, settled in.