There’s a story behind it that’s not casual, so I’ll kinda shorthand it.
But, I had a patient years and years ago that started out in a really bad state. It took months of working with her to make any progress for a ton of reasons.
But she was the very first person to call me their teddy bear.
Which wasn’t really the nice part, it was the follow up.
I laughed it off and said I am/was pretty hairy.
And she said that it wasn’t that, it was that she always felt safe and loved when I hugged her.
It was a pretty damn big deal to hear that. Again, for a ton of reasons that aren’t casual, I needed to hear something like that at the time.
There’s a story behind it that’s not casual, so I’ll kinda shorthand it.
But, I had a patient years and years ago that started out in a really bad state. It took months of working with her to make any progress for a ton of reasons.
But she was the very first person to call me their teddy bear.
Which wasn’t really the nice part, it was the follow up.
I laughed it off and said I am/was pretty hairy.
And she said that it wasn’t that, it was that she always felt safe and loved when I hugged her.
It was a pretty damn big deal to hear that. Again, for a ton of reasons that aren’t casual, I needed to hear something like that at the time.
There’s no better feedback than a patient you’ve made a difference to. If you only do one thing in life, you’ve done that