“I feel very grateful to Stars.“
Poppy
Poppy had not spoken to anyone about the loss of her grandparents, or the traumatic memories she had about her Nanny’s ill health, alcoholism and eventual death. Poppy feared that if she continued to bottle up her emotions, she would not be able to escape her depression.
Following a referral from her Young People’s Worker, Poppy received 12 counselling sessions from Stars over a 4-month period.
Poppy created a ‘grief journal’ using creative techniques such as collages, stickers, writing, drawing and pictures of her grandparents. She used colour and textures to represent the different stages of her journey with grief, including her thoughts, feelings and memories.
Stars’ use of creative art therapy helped Poppy to express and process her complex feelings relating to her grandparents, and was able to explore difficult memories that arose from her Nanny’s alcoholism, as well as revisiting happy childhood memories from when her grandparents were both well.
After creating ‘memory candles’ for her grandparents, Poppy wrote them letters in which she could say goodbye to them and express emotions that had been left unspoken. Poppy will light her candles on special anniversaries to help her achieve a sense of closure so that she can look forward to the future.
Poppy’s family moved several hundred miles away during her counselling. Rather than taking part in online support sessions, Poppy felt the creative therapies offered by Stars had helped her so much that she continued to travel to spend time with her counsellor.
Poppy’s counsellor helped her consider ways to make friends in her new town and look after her wellbeing moving forward. She aims to enrol in a college in her new town and join craft classes, feeling confident in the creative techniques she had learned to cope with her grief moving forward.
“The most helpful thing was being able to talk through both deaths and having it not feel like something I cannot talk about, or being hidden in the back of my brain.
“I liked being able to take something physical away from the sessions as well as talking things through.
“I feel very grateful to Stars. My counsellor was extremely flexible and I really felt listened to in every session.”
