I am the killer

By the psychological counsellor Rana Al-Nahhal. "I am the killer, the killer is me": a cry the child "W." let out when I asked him who he was. The story goes back to past events the child "W." went through a few weeks before starting the first grade. This child was known for his intelligence and good looks, and his mother used to say of him that he would grow up like his father, clever and handsome. This testimony and others did not spare him from forgetting what happened to him in the days of last summer. He loved his younger brother greatly and loved his parents likewise, and this love did not prevent separation in this family, since the father works as an officer and most of his time is outside the house, and the mother goes out shopping sometimes and they leave the two little ones at home. On one of the scorching summer days the father came home, and here the calamity occurred and the father found what could not be undone. The father and mother regretted it greatly and wished the hands of the clock would go back so that they could change what had happened, but what happened will never change. The father and mother tried again and again to convince him that it was not he but they who were the cause, but he rejected their view and looked at them with eyes that said: you are the cause, I am small and I do not know, you are the mistake. The father wandered the earth right and left to find a solution for the child of his heart, and at last he ended up at the premises of the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, where the psychological counsellor met him and he recounted to her the details of the story in his son's words. "One day I left the two little ones at home and my wife went out shopping at the same time, and unluckily for me I left the pistol unsecured. And unluckily for me too, the children and I were used to watching television series, particularly the series Nassar. When their mother and I went out I left the pistol in the house. It is known that my child 'W.' is clever and mischievous, and he took the pistol from the cupboard and fired at his brother while he was asleep. The strange thing about it is that my child 'W.' sat there in the far corner, calm and still, and did not scream or cry. I tried to convince my child 'W.' that the shot came from the Jews from the tiled roof, but to this day he says: I am the killer." The father brought his child to the Centre's premises and the psychological counsellor sat with him and found that the child suffers from several symptoms, namely: excessive irritability in any situation; repeated disturbing dreams; fears to the point of clinging to his mother and father wherever they go; daydreaming most of the time; distraction; a decline in his level of academic attainment; an unwillingness to go to school; constant headaches and stomach pains; and constantly going to the cemetery to visit his brother. During the work with the child "W." through the counselling sessions, the child began going out into the street on his own and came to love school, and his average rose noticeably, and the child also became well adjusted within his family.