Experience From the Trenches, 1017 WYBJ, Vol. 40 No. 5. 14

AuthorAnn M. Rochelle Rochelle Law Office, P.C. Casper, Wyoming

Experience From the Trenches

Vol. 40 No. 5 Pg. 14

Wyoming Bar Journal

October, 2017

Love Deeply; Grow From the Pain; Always Hope; and Do Not Judge

Ann M. Rochelle Rochelle Law Office, P.C. Casper, Wyoming

So here is my SAGE advice from a long-practicing lawyer to younger attorneys: Enjoy your clients. Truly listen to their stories. You will find that they have much more to teach you than you will ever teach them. the stories that my clients shared of love, hope and pain helped me through my own world of hurt.

In 2014, my daughter was hospitalized with what appeared to be a fatal prolonged Q-wave of the heart. After the ER, ICU, heart lab hospitalization, and specialized cardiologist from Children’s Hospital, she was cleared of that diagnosis. She was also being treated for depression. After a while, the doctors began to suspicion that depression was not the real culprit though my daughter’s scratched arms will always show the pain of that year.

My daughter graduated in the top ten percent of her class but her academic performance, choral talents, and gymnastics achievement were masking her deep pain.

After a year of thinking she had depression, an addictionologist finally said the entire 1½ years was explained by addiction to pot. He recommended in-patient treatment. By then, my daughter was pretty much holed-up in the basement. She had used pot for six months when I caught her; we tried counseling for one year but she still used.

In August 2014, I did an intervention and few her to the Meadows in Arizona. She stayed there for 45 days. (Interestingly enough as she finished treatment there, Michael Phelps checked in. I follow his recovery.) After treatment, six months of sober living was recommended (standard recommendation for young adults).

It was pretty powerful watching three counselors in sober living help my daughter confront her abandonment issues. One counselor who was a Native American said that he failed to call his step-dad “Dad” until he did the eulogy at his step-dad/Dad’s funeral and he was not going to let that happen to adopted kids (my daughter was abandoned at a train station in China) and kids of divorce who blamed their adoptive parents/step parents for their pain. At the family therapy session, my daughter had baked me a birthday cake but refused to say she loved me. This counselor confronted my daughter by telling her that he was ashamed for her for not...

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