# Support Thread - Anxiousness / Anxiety in Preteens and Teens



## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

Hi,

On another thread, we realized that it might be useful to have a thread to share tips/support and commiserate about childhood/teen anxiety. I put "anxiousness" in the title, because although my own child suffers from what I would call anxiety, she has not been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. So, whether your child has a diagnosis or not, please feel free to share here!


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

And since I started the thread, I'll tell you our story.

In a nutshell, DD1 has always been somewhat nervous. Every year before school would start, she would develop a new fear. One year it was the fear that our house was going to burn down. She has also long had the habit of chewing holes in her clothes. Fast forward to high school. She has developed stomach problems that we have seen various doctors about, even to the point of an endoscopy. Everything physical has been ruled out. No celiac, no ulcers, etc. In the meantime, her eating has become somewhat disordered (no food until lunchtime, only a little water; during the school year that gets extended until after school except for a small snack - which probably makes the acid production worse). Her stomachaches flare up around stressful times, usually associated with school. Our efforts to get her to develop coping mechanisms haven't really worked so far, so I would be so happy to hear from other parents who have had success with that. My goal is reducing her stress enough so that she can at least eat regularly.


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

Thanks for starting this, Ragana. I truly appreciate it.

My daughter's outward physical symptoms are an intense feeling of needing to urinate, which is understandable given that uncontrolled urination is a fear response. I can understand it would manifest itself as other physical symptoms related to fear. 

Your daughter's stomach issues sound like a viscous cycle (so does my daughter's-- she gets more anxious when it starts!) I know that for myself, not eating becomes a symptom of a more depressed/anxious cycle and that in turn makes me feel worse. I don't get stomachaches, but the feeling of food in my stomach is, well, hard to stomach. And then not feeding it a little bit makes the next meal even worse and onward the cycle goes.

I am still new to this and I am learning more each day about my daughter and myself, so I don't have any great advice for you. Palliative advice would be to find something she can stomach in tiny amounts, which might be hard. Sometimes thinking about making lunch in the morning makes it hard to keep my breakfast down, but I need to make lunch and so I live with the queasiness. I do enjoy, however, my breakfast of plain yogurt and frozen berries. Sugary stuff is especially easy to get down. My favorite is chocolate pudding for feeding body and soul-- and I even mean rubbery ready-made stuff. I love it. Cold and creamy.... Mm! Ideally I would like to not think about lunch until lunch.

What I have been learning, though, is that focusing on these escalating "phantom" (real but self-induced) symptoms seems to make it worse. Once I have medical reasons dismissed for dd's physical sensations, I need to de-emphasize it, because she will become anxious over feeling anxious. Which doesn't stop it either. It is such a vicious cycle and I don't fully have the patience for it, so we are seeking therapy. Focusing on and empathizing with the fear is never a bad place to start. To some extent, we are how we are.


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## Dawn's mom (Jul 2, 2015)

I'm glad this thread is here. 


My daughter is the type that wears her emotions on her sleeve but has a hard time articulating what exactly is bothering her. She typically has some anxiety at the beginning of the school year. I had an 'aha' moment last week when my daughter was reminiscing about how hard it was for her to deal with her great-grandma's death. Ever since then, I realized she has never been the same. She's been cutting, crying in class, unable to concentrate on her work. She saw a psychiatrist (because a psychologist isn't covered under Canada's health plan). She seems a bit better, but I feel I have to be super careful in not overly upsetting her. She picks up on my frustration quickly and when she is down I have to check to make sure she isn't getting any "dark thoughts". She has a journal (because diaries are too girly for her) and she implements other techniques that she's been told by her guidance counsellor to alleviate her stress levels. Some other parents think I'm parenting out of fear and that I should be harder on her. Of course, there is a fear. I can't imagine what I would feel like if my daughter did something serious to herself due to me not being able to control my emotions. And that's the thing. I deal with stress and anxiety all the time, especially at my job. I talk about this with my daughter because she wants to know that I go through stress, too, and she needs to see me keeping it together and see what I do to cope in a healthy way.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

SweetSilver said:


> Thanks for starting this, Ragana. I truly appreciate it.
> 
> Your daughter's stomach issues sound like a viscous cycle (so does my daughter's-- she gets more anxious when it starts!) I know that for myself, not eating becomes a symptom of a more depressed/anxious cycle and that in turn makes me feel worse. I don't get stomachaches, but the feeling of food in my stomach is, well, hard to stomach. And then not feeding it a little bit makes the next meal even worse and onward the cycle goes.


That's it exactly!



> I am still new to this and I am learning more each day about my daughter and myself, so I don't have any great advice for you. Palliative advice would be to find something she can stomach in tiny amounts, which might be hard. Sometimes thinking about making lunch in the morning makes it hard to keep my breakfast down, but I need to make lunch and so I live with the queasiness. I do enjoy, however, my breakfast of plain yogurt and frozen berries. Sugary stuff is especially easy to get down. My favorite is chocolate pudding for feeding body and soul-- and I even mean rubbery ready-made stuff. I love it. Cold and creamy.... Mm! Ideally I would like to not think about lunch until lunch.


It almost sounds like a joke, but a good breakfast for her these days is a few coconut flakes and a very small glass of water. I figure if we start with something like that, we can work up to a piece of toast or something.

Chocolate pudding is a great idea! Will try.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

Dawn's mom said:


> Some other parents think I'm parenting out of fear and that I should be harder on her.


And that is one reason I started this thread! Other people can't understand why my kids need so much downtime, don't do many activities (generally one each, if that), don't go to sleep-away camp, etc. I'm happy with all of that, but the explaining all the time gets tiring. Mostly it's because we're in a tight-knit ethnic community, and "everyone" does those things. Well, not us!

PS I should add that we're also in a fairly wealthy area where kids doing stuff like travel soccer, extra tutoring, etc. after school is the norm. Our "speed" is more like it was when I was a kid.


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## Dawn's mom (Jul 2, 2015)

Ragana said:


> And that is one reason I started this thread! Other people can't understand why my kids need so much downtime, don't do many activities (generally one each, if that), don't go to sleep-away camp, etc. I'm happy with all of that, but the explaining all the time gets tiring. Mostly it's because we're in a tight-knit ethnic community, and "everyone" does those things. Well, not us!
> 
> PS I should add that we're also in a fairly wealthy area where kids doing stuff like travel soccer, extra tutoring, etc. after school is the norm. Our "speed" is more like it was when I was a kid.


Yeah, us too. But not out of choice. We just don't have the money to do expensive things or send her away to camp like every other well-off person in the neighborhood. I get the pressure from my mom, though. "_Why don't you put her in an activity? There are lot's of classes in the leisure guide. You know? Why don't' you put her in camp? That's what I did with you. Why don't you do things with her?"_ grrrrrr. I do plenty with her. Taking every advice my mom has ever given me would send me far into the poor house since it's always buy this, buy that. Spend, spend, spend.

I try to be a good mom and try to make sure she gets to school. She often has stomach aches, throat infections, you name it. It has caused the teachers to become concerned. It has affected her attendance greatly. I was considering homeschooling her, but it can get way too pricey and I just don't have means nor a way to help her. I tried to help her with her French and ended up having to look up nearly every word in the instructions because nothing was in English. We had to leave it. Plus, her psychiatrist said that she could become isolated even more. She has a lot of friends and now that she is on summer break she is much more relaxed. She's going camping this weekend and is hoping to go channeling on the river. She describes it as "just relaxing and letting all your troubles wash away in the water." It sounded so cute when she said it.

Friend drama is what really gets to her, too. She feels pressured to help her friends with their relationships and their issues between one another. Often she complains that she always the one her friends go to for advice and support. She just can't take it. I've been telling her that her friends need to sort things out themselves or go to an adult. She's been doing that now but she still gets stressed over conflicts. 
And then there are the rumors. There's been a nasty rumor going around her school that some other kids were saying about her. Why is it that whenever a girl is home sick, automatically people think she's pregnant? My daughters 13 and has had just one week long boyfriend. But the thing is is that there is a rumor going around that this 13 yr old dude has already slept with girls. All rumors, I'm sure. These rumors have only been brought up but the school can't really do anything about it. Her social media access is limited so we can't really tell, and it would be impossible to find, if these rumors are circulating on the web. I'm sure they are but we don't think about that. She is very worried about starting school again. I don't blame her. We are hoping for a fresh new start. Hopefully, it will be a smoother school year.


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## meowmix (Jul 14, 2005)

Oh.. I'll join in. My son has mild social anxiety.. though yea, he hasn't been diagnosed officially. He just meets the criteria. He also tends to see threat in the most mundane situations. He walked from his homeschool class to meet me at the coffee shop where I was waiting for him. We were downtown but not in a bad area. People in suits walking around. I could see him through the window as he walked up the street. He got into the coffee shop and said "Man, mom, I thought I was going to get jumped and mugged out there!" This is pretty common for him when we walk places.. he thinks he is about to be attacked. It's not overwhelming him, but it definitely is noticeable. 

He also does not like meeting new people. He gets really anxiety ridden. Like hand wringing, agonizing.. he becomes short tempered with everyone for days as he anticipates doing something new. I asked him what he felt was going to happen he said he always says the wrong thing, people think he's stupid, he CAN'T speak up. I pulled him from 7th grade because he was depressed and, though his friend said he was well liked at school and talked to a lot of people, son felt that no one liked him, he was isolated, felt bullied and was depressed. Concerned, I pulled him and homeschooled him. He, by choice, is starting high school this fall. We've talked about his anxiety in meeting new people. He has been in therapy and we've worked with some skills on reducing anxiety. We'll see what happens. 

I'm sure I'll be reading over other people's experiences when I get a chance! My son's anxiety gets to me after a while. I was shy and hated meeting new people, too. I hate seeing him also be so shy and anxious about meeting people.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

meowmix said:


> I pulled him from 7th grade because he was depressed and, though his friend said he was well liked at school and talked to a lot of people, son felt that no one liked him, he was isolated, felt bullied and was depressed. Concerned, I pulled him and homeschooled him. He, by choice, is starting high school this fall.


A friend of mine had this experience with her daughter, and I'm happy to report that she's doing very well in high school. It helps that it's a big school, so if there are people/situations that are hard to handle, it's possible to find others that are a better fit.



meowmix said:


> He has been in therapy and we've worked with some skills on reducing anxiety. We'll see what happens.


If you feel comfortable sharing, I would love to hear about this - what type of therapy, what types of skills? Thinking about this for my DD, since physical stuff has all but been ruled out.



meowmix said:


> I'm sure I'll be reading over other people's experiences when I get a chance! My son's anxiety gets to me after a while. I was shy and hated meeting new people, too. I hate seeing him also be so shy and anxious about meeting people.


Same here. I tend toward nervousness and anxiousness myself, and wouldn't you know it, DD's anxiety is a source of anxiety.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

Dawn's mom said:


> There's been a nasty rumor going around her school that some other kids were saying about her.


Does the school have bullying and social media policies? At our high school, the school would intervene if students are involved, particularly if they are using school computers or anything like that (but even if it's during off-school hours as far as I know). If you find out this is happening, I would ask the school to intervene, especially if it's bullying - repeated aggression with a power imbalance.


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## AuntNi (Feb 26, 2003)

Ragana said:


> Same here. I tend toward nervousness and anxiousness myself, and wouldn't you know it, DD's anxiety is a source of anxiety.


Ugh, same here! I am having my worst anxiety in 20 years, mostly because of my DD's anxiety. (Might be perimenopause, too.) Then my anxiety makes me much less effective at parenting her.

I'm glad this thread exists. I am finding it helps to open up to friends in real life, after keeping it kind of secret for a year. We have had a hard time finding a therapist who's a good fit. The first two used Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which was a terrible fit for DD, and I actually feel like it was harmful to her. We just switched to a counselor who (among other things) uses art therapy, and DD loves her so far. Anxiety is "just" one part of DD's struggles. But I am very proud of the progress she's made in being able to calm her own anxiety.


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## Dawn's mom (Jul 2, 2015)

AuntNi said:


> Ugh, same here! I am having my worst anxiety in 20 years, mostly because of my DD's anxiety. (Might be perimenopause, too.) Then my anxiety makes me much less effective at parenting her.
> 
> I'm glad this thread exists. I am finding it helps to open up to friends in real life, after keeping it kind of secret for a year. We have had a hard time finding a therapist who's a good fit. The first two used Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which was a terrible fit for DD, and I actually feel like it was harmful to her. We just switched to a counselor who (among other things) uses art therapy, and DD loves her so far. Anxiety is "just" one part of DD's struggles. But I am very proud of the progress she's made in being able to calm her own anxiety.


Art therapy sounds like a good idea for my daughter. She LOVES to draw, especially on the computer, where she uses less paper, thank goodness.

It's interesting and refreshing for you guys to talk about your own anxieties. I feel guilty about my own emotional issues. I often feel like I caused my daughters anxieties. I am open about it to her and talk about how I feel sometimes. But she does ask me if I feel the same things she feels. I think it's important and good for parents to be open because it shows our kids that we are human just like them and we are not always perfect in every way. At the same time, I wonder if it's too much information. My anxieties happen mainly at work, so I'm worried that my daughter thinks of work as something to be feared or anxious about. I do tell her that when she starts a career it will be something she enjoys because her family has started a nice education fund since she was born. She will be set so she won't have to work at some low paying job she hates. I have social anxieties. It's hard for me to meet people. When I do find a friend I never stay friends with them long. I just always feel they expect me to conform to their ways and I don't like that. Or they just never have the time to hang out or go anywhere with me. I've spent a majority of my life with one good friend or by myself. I'm used to it. But my daughter is a social butterfly. I wish she could see what I see and that she has more friends a bigger acceptance group than I ever had. Of course she cannot compare herself with how my life was. I do tell her, though. I've told her the times I've been bullied and how that affects me today. I think it's helped shaped how my daughter is today. She is highly against making fun of people. In fact, if I recall, I don't think I've ever heard her make fun of anyone. Even if I make a remark of someone my daughter is quick to correct me. I always tell her she will be a great mother when she's older. 
My daughters anxieties just baffles me. She has so much wisdom. She is like a 60 year old trapped in a 13 year old body. And yet, she is not academically caught up with the rest of her peers. But who is these days and how can it possibly be measured when the curriculum keeps getting harder at lower grades. I've told her we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I think it's unrealistic to expect a child to be great in every subject. I find it ignorant towards their intelligent limitations. 
You know, I had my daughter youngish. I know that doesn't and shouldn't a reason as to what's going on with her, but I do think that there is a reason I have her and I had her at that time. She is just so amazing and spiritually "there" with the world that I think we can pull through this and when we do she will accomplish big things.

Oh, I'm rambling once again.


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

Please ramble, Ragana. I need it. Maybe we all need it.

I, too, think I've transmitted my anxieties to my daughter. However, my anxiety manifests itself as irritation, anger, and so it feels strong and powerful when in fact it is incredibly weak. I have a very leaky vessel for containing reassurances that others offer me, I've discovered.

I can trace much of my daughter's anxiety back to a bad nursing match. I had flat nipples, she had an overbite and very weak muscles. I didn't realize how bad it was until my younger daughter latched on for the first time and --yowza!-- this is what nursing should feel like! Maybe I should have pumped and bottle fed her, but I didn't. Plus, my arms were too short, my breasts too large, and my let down was gargantuan, poor girl. Couple that with a genetic tendency towards nervousness, and today is no surprise. Plus, when I am stressed I want to retreat to the darkest, quietest place and my kids want to follow me and glom on.

Now I'm rambling. 

As a homeschooling family, I can say that I'm glad not to have school to add to our anxieties, which I think it would. It is not free of problems-- are there no 10-12yo girls around??? Sheesh! It can be hard to reassure an anxious kid that it's ok to have strengths and weaknesses when you have this ominous report card. The best I could do (because I do consider schooling sometimes) is to play down the report card as much as possible. But schools cultivate this kind of pressure, and adulthood for school kids is forever looming, though they are ostensibly "being prepared" for the eventuality, as if adulthood is so complicated we need to cloister our kids for 16+ years to prepare for it.

I'm not trashing schools just to vent. I'm really framing this in a way that we can see how anxious kids might view the experience and how difficult our jobs are as parents to balance that pressure with other, perhaps even more important things.

As far as sharing my anxieties, I have to proceed with care. For my daughter, it makes it much worse. Probably the hallmark of this is being anxious about anxiety, and that's what happens with my daughter. (It doesn't happen with me so much, which makes me think my problems are not strictly anxiety.) I sometimes even regret giving my daughter a name for what she is experiencing, because I think she is suddenly focusing on that. But I reassure myself (yes, "reassure") that she is playing around with this new word she has to define her feelings, and it can sometimes tip a little too far in a negative direction. But I think once the newness wears off, she will see it less as one more thing to worry about, because she does worry about the feeling, even before she had the word to define it.

Back to reassurances, because this is important. The characteristic that is most aligned with anxiety for me is the inability for having reassurances actually reassure me with things I am worried about. Reassurances, using logic to help soothe feelings does not work for me. What does work is commiseration from someone who is deep in it themselves and who has managed to function with it-- not conquer it, but function. One of the most useful things was, besides acknowledging and accommodating my needs without judgment, is learning from someone who has "been there" to prioritize my anxieties. Which ones are the most important to focus on improving *right now*. 

It is not perfect because what seems less important to me one day becomes something I cannot ignore the next, and I don't know the mechanism behind that. The fact is, I will never escape this. This is how I will be, basically, for the rest of my life. I need strategies to calm it. My daughter needs strategies to calm herself, to know herself, to be brave enough to ask for what she needs and to seek people that help reinforce her positive qualities rather than the negative.


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## Claudia Chapman (Aug 9, 2012)

Have you tried EFT for de-fusing some of the anxiety? I completed formal training in EFT (levels 1 and 2) and am an EFT coach. I have found it very helpful in reducing stress and anxiety.

Another helpful tool is the health journey recordings from Kaiser Permanente Hospital. They are on line and free.


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## Dawn's mom (Jul 2, 2015)

I just realised that my mom has never really asked to spend any time with her granddaughter in years. She won't even accept to have her over if I need someone to be with her so I can go to work, confident my daughter has company instead of being alone. :irked She's like one of those I-love-my-grandkids-from-a-distance types of grandmas. My ex's parents always have her over and watch her while I work, which is much appreciated, and take her camping and to all sorts of family functions. 
Grr, I can't believe she thinks she is so positive all the time. All I hear her do is complain. It's so bad and has been so for so long that I've even picked up the habit. Well, at least she doesn't drop by often. Actually she only comes over by invitation, now. phew.


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## Dawn's mom (Jul 2, 2015)

Claudia Chapman said:


> Have you tried EFT for de-fusing some of the anxiety? I completed formal training in EFT (levels 1 and 2) and am an EFT coach. I have found it very helpful in reducing stress and anxiety.
> 
> Another helpful tool is the health journey recordings from Kaiser Permanente Hospital. They are on line and free.


I know you're trying to help, but for some people, the issue runs deeper than just listening to something to make it all better. You can't erase an entire childhood ruined from excessive bullying, family dysfunction, abuse and alienation. It's near impossible unless you are able to locate and contact every person who tormented you and got an answer as why they were like that towards you. When you have been to as many schools as I have, I'm sure few people would even remember me. I don't even think I would recognize them. But I did get in touch with a couple of mean girls from junior high. You would think people would mature a bit and forget the drama, or leave it behind. Nope. One girl I knew in junior high was cool with me. I friended her. I was looking through some of her pics and I saw one that was a year book pic taken in grade 6 of some of the more popular girls in class. I saw that one of the mean girls commented. Instead of commenting on what was going in the pic or reminiscing about how much fun THEY had that year, she said "remember the time I put tape in ____'s hair. That was so funny." Really? A grown woman who still thinks being mean is funny? Okay, so that wasn't even the worst of the bullying, but I had to unfriend both of them. I lived through it back and I don't need to live with it now. 
But anyways, I go to sleep listening to rain, waves, sandstorms, wind etc. It only masks the humming drone of the industrial exhaust fans that are on the roof. It doesn't fix what is going on inside my mind or helping my emotional roller coasters. 
That's just me, though.


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## Peony (Nov 27, 2003)

DD1 is 12 and has struggled with anxiety most of her life. She eventually did end up with a generalized anxiety disorder diagnosis. She goes through periods where it is manageable, and by manageable I mean, if life goes 90+% by plan, then we can keep the anxiety in check and she can function. And then there are other periods where it gets bad. I'll be upfront that we eventually put her on Zoloft at age 9 after doing therapy for years and years. I know it is not always looked on fondly, but it has been a game changer for us. 

We are currently having to bump up her dosage a bit after her being on the lowest dose for the last couple years. And she is going through a tough time but even with the incorrect dosage, this bad spell means insomnia and depression rather then me having to physically restrain her because she is having a panic attack and is attempting to flee the house in the middle of the night. 


Summer are difficult because of routine change with her. She does not do well with change. It takes a long time to get her to accept any kind of change. Schools have been hit to miss with her. We've been through many different schools, homeschool, tutors. Right now we have a good fit and will keep her there another two years until high school starts.


Our biggest coping mechanism has actually been to get her really involved in activities. I refer to her as a hamster on a wheel sometimes. As long as the wheel is in motion, life can be good. When the wheel stops, that is when it gets very difficult. She starts to think and overthink everything. And then is when the depression and self destruction starts. DD1 excels at sports and loves them so we allow her to do as many as we can.


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## meowmix (Jul 14, 2005)

Ragana said:


> A friend of mine had this experience with her daughter, and I'm happy to report that she's doing very well in high school. It helps that it's a big school, so if there are people/situations that are hard to handle, it's possible to find others that are a better fit.
> 
> If you feel comfortable sharing, I would love to hear about this - what type of therapy, what types of skills? Thinking about this for my DD, since physical stuff has all but been ruled out.


Thanks for the reassurance!  I found therapy helped my own anxiety. I would tend to own other's problems and then feel guilty and responsible if I couldn't make them feel better. I was in CBT for myself- not for the issue of anxiety for myself but for a tramatic event in our family. But the side effect was helping me with my anxiety.

For my son, I'm not sure what he always talked about with his therapist directly but she also gave him some website resources to review. He would do this one where it was a guided meditation and it seemed to help him a lot. He did it every morning. I'm big on living in the present moment and mindfulness and focusing on breathing. I also would go over with him fears he might have about the situation he was going into. Then we would revist those fears afterwards and see how many were correct (none ever were). We'd also just go over worse case scenario- maybe "I think the worst that would happen would be that no one would talk to me and they wouldn't like me." and I'd say "OK. If that happens we can leave early, or never go back.. etc". I also know that meeting new people wore him out so we'd have a finite amount of time we'd stay somewhere new and I would be forgiving if he decided to come sit with me rather than mingle. As time wore one, he got better at sitting with his peers, even if he was quiet.


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## AuntNi (Feb 26, 2003)

Peony said:


> Our biggest coping mechanism has actually been to get her really involved in activities. I refer to her as a hamster on a wheel sometimes. As long as the wheel is in motion, life can be good. When the wheel stops, that is when it gets very difficult. She starts to think and overthink everything. And then is when the depression and self destruction starts. DD1 excels at sports and loves them so we allow her to do as many as we can.


I hear you! DD's psychiatrist says this is common - downtime gives them time to ruminate. We've had DD in as many arts activities as possible this summer. School is 1.5 weeks away, and her anxiety seems better every day. She also seems excited about planning her autumn activities.

She also told me last night that boyfriend has caused her miserable anxiety all summer. She would never admit it before, and I couldn't pinpoint it, because they started "dating" the day school released. Yesterday she had enough of feeling terrible, and was able to calmly and clearly confront him about the hurtful things he's done. Now DH, DD, and I are all dreading any blowback, but it was a huge step for her to stand up for herself and do something constructive to remove an anxiety trigger. I'm very proud of her!


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## Claudia Chapman (Aug 9, 2012)

Quote: You can't erase an entire childhood ruined from excessive bullying, family dysfunction, abuse and alienation. It's near impossible unless you are able to locate and contact every person who tormented you and got an answer as why they were like that towards you. (End quotation)

Do you believe that we need to get an answer from the people who were mean or abusive to us in order to be healed? 

Is it possible that even though we can't erase childhood abuse that we can still feel better with less anxiety? That the impact can fade away, even though we acknowledge that part of our history?


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## Claudia Chapman (Aug 9, 2012)

The Kaiser Permanente recordings aren't the same as the feel-good, relaxation-with-new age music recordings you might find in the health food store. (Not that there's anything wrong with relaxation music.) They were developed for helping people cope with major illness, anxiety, surgery, and many other challenges. That particular hospital has been doing important research. I was lucky to have found the recordings - the link was shared by a friend whose surgeon there gave them to his patients to help prepare them for open-heart surgery.

They're free. Nothing is lost by giving them a try or giving them to an anxious child to try. They're just one of many tools.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

I keep thinking that my 16yo would benefit from counselling, but it is such a hard sell. She's a high achiever, even when it comes to coping with mental health challenges. Eighteen months ago she was coping with social ostracization and a poor academic fit at her high school and she slipped into anorexia as a way of coping. She diagnosed herself and sought insight and support online, anonymously, and seemed to come to terms with her triggers and body image issues. She's had no body-image or dietary problems for the past year.

But her misophonia has gotten gradually worse, to the point that she's extremely difficult to live with. She lives fairly independently most of the time, but her poor brother, who has been sharing a house with her this summer... oy, he just hides in his room until he's sure she's asleep. And my youngest dd and I will be spending 4 or 5 days a week living with her this coming year, we're dreading it.

But there never seems to come a crisis point where she hits bottom and feels like something has to change. She has a fair bit of insight into the issue, but the overachieving side of her is pretty sure that since she's read everything the internet has to say about the disorder she probably knows more than any counsellor would, and why bother? The thing is, she's probably right about the knowledge base. But the insight? The process of exploring her feelings, of stripping away her various protective layers to find out what's underneath? I think she needs that, but she doesn't see how it could make a practical difference.

This is a kid who at 16 lives mostly on her own in a house 90 minutes from home, is racking up 5's in AP courses, works 20-35 hours a week, takes summer courses for fun, has thousands of dollars of savings, volunteers as a TA in a remedial Grade 9 math classroom, cooks and cleans like a pro, can program a robot, replace a light fixture, play violin concertos and sing soprano solos in Swahili or Creole, hold a needle pose in yoga for two minutes, do back handsprings, and she does it all well and without help... but she can't be in the same room as someone who swallows or sniffs or scratches their nose, even when she's got noise-cancelling headphones on, because she still _knows_ you're swallowing or sniffing or scratching!

How to help such a fiercely independent high achiever accept that help from a counsellor might be a good thing?

Miranda


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

moominmamma said:


> But her misophonia has gotten gradually worse, to the point that she's extremely difficult to live with.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


Unfortunately, I have no advice on getting her to accept therapy, because my kid won't either, although I think finding one with the right approach would be helpful.

It's interesting that you mention misophonia. DD1 has that as well (self-diagnosed from the Internet - the therapist she saw briefly didn't seem to know what it was or take it seriously). Mostly it's manifested in hating the sounds of chewing and crunching. Up to now, we've still insisted on family meals, though. If there are sounds to mask the chewing and crunching, it's better, but she still sometimes loses it over those sounds. Has anything helped your DD besides the noise-canceling headphones?


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Ragana said:


> Has anything helped your DD besides the noise-canceling headphones?


Loudness, happiness and busyness. If her mind is occupied with lively positive things like the boisterous hilarity our family of six can occasionally generate at the dinner table, if she's fully engaged in the wit, teasing and energy of it, she can get through a meal with no trouble at all. But those times are rare, and we can't turn that kind of energy on purposely.

We've definitely relaxed the expectation of family meals. When she's home for the weekend she starts meals with the family, but she'll often retreat to eat at the kitchen island (within visual range, but beyond the auditory range of mouth noises) while we continue at the dining table. Instead we try to use home movie nights or outdoor hikes / paddles to get time altogether as a family.

Her misophonia has got worse since she's been living on her own, I suppose because she doesn't get regular desensitization and is more resentful of intrusions on her customary solitude and silence, and probably because she is feeding her Type A tendencies with a ton of work and responsibility for someone her age.

Miranda


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## AuntNi (Feb 26, 2003)

moominmamma said:


> Her misophonia has got worse since she's been living on her own, I suppose because she doesn't get regular desensitization and is more resentful of intrusions on her customary solitude and silence, and probably because she is feeding her Type A tendencies with a ton of work and responsibility for someone her age.


I have had misophonia since puberty, and so has my DD. I find that desensitization does not work for us, and I've read similar things online. The more I'm exposed to a trigger noise, the more rage I feel. When I'm removed from that particular noise for a while, I'm able to better tolerate it - familiarity *definitely *breeds contempt where my misophonia is concerned.

I agree that a Type A person who likes to control situations is more likely to suffer from misophonia. My DD's is always worse at high-stress, more anxiety-ridden times. We actually don't eat family meals at home, but we do OK in restaurants where there's a lot of background noise. We do post-dinner walks to get the bonding benefits without the misophonia.

One more thing about the anxiety and therapy: I often despair that all the counseling is useless because DD is so stubborn and, like many of you mentioned, thinks she knows it all because she read something on the internet. However, we had a revelation this weekend. She broke up with her boyfriend, and in the course of that conversation, she comforted him with at least six things I know she's learned in therapy. So while she may not yet be able to practice all her skills in the heat of the moment, she is internalizing the messages, and I felt hopeful for the first time all summer.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

AuntNi said:


> I have had misophonia since puberty, and so has my DD. I find that desensitization does not work for us, and I've read similar things online.


Yes, I agree, I've read that too. I kind of mis-labelled it by calling it a desensitization thing: it's not desensitization to trigger-noises, but to _being with people_, and sharing space.

My dd is an extreme introvert, and being around people a lot adds a layer of stress to her life. That stress in turn makes her misophonia worse. When she is living with her family on a day-to-day basis she acclimatizes to sharing space (we're all pretty introverted) and copes okay. But when she is living on her own for long stretches, and then comes home to where she suddenly has to share her living space, it takes a while for her to adjust. And during that period all her anxiety-related symptoms get worse, including the misophonia.

Miranda


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## AuntNi (Feb 26, 2003)

moominmamma said:


> Yes, I agree, I've read that too. I kind of mis-labelled it by calling it a desensitization thing: it's not desensitization to trigger-noises, but to _being with people_, and sharing space.
> 
> My dd is an extreme introvert, and being around people a lot adds a layer of stress to her life. That stress in turn makes her misophonia worse. When she is living with her family on a day-to-day basis she acclimatizes to sharing space (we're all pretty introverted) and copes okay. But when she is living on her own for long stretches, and then comes home to where she suddenly has to share her living space, it takes a while for her to adjust. And during that period all her anxiety-related symptoms get worse, including the misophonia.
> 
> Miranda


Aaaah, I get you. As an introvert myself, I can totally see the stress of going back and forth between solitude and busy family life.

Which makes me think of something else: how much do you mamas try to handle the environment for your anxious kiddos? My DD is completely resistant to trying the structured DBT Therapy. But one thing about I really like about that program is reducing your vulnerability by staying on top of your physical needs: Physical wellness, eating well, taking your medication, avoiding altering drugs, sleep, and exercise. While I can't do her therapy for her, I can do my best to take care of her physical needs.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

AuntNi said:


> Which makes me think of something else: how much do you mamas try to handle the environment for your anxious kiddos? My DD is completely resistant to trying the structured DBT Therapy. But one thing about I really like about that program is reducing your vulnerability by staying on top of your physical needs: Physical wellness, eating well, taking your medication, avoiding altering drugs, sleep, and exercise. While I can't do her therapy for her, I can do my best to take care of her physical needs.


I think this is a great point. We poke and prod a bit :wink: DD rides her bike or goes to the fitness studio with me sometimes. It's a women's studio, and she's very into gender studies/feminism right now, so it's a great fit with the women who attend classes there. Eating is an issue because of her stomach problems. No drugs or alcohol. Sleep - probably she sleeps like a typical teen: not enough sometimes. Also, we don't push activities, because both kids like a lot of downtime at home to read, do art projects, etc. She is in one club at the high school that meets once a week for an hour or two.


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## AuntNi (Feb 26, 2003)

Does anyone have back-to-school updates they would like to share??

We're only on Day 3 of back-to-school, but so far, so good. DD said, "It's better than sitting around the house being sad." I think right now her biggest anxiety is trying to stay connected to her friends who moved to the high school. I wasn't shocked when she lost it and had one last self-injury episode Saturday - I knew the summer-to-school transition wouldn't be easy. These high school friends are so terrible for her - she only likes them because "they understand me." Yes, because they share all her emotional problems, and exacerbate them! I've realized my DD is highly suggestible, but I can't put her in a bubble.

My anxiety and depression are still completely triggered from the summer, and my DH is uneasy, too. Today, my brain is telling me I'm a terrible parent and maybe DD would be better off without me. Before we got to this stage, I would have wondered what in the world was wrong with the parents of any kid who had all my DD's emotional problems.

(To be clear, I recognize it's my anxious brain giving me these error messages. I tell myself every day I'm doing the best I can.)


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## Dawn's mom (Jul 2, 2015)

AuntNi said:


> Does anyone have back-to-school updates they would like to share??
> 
> We're only on Day 3 of back-to-school, but so far, so good. DD said, "It's better than sitting around the house being sad." I think right now her biggest anxiety is trying to stay connected to her friends who moved to the high school. I wasn't shocked when she lost it and had one last self-injury episode Saturday - I knew the summer-to-school transition wouldn't be easy. These high school friends are so terrible for her - she only likes them because "they understand me." Yes, because they share all her emotional problems, and exacerbate them! I've realized my DD is highly suggestible, but I can't put her in a bubble.
> 
> My anxiety and depression are still completely triggered from the summer, and my DH is uneasy, too. Today, my brain is telling me I'm a terrible parent and maybe DD would be better off without me. Before we got to this stage, I would have wondered what in the world was wrong with the parents of any kid who had all my DD's emotional problems.


Mine doesn't start until Sept, but so far she is having a relaxing summer. She camping 2 times with her grandparents and it's been very beneficial to her. I haven't heard anything from a psychiatrist or psychologist. I think she may have dyslexia and that could be contributing to her anxiety with school work. More specifically it could be dyscalculia, which is the type I have. I think she should be tested for that but I know it's not going to make a difference in how teachers and other students perceive her smarts.
Don't blame yourself and don't you ever call yourself a terrible parent. This can happen to anyone. As long as you're doing all that you can to help your kids your not terrible.


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## Peony (Nov 27, 2003)

Mine went back to school today. Huge sigh of relief from me with DD1 going back, she does well with the regular routine. She really likes having the days being similar and knowing what to expect. 



She also has dyslexia as well to the poster who was wondering if her DD has it. It does affect the anxiety around the school work for mine. We have been able to work out agreements with her school and teachers to make it more bearable for her. We aren't at a school where we can have an IEP or 504. 


Her sports start back up next week as well and that will be even better!


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

School doesn't start here for another 3 weeks. Fortunately dd16 is working full-time as well as taking a summer course, so she has a fair bit of structure to her life, which works well for her too. This past week we've been on a family holiday -- she managed to get the time off, which was great -- and she actually coped pretty well living with five others in close quarters, having her routine completely thrown off, meeting tons of extended family, dealing with travel and jet-lag and all that. We had a few misophonia meltdowns, but it wasn't as difficult as I expected. 

Miranda


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

School started here today. DD2 was a bit nervous in the usual sense - not sure where the new classrooms are, managing relationships between friends. DD1 (the one who is very anxious) was actually smiling today, which was great. She's taking some anti-acid med to get over the hump. Hope she can eat OK when she gets home. All in all, a smoother day than I expected! Here's to a good week for everyone!!


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

How is everyone doing now that the school year is in full swing?

We've had some ups and downs, mostly school related. Developing some coping routines seems to help, at least somewhat. That would be taking a shower, making a cup of tea, doing some origami, listening to certain podcasts. One class in particular - history - is causing stress. The teacher is choosing every possible disaster that could be catastrophic for humans and covering that (not history, as far as I can tell!) This really stresses out my DD. She obsesses over disasters and negative news stories - peak oil, bad working conditions at the iPhone factory, natural disasters, you name it. Yesterday I suggested a media fast (to the extent she can since they use Chromebooks for school) so that at least she's not adding more scary inputs and can hopefully be more mindful afterward about what goes in. We'll see if she does it.

Hope everyone is hanging in there!


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

That's so frustrating, Ragana, when it's mostly out of your (her) control like that. It gets my nerves riled up just reading and thinking about it!

My daughter has benefited from counseling, at least as far as having an outlet for her worries and thoughts. We were assigned to a new counselor who specializes in family counseling, since that is truly our need, and my daughter likes her. She "gets to the point" better than the other, though the other was sweet and loving as can be, My younger is eager to start counseling, and it feels good to see that working on something that truly causes family stress (her yelling fits) is something she wants to do on her own.

However, our big big trial is that an empty rental house that is having a hard time selling is costing us $600 every month, soon to be more as we start heating it. So, we went from adding $350 to our rental account every month (not all that would be profit, of course) to spending, a difference of $950. We are looking for renters (I cringe at the thought) but this means we have dropped riding lessons, and worse yet, gymnastics. My girls are heartbroken over the gymnastics.

We have found a new 4-H club, not only with kids they know from fair, many of whom are deep into poultry like they are, but also at the first meeting were four 10-11yo girls. Both my girls are thrilled, the leaders whom we know from fair are active and so friendly and we are incredibly pleased. Now to locate a new girl scout troop, as the other is increasingly tense for us. We have a possibility in a new troop (of girls 4-5th grades) and we are looking forward to meeting the leaders in October.

Of course, I wish I had my own energy to help my girls through all this, but I have issues of my own that sap my energy. So we are taking something of a homeschooling "rest", which is a joke because we are unschoolers, but unschooling parents will know the feeling I m talking about. No matter how integral learning is in our life, I am still conscious of the things they "need to know" and this year I need to let go of that and focus on healing our family and our home. And myself. It's all just overwhelming, and unfortunately I've had to let go of working on my marriage to mentally accommodate it all. I had to let something go. I couldn't heal myself and my girls and still find the energy to be a wife. So, my energy goes to simply trying to be a good person and it is a bit awkward. Awkward, but better in some ways. In some ways, we are closer now than before, and things feel better. My husband is a good person and a good dad and a good friend. We will be seeking counseling, not to heal our marriage but to make this arrangement work. 

Dear god, the number of hours we are dedicating to counseling is colossal. Soon, both dd2 and dh will be getting their own counseling, so that is an hour each for the family every other week, plus all the intake processing. 

I know all that is beyond my preteen, but it all fits together inextricably.


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## oldsmom (Jul 8, 2015)

SERIOUSLY?!?! Ragana, if I found that my kid's teacher was teaching about nature disasters as a "history", I would be asking to see the curriculum, and verifying that it was approved by the school district. Even into my 20's the fear of nature disasters was terrifying to me. How is that educational?


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## oaksie68 (Apr 11, 2008)

moominmamma said:


> I keep thinking that my 16yo would benefit from counselling, but it is such a hard sell. She's a high achiever, even when it comes to coping with mental health challenges.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...


Sigh, I've been reading along with this thread, and it's truly time that I join. In particular, like Miranda, I have a (usually) high achiever who is fierce, but my DD is not always so independent. She is stubborn to a fault.

I don't exactly know where to begin. She's always been a high achiever in school - never breaking a sweat where academics were concerned, but always having social troubles (bullied, showed intensity, found it hard to "read" people). Always curious about very learning EVERYTHING. Was a struggle to keep her academically challenged, starting in at least 1st grade. Moved her to a different school district with multiage classes. Then came 6th grade where there was a set curriculum. She didn't learn much at all that year. It finally became apparent that she needed more. So we tested her IQ, and was told to move her ASAP to a school district at could meet her needs. We did that; it was mostly a success, but MS was still not challenging, so mid-year 7th grade, she moved to 8th grade science, and was already advanced to HS Algebra. So in discussing what to do for her academically the next year, it was determined the best option (or at least the best least bad option?!?) was to skip her to HS, to a specialty HS that she was going to end up at anyway. Academically it was a great fit, and she found a lot of like-minded kids.

Fast forward to spring of her freshman year. At a weekend Girl Scout camping trip, over the course of the weekend, she and her fellow cabin mates/fellow troop members were bullied/harassed by other members of her troop and two of her leaders (who at the very least allowed it to happen). That weekend, along with the natural maturing of teens to begin to have the rose tinted glasses removed as to how the world really works (war, politics, human behavior) really made her mistrust people, particularly adults. Add to this her growing feelings of being not as smart/capable as the students around her - a lot of gifted, high achievers. She began to miss a lot of school (and this is a kid who has always LOVED school), not being able to talk to her teachers, and began to socially isolate herself with her friends (not sure if they really wanted to be her friend). It's what I call a perfect storm of negative events that synergistically grew into one hell of a problem.

I knew it was anxiety/depression, brought on by situational and health related issues. We involved her guidance counselor and her teachers. We helped her eek out the year (although she didn't perform academically as well as usual, she pulled 5 A's and 5 B's for the year, but didn't perform well on her AP Euro exam). One of the other things that helped her get through the school year was attending counseling. It took her a couple of months to agree to it in the first place, and much of the time was taken up by psychological testing (so the psychologist could more quickly give a diagnosis so that an attendance appeal could be requested, and luckily was granted), and helping her deal with her anxiety about making up work/preparing for finals. 

I hoped that after school got out, that the psychologist and my DD could focus on deeper issues. But DD refused to continue counseling. She finally revealed to me a few weeks later, that the reason she wouldn't continue is that she didn't believe that she would continue to have her issues (shut-downs a.k.a. anxiety attacks, behavioral issues, not waking up to go to school, fatigue, etc.) She is 2 months into the school year. Up until this week she missed 1 day the first month (refusal to get up, but claimed her stomach hurt, unsure about what is the reality). 

Fast forward to this past Sunday - we went to the regional college fair. One hour into the fair, she passes out, falls and hits her head on the concrete. An ambulance ride and ER visit later, nothing definitive was diagnosed, although I'm fairly certain it's all tied into the anxiety, which along with her blood sugar irregularities and her low blood pressure, is a symptom of the bigger issue - adrenal issues. After showing determination and going to school the next day, she refused to get up Tuesday to go to school. As so as many of you have discussed doing, I've dealt more gently with her over the last 6 months or so, and have had mostly positive results. But on many of the ways I am trying to help her, she has fought me tooth and nail - very resistant to participating in working out solutions (unwilling to work with her doctor and I, initially resistant to going to counseling, resistant to doing what she needs to do to help her overall health). 

Dealing with this latest bout of acute anxiety/health issues, I am taking a firmer stance. Since she is health wise unable to function at the activity level she has right now, I've told her that she cannot participate in her after school activities. She has cooperated so far, but still hasn't been willing to discuss with me the conditions that need to be met for her to return: she will need to be more cooperative with dealing with her health (actively contribute to and consistently following treatment plan, be mindful of what she eats), and will agree to return to counseling and actually attend. I have also refused to call her in absent for the two missed days, so she now has two unexcused absences. It is pretty hard core, but DD's behavior and actions now mirror what it did last fall - missing about 1 day a month (then it increased to be as high as 1-2 days absent/weekly). I've made it clear that we cannot go through another year like last year.

So far, I've arranged a follow up visit with her doctor (a naturopath) to review her ER visit and her current treatment plan. I truly hope she comes around and will return to counseling.

Sorry about the length. I so identify with what you all are going through. Thanks for reading!


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

Welcome, Becky!


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

oaksie68 said:


> I'm fairly certain it's all tied into the anxiety, which along with her blood sugar irregularities and her low blood pressure, is a symptom of the bigger issue - adrenal issues. After showing determination and going to school the next day, she refused to get up Tuesday to go to school. As so as many of you have discussed doing, I've dealt more gently with her over the last 6 months or so, and have had mostly positive results. But on many of the ways I am trying to help her, she has fought me tooth and nail - very resistant to participating in working out solutions (unwilling to work with her doctor and I, initially resistant to going to counseling, resistant to doing what she needs to do to help her overall health).




Glad you joined.
I hear you on the food issues/resistance to help! After trying a number of different things, DD finally came to me of her own accord with the suggestion of trying a low-acid diet. It's only been a week or so - fingers crossed.


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## oaksie68 (Apr 11, 2008)

SweetSilver said:


> Welcome, Becky!


Thanks for the welcome!



Ragana said:


> Glad you joined.
> I hear you on the food issues/resistance to help! After trying a number of different things, DD finally came to me of her own accord with the suggestion of trying a low-acid diet. It's only been a week or so - fingers crossed.


It helps so much when they are willing to participate in their health, isn't? I hope that it works for her!

In my DD's case, as she can be such a stubborn control freak, the fact that she has food restrictions that she has to be gluten, dairy, egg free, and needs to be low sugar doesn't help - she's gotten pickier about what she'll eat since these restrictions have been in place. Even though she will admit that she is better off them.


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## AuntNi (Feb 26, 2003)

Peony said:


> She really likes having the days being similar and knowing what to expect.


Same here! So glad it's going well.



Ragana said:


> One class in particular - history - is causing stress. The teacher is choosing every possible disaster that could be catastrophic for humans and covering that (not history, as far as I can tell!) This really stresses out my DD.


That is terrible! What grade is your daughter in? I know some kids really enjoy that sensational gore, but not our anxious kiddos!



SweetSilver said:


> Dear god, the number of hours we are dedicating to counseling is colossal.
> I know all that is beyond my preteen, but it all fits together inextricably.


Yes! To both these points! I cannot believe how much time/money we've spent on counseling/psychiatry this year. DD needs to start voice lessons, but I need to hold off until counseling bills are lower. However, I am so happy we've finally found a therapist DD likes, and it seems to be helping.



oaksie68 said:


> She's always been a high achiever in school - never breaking a sweat where academics were concerned, but always having social troubles (bullied, showed intensity, found it hard to "read" people).



I can so relate to everything you wrote. I have come to believe this all goes together. Because DD is "gifted" academically and musically, I've put her in extracurriculars where she's exposed to a lot of high school kids (she's in 8th grade now.) She's still thriving artistically, but it was emotionally disastrous this summer. She was dating a 9th grade boy (until she broke it off last week due to too much sexual pressure,) and hanging out with his crowd. Her anxiety was off the charts, and her emotions have been out of control - she doesn't even know which emotion she is feeling most of the time. Her psychiatrist finally got it through my head this week that, although DD is mature academically, she is immature emotionally. She is too immature to a) know what she is feeling or b) communicate it healthily to her friends/family. These older girls have been terrible influences! They've told my DD to lie to me, so I've missed some really important clues on how to help and protect her.

The good news is that, since DD broke up with the boyfriend, she seems to feel more like herself. She's re-connected with friends in her grade. The sick knot I've had in my stomach for four months has gone away, so I feel better-equipped to be there for her calmly.

I think our goal for the school year will just be working on recognizing emotions, learning to handle them healthily, and working on boundaries. No more dating until she has matured a lot.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

AuntNi said:


> The good news is that, since DD broke up with the boyfriend, she seems to feel more like herself. She's re-connected with friends in her grade. The sick knot I've had in my stomach for four months has gone away, so I feel better-equipped to be there for her calmly.
> 
> I think our goal for the school year will just be working on recognizing emotions, learning to handle them healthily, and working on boundaries. No more dating until she has matured a lot.


That is good news!

I have a clarification re: DD's history class. We attended conferences last night and found out the teacher is not bringing up the scary issues as much as the kids are. So DD was off on that.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Ragana said:


> DD's history class. We attended conferences last night and found out the teacher is not bringing up the scary issues as much as the kids are.


That's so tough, isn't it? As a humanities teacher of a group of adolescents you want to give them a chance to discuss world events as a way of seeing the connection between past and current events. A certain significant proportion of the kids need to process disturbing things by learning as much as they can and discussing it in great detail. And then there are the kids like your dd whose worries are worsened by the very process that helps others. It must be very difficult for a teacher to know whether there's more harm done by cutting off discussion vs. facilitating it.

I have one kid whose method of coping is to burrow her way into the gory details of things, understand the worst of the bad stuff and talk through it, putting it in context, intellectually reaffirming her values and her safety, then moving on. Fortunately when she's at school (part time) she's amongst considerably older kids, and most of her processing-through-discussion is with her older siblings or parents anyway.

Miranda


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

Yes, that's a good point, Miranda! This came up again among some parents because of an assembly the freshmen had - some kids found it very disturbing, while others found it life changing. Go figure!


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## David Wakefield (Nov 2, 2015)

I'm glad to find this. We received good advice as we worked with our teen, who has been diagnosed with OCD. If he lapses into old behaviors, don't get worried that it's a relapse. Just be in the moment and get back on the path.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

Hi, everyone! The holidays can be a stressful time, and we certainly felt some of that - but it's a new year and time for a new start. How is everyone doing?


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## Beth-TX (Jun 11, 2002)

Hello

I am a long time Mothering community member, but have not posted since my kids were really little. I came back because my 14 year old dd is suffering from anxiety and depression and I'm finding myself in need of support.

She was diagnosed with depression about a year and a half ago. It started with an incident at school where she couldn't stop crying and admitted to hurting herself at home. We have since found a therapist for her, who she meets with 2-4 times a month, and a psychiatrist who is managing medication (please do not judge us. we are doing what we think is best for our daughter's health). The depression seemed to be getting a little better for a while,but lately it's been awful.

The anxiety started this summer and got worse once she started high school. We're more than halfway through the school year and she still doesn't feel like she has any friends. There are a few kids she talks to in class, but there is no one she feels a real connection with. She can't work in groups, which leads her to end up doing huge projects on her own. Class presentations are impossible for her. But the worst part is she feels so lonely. She eats lunch alone every day.

She often cries during the school day, sometimes in the bathroom, sometimes in the counselor's office. Yesterday I had to pick her up from school because she couldn't face going back. She stayed home from school today because she's scared she'll have another breakdown. She's missed several days of school this year because of her anxiety and depression. 

The school has been supportive and we are trying to get her 504 accommodations, which I hope will help. We are trying everything we can think of to make life easier for her.

I guess I'm here because I need to know I'm not alone. Sometimes I feel so hopeless, like we will never get past this dark time. My husband is always there for me, but he is going through the same thing. I feel like my emotional breakdowns are a burden to him, another problem for him to worry about. 

Any words of support or hope would be so helpful. 

Thanks.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

Beth-TX, 

So sorry to hear that your daughter and your family are going through this. Sending you positive thoughts and hopes that the doctors will get her medication straightened out and that the school will be able to provide further accommodations. 

My daughter regressed somewhat this school year in the sense that her stomach pain is too much for us to handle without medication (so I definitely hear you on that). I've been giving her the OTC version of what her doctor had her on, but I really need to get her back to the gastro and take another stab at finding a counselor/therapist.

Hang in there!!!


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

We are getting DD a therapist. Wish us luck!


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

Good luck, Ragana!

I love my daughters' counselor. She has brought even my own issues into the fold of therapy, being tangential to everything. She even provided extra support as I'm waiting for a new counselor, as mine unexpectedly resigned in December, knowing how supporting me means supporting my girls. 

Sometimes, my oldest ask what the point of counseling is, or complain that it's not working. Other times, they say how they want to share (whatever happened) with her. We are incredibly lucky, indeed.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

Thank you! I'm feeling very lucky that it looks like insurance will cover therapy. Found a place in-network.


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## mumto1 (Feb 17, 2016)

*I can relate to a lot of the posts*

I guess I was probably a very anxious kid, my mom was always pretty high strung about things possibly not going well, plus there was always worry about money even if we were probably doing OK. A lot of my neighbourhood friends were poor or struggling working class. I didn't like myself much and found it very difficult to relate to anyone around me. I too thought I was pretty unlikeable (after about grade 6?) even though that was not the case I'm sure. My mom would dwell on stuff like people judging us, her, even when it wasn't true and it rubbed off on me. I remember being preoccupied with end of the world scenarios, the teachers didn't always help. At the time I was in school there was a feeling we were going to get hit with an atomic bomb one day (eventually), plus one teacher told us how a meteor was going to wipe us out. I had an actual fear of calling people on the phone that I didn't know. I didn't get a job until the final year of high school and I had virtually no personal spending money. I wasn't so stressed I skipped meals (I don't think?) but I stopped eating lunch because I thought I was fat (I was probably average). I would bomb tests in subjects I was fine in because I would lose my mind with stress. It took me a while to get a grip on things, years. Back then, there wasn't the same impetus to diagnose kids or provide therapy, plus I probably seemed like the good easy kid because I was an honours student who didn't give my parents a lot of trouble. Now I'm dealing with issues with my son. I know he could benefit from talking with other people to get a better perspective on things, but he's very resistant. I never thought about having an anxiety disorder myself (I may not have) and now I am dismayed that my son has strange anxieties too, but some different from mine. I really tried to not load him up with anxieties like my mom did to me but I probably still transmitted some of them even so. We've been dealing with the "fat" thing for years, and he's not fat. He has admitted he eats compulsively, but he's almost 6' tall and still growing. I think some of that may have come from the kids at school. He didn't get my families red hair but he's a pretty distinctive looking kid nonetheless. He's also resistant to learning new stuff, someone at his school thought he might be a perfectionist which is an interesting angle. He's similar to me in that he's out of synch with the bulk of his peers plus his parents are both asocial outsiders so that doesn't help.


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

mumto1 said:


> I remember being preoccupied with end of the world scenarios, the teachers didn't always help. At the time I was in school there was a feeling we were going to get hit with an atomic bomb one day (eventually), plus one teacher told us how a meteor was going to wipe us out.


Did you grow up in the '80s? I think part of the reason Gen X turned out the way it did is that we started seeing nuclear war now only as a probability, but as an_ inevitability_ and the idea of a bomb shelter to survive it became absurd. Of course! We wouldn't survive a nuclear holocaust for more than a few months, and a few years at best for the strongest of us. How could my generation be anything except apathetic, watching the adults ruin our world and our lives before we could ever live it?

I sincerely believed that I wouldn't live to see my 40th birthday.


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## mumto1 (Feb 17, 2016)

*I know it sounds crazy*

but I found it difficult to envision my future. The eventual apocalypse was just one part of it. Yes, I was in high school in the 80's. To this day I have dreams about the end of the world scenarios, I probably should have written science fiction. It's not like I'm a survivalist or I'm thinking about it at all during the day it's just buried in my subconscious. Can you imagine what it must be like to actually be in a war time country? I really can't. My grandma still washed out plastic milk bags for reuse and saved old clothes to turn them into quilts. We would get mittens every year from yarn scraps in the ugliest colours. My dad can't just eat treats, he eats a little and saves it. I think the rationing mentality was just ground into their mental processes. I guess todays generation has a bunch of different fears like the polar ice caps melting and continents flooding, or contamination of food and water supplies, or some super bug, or the aging population above them. Where I live new couples can't afford to buy a home, jobs are insecure, people have to work multiple jobs, benefits are being scaled back, basic university degrees are often useless and you need qualifications for nearly every single thing.


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## IsaFrench (Mar 22, 2008)

am anxious too ... and worried when i see my teens acting anxious ... (= how can i help them to cope with it when i cannot help myself nor find a decent health care professional able to help me cope with my own weird issues ....)
i suppose part of it is "mechanic" (brain chemistry unbalance, possibly passed on by some ancestors etc ..) and part of it is copied behavior ... i can relate about the fears of the 80's ...
also in my case it was made worse by the impact of some family Sunday lunches during which some parents and grand parents went on and on about what happened to them during WW2 ....
another thing that didn't help at all in my case was having to read and discuss a science fiction book when i was in high school, which sort of traumatised me .... i found it far too pessimistic for my taste, besides my not liking SF anyway ... and at thate age i didn't have the tools to work out my upset/feelings then ...
http://allreaders.com/book-review-summary/ashes-ashes-32428
have had the plan to re-read that book for a few years, to try to see if i can now "loose" some of the stress i developped about it ..
actually one of my kids had to read it so we now have a copy of the actual book at home ...
we'll see if i get round to it ...


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## Danesmama (Dec 15, 2001)

I have not had time to read all of the responses, but I wanted to join in! My ds is very anxious and it has been exacerbated because my husband and I are getting a divorce. In time I'll read through the thread, but now I just want to join in because I'd love to hear the discussion and what other people are doing. My ds is a little bit younger than a pre-teen (will be 10 in June), but he is just on the cusp, so I think the advice here will be great!


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

My dd17's sensory processing symptoms are in high gear right now because she is sick with a cough and therefore tired from not sleeping well, and on top of that she is facing a crunch with university decisions. Decision deadlines for admission and scholarship offers from different schools don't align, so she's going to have to take risks and/or put down seat deposits without knowing how the last cards will be dealt.

At least school and social life and all the rest is on an even keel. We just have to wait this out.... 

Miranda


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

I was also a child/teen in the 80s and agree with all of the above comments about that! Add on the fact that my grandparents and parents were WWII refugees (I sympathize with your experience, IsaFrench - my friends thought it was weird that my family discussed escape plans to use if Chicago was hit after 9/11, but to us it was not a weird reaction at all since our grandparents already fled for their lives once). 

Recently I attended a session on stress and anxiety in teens at my DD's high school. The psychologists there said that there is a 50% genetic component with anxiety, so no wonder so many of us have kids with it if we have it in some form. Another point that hit me was that there is a correlation between anxiety in kids/teens and other mental health problems later, so they really encouraged us to get help now if we think there is a problem. That kicked me into gear about getting therapy for my DD! She's not entirely on board and we're on a waiting list, but fingers crossed.


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

Ragana said:


> Another point that hit me was that there is a correlation between anxiety in kids/teens and other mental health problems later, so they really encouraged us to get help now if we think there is a problem. That kicked me into gear about getting therapy for my DD! She's not entirely on board and we're on a waiting list, but fingers crossed.


Exactly why we started. I mean, I was having trouble and that is the main reason, but between family history of anxiety and mental disorders I just couldn't wait. It's best to start when the counselor is still more like a confidant than someone to "fix" you.


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

Welcome, Danesmama!


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## beanma (Jan 6, 2002)

Hi y'all. :wave: Been awhile. We started anxious DD1 on medication and therapy recently. It's too early to tell if it's helping much yet, but she has had so many issues going on this year (just turned 15). 

I think some of her issues were romantic, but she wouldn't admit to it and that seems to have died down now, I hope. I think a lot is she's just wanting more independence, but not going about it in a good way (letting her grades slip and not caring anymore about school). 

I also think she's spending too much time online and we should have been better about monitoring that. I don't think she's gotten into anything "bad" out there, but she started diagnosing herself with all sorts of things, mental illness, etc. I've tried to tell her that I think her main thing is just anxiety, but she's at the stage where she doesn't want to hear what mom has to say. 

She's the kid who freaks out really easily (fire drill, friend doesn't text back, etc), and is a super gentle kid, very creative & artistically inclined. She looks online at all these things and diagnoses herself with some pretty heavy stuff and then feels pretty despondent. It's a bit like someone with headaches and dizziness deciding that they have a brain tumor. I can tell her, "I really don't think you have a brain tumor. I think you've just got a headache and are dizzy," but she's already convinced herself. I talked to her counselor about it, so hoping they can bring it up in her next session and maybe she'll listen to her.

It's so frustrating. She's been an anxious kid her whole life, even as a baby, but the anxiety makes it so she can't look at herself head-on. Took her forever to learn to read because she was too anxious about it. When she did finally sidle up to it in about 3rd grade she found it was easy and she already knew how. 

So she's not able to take a step back and really stop and think, is it likely that this headache is a brain tumor, or is it more likely that it's just a headache and maybe would be better if I ate some fre&^@#&@^#%ing breakfast and got plenty of sleep and regular exercise? Nope. She can't eat in the morning. (No eating disorder thank goodness, but she will get really hungry later and then fill up on junk food.) She'll say she can't exercise either because she's too much of a sloth or something. Lately I've been making her rice krispie treats just so she has something to eat in the morning before school (it's cereal, right)? Hoping the therapist can convince her that this stuff (eating right, getting plenty of sleep, getting some exercise and fresh air and sunshine can really really help keep the anxiety under control). She wants help. She wanted to go to the dr, but I think she's looking for a magic pill to make it all better, and hate to break it to her, but there's some real work and changing habits that needs to happen, too.


Beth-TX sorry to hear about your dd having a tough time. Have you spoken to the dr about whether she's on the best medication for her? She might need to switch to a different one if that one is not working. I remember having a similar tough time in 8th grade when I didn't have a best friend at school and I would go in the library and eat lunch by myself and cry myself to sleep at night. It sucked. The next year I was in a different school with some old friends and that was much better. Any chance of facilitating a friendship outside of school if she's not clicking with anyone at school? Such a hard age.


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## AuntNi (Feb 26, 2003)

Hello all! Glad to hear there have been some improvements, and sorry to hear of the issues that continue. Our spring break begins Friday, and I'm dreading it. For some reason, DD's mood has gone off the rails every spring since about 4th grade. Already have session scheduled with therapist just in case.

However, there is so much to be happy about with my DD. She's singing with an elite group at her arts school, and made some wonderful friends there. She was just cast in a college performance of Into the Woods, which will keep her extremely busy and creatively fulfilled the next few weeks. She's maintained friendships at school this year, and is learning so much about how to get along with her peers. Her 20-year-old friend called her last night while we were in the car to talk about boyfriend troubles , and I was stunned at the wisdom of the (very minimal) advice DD gave her, and humbled by her empathetic listening. So overall, things have been very very good this school year, and any worrying I'm doing is just me borrowing trouble based on the past.



beanma said:


> I think some of her issues were romantic, but she wouldn't admit to it
> 
> I also think she's spending too much time online and we should have been better about monitoring that.


Both these things have been big issues for DD. She and her ex-boyfriend are talking again, and they are obviously still crazy about each other. It hit me that the excited heart fluttering we get from crushes feels physically very much like anxiety. It actually triggers anxiety in a lot of people, and I think it does for DD sometimes.

I despair of how technology is affecting our kids. Instagram is the devil. The comparisons, the joy-killing, the distraction from every uncomfortable feeling, the uncensored sharing of every thought without any introspection, ugh, it really is the devil for my anxious kid.

One thing that has been incredibly helpful for me this year is reading a lot of teen parenting books regarding average teenage development. I've been so focused on helping her mental health that I've not even realized that a lot of the behaviors are just average teenage craziness. And I have improved a lot at helping soothe her over-reactions, rather than fanning the flames and triggering her further.


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## Ragana (Oct 15, 2002)

AuntNi said:


> And I have improved a lot at helping soothe her over-reactions, rather than fanning the flames and triggering her further.


One of our favorite quotes lately is "You're spiralling! Don't spiral!" ((into an anxiety episode or meltdown). Sometimes said with a poke in the side and smile makes her realize she can take a deep breath and change direction.


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

I really liked this article, and read it with my daughter. The cartoon was funny as well. We could both laugh a little. My daughter really embodies "anxiety girl" far more than I do. Though, my anxiety is more socially oriented than hers.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/06/7-simple-steps-to-ease-anxiety-without-a-pill-cyndi-roberts/


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## Beth-TX (Jun 11, 2002)

beanma said:


> Hi y'all. :wave: Been awhile. We started anxious DD1 on medication and therapy recently. It's too early to tell if it's helping much yet, but she has had so many issues going on this year (just turned 15).
> 
> I think some of her issues were romantic, but she wouldn't admit to it and that seems to have died down now, I hope. I think a lot is she's just wanting more independence, but not going about it in a good way (letting her grades slip and not caring anymore about school).
> 
> ...


Thanks so much for the empathy, Beanma. Your DD sounds a lot like mine.

We actually just had some genetic testing done (amazing stuff) and it turns out the medications we've tried (Zoloft and Prozac) just do not work for her. We've switched over to L-Methylfolate (basically a fancy folic acid supplement) which we are hopeful will help. We're told it could take a couple of months to kick in, though.

We're still having trouble at school. She was having such a hard time we took her out for the week before spring break, so she had about 2.5 weeks off, but her return did not go well. She's out again and we're just trying to sort out some way for her to get through the rest of the school year and get credit for her classes, even though she's been out so much. Our state requires at least 75% attendance for course credit, no matter what your grades are, and we are cutting it close already.

She has friends outside school, but she really needs at least one in school that she can make a connection with. I don't see that happening over the next 9 weeks, though.

I really appreciate the words of encouragement. If nothing else, this thread makes me feel less alone.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Resurrecting this thread to see how everyone is doing, and to articulate the issues my youngest daughter is having. 

First a quick update on my middle dd, the one I was writing about previously in this thread. She just turned 18 (!!? :eek) and is now off doing Engineering at college and coping very well, flourishing both socially and academically. All the coping skills that were so hard-won during high school are serving her beautifully and she feels like a pro compared to her fellow university students at managing the stress of an extremely heavy program.

So, youngest dd is 13 and started school last fall for the first time after many years of very loose homeschooling. She had done a little bit of very-part-time schooling over the previous couple of years, but that had been at a small village school with only about 8 students per grade... so the environment was very cozy, creative and individualized. 

Now she's attending full-time at a high school with 800 students which I know isn't big by most standards, but it's a pretty mainstream school, so it's a massive culture shift and lifestyle change for her. Her academic placement seems like a good fit, as she's getting a bit of challenge but still able to excel. The perpetual cycle of assignments, labs, tests and exams is new for her though. The workload is fairly heavy as she's at a fairly advanced level, taking all 11th grade courses right now, including AP Physics 1. 

She also has about 16 hours a week of extra-curricular activities (dance, aerial silks, violin and choir). So she's busy, and for the first time the majority of her waking hours are scheduled and structured. 

A further complication is that attending mainstream school involves living away from home during the week. We have a second residence that she and I live in from Monday to Friday, and we've done our best to make it comfortable and homey. But home is still home, and weekends are the only time we see dh/her dad.

For the past few months she's been having trouble getting to sleep, though we've made some progress with that. But she's also increasingly articulating daytime feelings of anxiety. On her Worry List are things like forgetting a school assignment, not realizing she doesn't understand something she's being tested on, not keeping up on her violin practicing, getting sick and exhausted, not being able to get to sleep, and feeling tired because of all the worrying she's doing. She doesn't have any apparent social stresses. And she's got excellent executive function skills; she would never miss deadlines or forget things. She writes things down and can see on paper that she has it all well in hand, but the anxiety persists. 

My feeling is that given the sudden and immense change in lifestyle and day-to-day expectations, the adjustment has been a little too much for one who, while bright and mature beyond her years, is still very young. I have asked her if she would like to return to homeschooling, or drop some extra-curriculars, or do a blended program of home-based learning and part-time schooling, but she is loving school, the academics, her friends and all her activities and does not want to drop anything. And she is happy when she's busy, in part because she's distracted from her worries. The anxiety looms between and after all the scheduled stuff. But of course, the more scheduled she is, the more there is to stoke the anxiety that leaks out during the in-between times.

She's hopefully going to start seeing a counsellor in the next couple of weeks. She's extremely analytical and self-aware, so I think CBT will be a good fit for her. But the school semester finishes at the end of January and that makes this a really tough time. While she doesn't have test anxiety per se, her Physics and Chem courses are running behind, meaning that there is a huge amount of material, projects, labs and assignments getting crammed in just before exams.

I'm hoping this is just a blip. I really always thought of her, of all my kids, as being the exceptionally resilient, laid-back one who has no end of coping skills. I worry that I made a mistake supporting her in jumping so deeply and suddenly into school at this level and age and under these disjointed living circumstances. It's what she wanted, and still wants, but maybe we should have found a gentler way...

miranda


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## oldsmom (Jul 8, 2015)

Trust your daughter. If she is getting good grades, and performing well, then let her be happy. Yes, she's stressed right now, but it's still new, and that can actually help her learn to develop better coping methods. 

As a Type-A stress puppy, I can relate to your daughter. I worry about forgetting things, worst-case scenarios, and am constantly double checking details. But that landed me in a great career. Still wake up every night at 2am worried, even in my 40's, but that attention to detail and worrying has made me successful. Your daughter may be like me - and just thriving in her anxiety.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

oldsmom said:


> Trust your daughter. If she is getting good grades, and performing well, then let her be happy.


Well, yes, I do afford her a lot of trust: she is entirely in charge of her educational choices, is treated much like an adult and has a pretty unprecedented level of independence for a 13-year-old. Her grades are top-notch and she is über-responsible, well liked by her teachers, friends and coaches. But in emphasizing the fact that she likes school and does not want to change her decision to attend, I probably under-stated how miserable she is during her unscheduled time. I wrote that she's happy when she's busy, but I meant that she's happy _during_ her scheduled classes. She is jittery and tearful many evenings. While she likes school and is distracted from her anxiety when she is there, she would definitely not describe her life as happy right now.

We've spent a lot of time talking about whether she's primarily anxious (with secondary depression) or primarily depressed (with secondary anxiety). We're pretty sure it's the former, but there's no doubt her mood is suffering.

Miranda


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## IsaFrench (Mar 22, 2008)

hello everyone, i haven't dropped by in ages, not much time now 

but will need to come back and read past posts of this thread & it will help me put things into perspective a bit more 

... DD1 is now seeing a child psychiatrist ... seeing her coming back from our doctor with that letter of introduction was a bit hard, i knew it was a good thing for her, and needed, .... last Saturday i went to high school to meet up with some of the teachers ... all in all it was quite encouraging ... so hopefully we are now into better tracks ... the road is just not easy ...


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## SweetSilver (Apr 12, 2011)

We've been seeing slight improvement since the new year. The girls are allowed to stay home alone while I'm at school in the mornings, and I think that has helped. There seems to be less arguing, and a lot less intensity. My anxious eldest is almost 12, and she seems to at least be aware of her tendencies. Since we unschool, there isn't a lot of outside sources of stress, thankfully. What we have around here is more than enough.


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## AuntNi (Feb 26, 2003)

moominmamma said:


> All the coping skills that were so hard-won during high school are serving her beautifully and she feels like a pro compared to her fellow university students at managing the stress of an extremely heavy program.
> 
> The workload is fairly heavy as she's at a fairly advanced level, taking all 11th grade courses right now, including AP Physics 1.
> 
> The anxiety looms between and after all the scheduled stuff. But of course, the more scheduled she is, the more there is to stoke the anxiety that leaks out during the in-between times.


I'm so glad to hear your 18-year-old is doing so well at university, and that all her coping techniques are helping. That's wonderful!

In all the years I've seen your posts on MDC, you've always struck me as an extraordinarily wise mother, so I don't have any advice for you. Just a couple of thoughts/questions about your 13-year-old: 1) Is she planning on early HS graduation? If she's taking such advanced courses at this age, just wondering what are her plans for later HS years? 2) We've found the same issue with my now 14-year-old: does great when she keeps busy, but she can get anxious during downtime. However, I feel that learning to manage downtime (without constantly turning to social media) is key for my DD right now. I'd love for her to fill that time with music and things she loves, rather than getting sucked into the joy-killing and time-sucking phone. She's getting better at it all the time!

Update from our house: starting last summer, DD's mood regulation improved dramatically. More freedom and responsibility over the summer made her so happy. The wider range of friends at the high school and arts school have helped, and she has the same sweet boyfriend. He's pretty laid-back, and very good at helping her step back from the worry spiral.

She's still on Prozac, but taking a break from therapy. She (and I, frankly) was done with the "fake sympathy," as she called it, and she's been doing so well it hasn't felt like an emergency to find a new therapist yet.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

AuntNi said:


> about your 13-year-old: Is she planning on early HS graduation? If she's taking such advanced courses at this age, just wondering what are her plans for later HS years?


Technically she's considered a 10th-grader right now (with subject acceleration to 11th grade in maths and sciences), and is planning to graduate with all the other 10th-graders, likely with some extra credits and some extra spare blocks. It was just the luck of the draw at her semestered high school that she ended up with her accelerated subjects mostly in the first semester. Next semester she gets a couple of 10th-grade level courses.

She has been grade-skipped in the past, and by age she will graduate early, as a 16-year-old, rather than an 18-year-old. She is thinking she might like to do a foreign exchange year, or travel, or work ... I think a gap year of some sort is probably in the cards.

Today was her final exam day (Physics and Chem on the same day) and strangely her anxiety has been much better for the past few days. She doesn't seem to have Test Anxiety. Instead she has Loose-End Anxiety. Once all the bits and pieces were tied up at the end of her courses, she was much calmer. She hardly studied, slept well, seemed her easy-going self, willing to trust that everything would be fine. Interesting.

In another interesting note, dd18 joined the military today! She completed her application to be part of the Canadian naval reserves. She'll likely do basic training this summer. She is very keen on naval engineering, and for whatever reason wants to challenge herself this way as well. For a landlocked mountain girl coming from a long line of pacifists this is quite a departure!

Glad to hear that your dd is doing so well, Nichole! It sounds like she's in a really good place right now. I'm sure that helps _you_ sleep at night too. 

Miranda


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## Piglet68 (Apr 5, 2002)

Hello everyone. I'm an old, old-timer (hi Moominmama!) who has not been around MDC for a long time, but I'm looking for some support for DD14, who I've recently come to realize suffers from severe social anxiety. 

She was unschooled for most of her life, dx Asperger's Syndrome at age 9. She has had separation anxiety since she was a toddler, although I didn't really see it as that until lately. Last year she started attending a learning centre for kids with autism. The transition was a bit tough for the first week or so but she soon settled in and by the end of the year was doing wonderfully socially and academically. She started again this past fall but soon got bored and wanted more, both socially and academically. So over Xmas she decided to start attending a local high school part time. Me, her counsellor, and her...we all thought she was so ready for this. Very small private Waldorf school, fabulous teachers, only about 30 kids in the whole high school. We loved it after touring the place and speaking with the teachers and she was SO excited to start (her first day was in mid January).

But it soon started going downhill really fast. Calling me begging me to pick her up so she wouldn't lose it in front of everyone, dropping one class after another, and then she started to think maybe she couldn't do this and was feeling depressed and like a failure. I knew she had anxiety associated with her Aspergers, but she had been doing so well for so long that I honestly thought that was all behind us. But it has become obvious that she has it really bad, and now of course looking back I can see the signs were there. 

She has a few friends that she made through homeschooling and other stuff. Around her friends she is gregarious, funny as hell, confident, the leader of her group. But when she is in a group of unknown kids her age and/or older she just shuts down.

Anyways, she has a clinical counsellor who is great but getting her to go can be a struggle (sounds like a common theme from what I've read here). She started on Prozac a week ago because the anxiety was getting so bad she was risking clinical depression. I know it takes a while for it to kick in, and in the meantime we have had some good days, a couple great days, and then we have bad days and I worry so much for her. This has been the toughest parenting issue I have ever faced and I'm looking to commiserate with others who are going through similar stuff.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Welcome back, Piglet!

Your post got at something I've been thinking a lot about lately: walking the line between not enough challenge and too much challenge. In bright kids with anxiety that line can be razor-thin. 

Last semester with my 14yo we crossed over the line a bit. The combination of the social and lifestyle shift involved in starting school for the first time and the academic challenge of accelerated courses was just a little too much at times. She felt stressed, had insomnia, felt tearful and jittery a lot of the time. She wasn't all that happy, and it was hard to watch; I wondered whether throwing her into an advanced mainstream high school program without a part-time transitional year had really been the right thing.

But this semester her courses are not quite as advanced, she's much more settled in the routine of school and the social demands, and she's now complaining that there's not enough challenge. There's a fair workload, and her days are full, but she doesn't feel like she's learning much, there's little effort involved in getting perfect or near-perfect grades, and she feels like she's just spinning her wheels a lot of the time.

Arghh. 

Razor-thin, that line.

In your daughter's case, I wonder if the school would be willing to scale back the attendance requirements so that the social challenges are introduced in a more step-wise manner. My eldest kids when they first started school were able to do so in a very part-time manner using a model the school called "independent directed studies" whereby they had assigned coursework but were able to do that work either in a classroom or at home as they saw fit. They were expected to come to school periodically to interface with their supervising teacher over their progress, to write quizzes and tests in a controlled environment, and to participate in specific group-learning projects like labs, workshops and seminars whenever those were scheduled. 

Of course this has the disadvantage of lacking a consistent daily routine, which might be a problem for your daughter, I'm not sure. But for my kids there were two main advantages. First this approach meant that they developed a strong one-on-one connection with their supervising teacher which served as a good scaffolding relationship in the school environment. And secondly, the social and emotional challenges of attending school were presented in smaller doses: smaller in terms of length of time, and smaller in terms of social breadth eg. join this group of three for a biology lab, or partner up with this one girl for a collaborative creative-writing exercise on Tuesday afternoon. 

Obviously whether this is possible would depend entirely on the open-mindedness and motivation of the school. But from what you've written here and elsewhere it sounds like the school is full of "good guys" who really want to meet your daughter's needs.

Just some on-the-fly thoughts!

miranda


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## Piglet68 (Apr 5, 2002)

Thanks, Miranda. I did notice some parallels with your story of your youngest. 

At first my expectation was that she would attend half-days for a week or two and then attend full days 4x/week. But now we are at the point where if she just attends one class a day, I consider that a success! So we have ended up, kind of by accident, doing a much slower pace than I'd hoped. 

However, your advice is still much appreciated, because our "slower pace" has nothing coordinated or intentional about it; instead it has been more defensive. Having a point-person for her would be really helpful, and someone else suggested something similar, with a morning check-in with that person each day to go over what the schedule is, any changes that might throw her off, what will be covered in class that day, what are the expectations re: homework, upcoming tests, etc....

Anyways, mostly it feels good to just know I'm not alone and to talk to other mamas who have experience with this situation. I feel like my mood has become linked to hers: when she is having a good day at school I'm happy as a clam; when she has a bad day and ends up not going (like today; she said she slept horribly last night...the sleep issues that go with this don't help!) I feel so sad and worried.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Maybe you've already done this, but I think it would help to come up with some scaled-back conservative goals over the next while, so that she is able to feel successful. If I were her I'd probably be viewing the anxiety and my difficulty attending full days as ongoing proof that I couldn't handle the expectation I had set myself before starting school. "Here I am, two months in, and despite all the help my mom and teachers are trying to give, I _still_ can't handle full days consistently."

If someone sat down and explained that my Social Anxiety Disorder has thrown a major curve-ball at the previous plan, such that full days are an unrealistic and likely harmful expectation for this term, and suggested a revised goal (say, of consistently attending one class four days a week, no more, by the end of April, and then *possibly* after that there might be a slightly more ambitious goal), I might be able to greet that challenge with optimism and a sense of success. I wouldn't be afraid that if I coped well for a few days, people would immediately start expecting me to transition to something that was much much harder.

Miranda


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## Piglet68 (Apr 5, 2002)

Thanks again, miranda. Although I had scaled back my expectations, I realized I had not put it that way to DD, so I made it clear to her yesterday. 

After thinking about this for a couple more days, I'm wondering if in fact this is too big a step for her. I've started talking with her LC about other options, such as sticking with SD through high school and planning to only attend "real" school part time for as long as it takes for her to finish her Dogwood. 

Part of this is also going to involve me giving up my dreams, for her and me. I really thought she would have a blast at this little school. Not to mention, I liked the place enough to want to become part of the parent community and so I may need to let go of that dream for myself. 

We're meeting with her counsellor again this week and I'll put it to her. If she thinks perhaps this is not going to happen any time soon, we'll create a new plan for DD, one that she is more likely to find success with. Or she may say we should slog it out a bit longer to see if the meds kick in.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Piglet68 said:


> I've started talking with her LC about other options, such as sticking with SD through high school and planning to only attend "real" school part time for as long as it takes for her to finish her Dogwood.


I think it's great to explore the options enough to see that there are lots of them (and there really are lots in our province!). But one thing I've learned from watching my kids spread their wings as they head towards adulthood is that, with all things, when they're truly ready things can change so quickly. I wouldn't actually plan -- even mentally -- any further than 6-12 months ahead.

I thought my eldest (who probably sits lightly on the spectrum despite no formal diagnosis) would be so slow to move into independent social competence. At age 14 she was still not all that comfortable in group environments, and could not deal with sleepovers even at her closest friend's place. And then at 14.5 she spent two weeks on an exchange program in two different cities and around her 15th birthday she went off backpacking through SE Asia for 2.5 months with some adult friends. Eight years later I think my head is still spinning from the suddenness of her transition!

With my ds, the shift was less dramatic, more gradual and it came a bit later overall. But again it took me by surprise to realize one day that he had become far more secure and independent than I had imagined he would be.

Miranda


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## Piglet68 (Apr 5, 2002)

Thank you for the stories of your kids' growing independence. Those are the kinds of success stories I need to hear these days!

You are right about not thinking ahead more than six months or so. And yes, there are many options to consider in the years ahead. At some point in the next month or two we will have to decide where to enroll her for September, but not today. 

I think we have pretty much decided not to send her back to school this term. It has brought her a huge sense of relief, and although it has taken me time to grieve the loss of this idea that she was going to settle into school this term, in the end I feel it's the right choice. And we learned a lot from this experience that will help us moving forward. 

Thanks so much for the support and advice. I really needed it. Feeling better now.


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## Arduinna (May 30, 2002)

Piglet, I'm sorry your daughter is struggling. I'm an old timer here too and remember you. My daughter also has struggled with anxiety and some other things I'd rather not go into online. Getting her into counseling helped and eventually it was recommended to try medication as counseling alone wasn't enough. It made a huge difference and her life completely turned around as a result. Not just the meds but also the therapy. I wish I'd realized how bad it was earlier but it is what it is. 

She's working, driving ( she was afraid to get her license before) and enjoying life and much more comfortable interacting with people now. I wish your daughter the best. It is a process and not an overnight thing. I just focused on the now and let her therapist work with her on the steps needed to move her forward. With mine, it was a fine balance between encouragement and not pushing so hard to cause a set back. The times she didn't follow through I let her own it with her therapist.


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## Piglet68 (Apr 5, 2002)

Thank you, Arduinna. I remember you well, always so wise! <3

Your words are very comforting. We had a counsellor appointment the other day. She has only been on her meds for a couple of weeks so its early days, but I'm hoping they will make a difference as they did for your daughter.

It's funny how stepping back from a situation can provide clarity. Once I'd let go of the idea that she was going to be attending the school anything close to full-time, I could see that she was in way over her head. She didn't have the supports she needed to be successful at this. Now that we've decided to pull her out and look at other options, we're all feeling a bit better. 

I also really appreciated your statement "I wish I'd realized how bad it was earlier..." Because I have been feeling that way myself. I keep asking myself "if we hadn't homeschooled, would we have figured this out?"...but I see stories from other mums in my special needs groups whose kids went to school from day 1, and the results have not been much better, plus the kids had so much added stress from being in school with this that it probably hurt them more than it helped them. My daughter had a childhood that was mostly free of stress because she had the freedom to choose her social situations. 

And finally, our counsellor pointed out that when she does make friends, she has very successful relationships. She has many friends with whom she is completely relaxed and herself with no anxiety at all. Ultimately, it is that ability that will bring her joy and fulfillment in life. So there is hope.


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## Arduinna (May 30, 2002)

I felt exactly the same way. I had a sense of guilt that if I haven't made the decision to HS that it might have been noticed by a professional at the school. I didn't even realize how bad it was until she was in her 20s. Her therapist told me that it's actually very common to not be picked up until they are adults because so much is attributed to being teenagers. 

I admit I'm also very much a consensual parent and part of my HS plan was raising a child that knew who she was and was able to speak her truth. So I didn't push a ton. I also was raised by a mother than didn't give a flip what us kids wanted, we just were expected to do what she wanted with no consideration of our wants or needs. So I wasn't going to do that. If she'd been in school they may have picked up on it sooner but then she also would have had to deal with a bunch of other negatives. She luckily had good friends growing up. Her therapist actually told me it was good she was HS'd.

As far as meds, my biggest concern was the possible serious side effects so she was rx by a separate psychiatrist and she's been monitored closely for possible side effects. It does take a little while, I did notice a difference probably within 6-8 weeks I think.


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