Too much fun

[Andy]

Yep, there is such a thing as too much fun for my difficult child. We had a super busy week of fun activities at school and bowling Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. I am exhausted and crashed for a 2 hour nap this afternoon.

difficult child came to me this evening. He is afraid! He is having problems breathing, he feels weird, he feels like throwing up. He asked his teacher for Motrine at noon since we didn't know what time we would get home (out at noon but I stayed to help move the book fair). I told him he was very tired from this week's activities and he may be getting whatever his dad had yesterday and today (flu like symptoms).

I tend to be nonchalant about things so as not to increase his worries. If I don't appear concerned then it is easier for him to work through it.

At one point, I came out of the bathroom to hear difficult child say to husband, "She acts like she doesn't care about me." I thought he was talking about the puppy but soon figured out he was talking about me. I told him that he needs to get some sleep tonight and he will feel better in the morning. That everyone gets run down and sick from time to time, nothing to be afraid of. He will not die - though he believes he will stop breathing in the middle of the night tonight.

He just came and asked to be put back on the medications. I told him that he needs to implement his coping skills first. He needs a good long night's sleep. I am sure he will be fine tomorrow. Being bored and super tired triggers his anxiety.

Do you ever wonder which is worse, having your child feeling fears of anxiety or having your child act in ways that hurt others? This question went through my mind a lot last year as we were struggling with the extremes of both.

 

[Lothlorien]

Too much fun is too much over-stimulation and when they get over-tired from all that fun, things can quickly spiral out of control for out kids.

Do you ever wonder which is worse, having your child feeling fears of anxiety or having your child act in ways that hurt others?

I don't know which is worse, but the anxiety can cause our kids to act in ways that end up hurting others. When Missy's anxiety is high and things don't go the way she expects them to go, she's nasty and mean.

I hope he's feeling better today.

 

[Kjs]

I thought my son was the only one who acted like that. And the doctors won't do anything. Every ache or pain he thinks he is dying. Can't breathe, feels funny, you name it. And when the ER gave him xanax then he was afraid to take it because it is drugs and drugs might kill him.

I try to ignore it too and he has said the same to me. How do you respond? If you get all worried, then he gets worse. If you ignore it and say he is just fine he thinks you don't care. How can he be afraid of everything? Why would a 14 year old think he was going to die all the time?

Oh please tell me how you handled this. I haven't found a doctor that will even go there. All they say is anxiety and blows him off. It is severe. It interferes with all aspects of his life / OUR life. Everyones life because he freaks out and makes his fears known to everyone.

Geeze...easy child told me on the plane, as they were sitting on the runway, the plane had a humming noise, and difficult child says really loud...."sounds like they are screwing the wings on". Yeah, that helped everyone on the plane feel so much safer.

Do tell. What medication's help?

 

[Andy]

Thank you!

I think the being mean may be worse because as Loth stated, it seems to be caused by anxiety. They are still being afraid but then also adds the striking out.

I have been lucky in that I have been able for the most part to get my difficult child to see that it is anxiety. He understands that because of what he went through with it last year. A very deep undiagnosed anxiety which resulted in a psychiatric hospital stay which lead to coping tools that he himself was willing to implement.

When he is bored, he has recognized his anxiety and knows to start his breathing exercises. He doesn't get overly tired very often like this past week (and once about 1 -2 months ago) so that is when he starts getting really fearful that he is dying. Every time he came to me last night, I pretty much pointed him to his bedroom, "You need rest. Go to bed early. I am positive you will feel better in the morning." I stick to my suggestion - I have learned that changing suggestions before the first one is tried is disaterous because he will push and push and push until I find a suggestion he likes. So, it is, "No, you do this first before we find another answer."

Kjs - we have a psychiatrist who did exactly what difficult child needed him to do. He told difficult child that his anxiety was causing everything AND he allowed us to have the breathing, x-rays, EKG, lab work needed to prove there was nothing going on. The problem now is that was a year ago and difficult child last night asked if things could change in a year. I lied to him - I told him "No"

I don't think difficult child would have conquered this without the psychiatric hospital. He couldn't handle it anymore so we went to the psychiatric hospital in person to ask for the evaluation. difficult child was so noticably upset when we walked through that door (he even threw up in the reception area) that they took us for the evaluation right away.

So, maybe if you tried what we did - when your difficult child is in the midst of an intense episode of anxiety, walk him into the reception area of the nearest child's psychiatric hospital and ask for help (and hope he vomits!), "Can we get an evaluation? My son is very sick and we don't know what to do anymore. Can you offer any suggestions? Can you evaluation him to see if he meets criteria for your services?"

The psychiatric hospital we went to happens to advertise about depression. They end their advertising with, "If you don't get help from us, please get help from somewhere!"

It is a long road out of the deepest anxiety. The longer your difficult child digs himself in, the longer it will take to get out. He has to recognize this as anxiety being a bully and he has to fight back. He has to know that he can make this stop, he does have the power.

Your difficult child's fears are so deep right now that I am not sure where you can start. I would recommend you looking into a stress eraser if you don't have one (www.stresseraser.com). If you can get him to use it on a daily basis it may help? My difficult child was allowed to use it at school when he felt a need for it.

Also, contact a psychiatric hospital on your own to get info.

My difficult child was on Flouxetine which was just right for him but I have picked up that it is not right for all kids. He also had a very low dose of Clonazepam which took the edge off of his fears but also contributed toward his inhibitiveness - he started talking back to teachers and being mean to kids. I kept him on it anyway until after school was over last Spring. It is a short term medication meant to tide you over until your coping skills are in place is how I understand it (I could be wrong but that is how it worked for my difficult child).

My difficult child is back to "normal" this morning. Being bored is easy for him to understand because it happens often enough for him to recognize and stay on top of. Last night he said he didn't feel tired and he does not get tired to this point often enough for him to remember that it is because of being tired. I would hope this will not happen often (he does work on getting enough sleep because his therapist told him he should) so when it does, it is like relearning about being overly tired.

 

[ML]

I'm so glad to hear he's back to normal this morning.

Anxiety creeps into every area of our lives here. I mentioned on another board (AS) that the way I describe one aspect of manster's issues is that he feels he is constantly on stage. That people are judging him and that he can't make one mistake or everyone will laugh. He has fight or flight hormones percolating around in his system 24/7. It's awful.

I absolutely love that your son is learning coping skills. This is by far the best thing you can do right now. At some point, sure, you may have to re-introduce medications but maybe by then he will need much less and can find that balance we're all searching for.