Anxiety

[unicorn]

Tiff has always been anxious. She worries about everything. She has big seperation anxiety. Today I am at work and she stays with my parents. Usually it is ok. My mother took her to do her craft at Michael's. Then my mother is now gone to do something else and she is with my father. She has made herself sick to her stomach. She called me in tears. 1st reason she was meeting with a new tutor. 2nd he had to take her. 3rd reason now is ice skating lesson. He has never taken her, only the women (go figure) and she was so upset. I just told him to get her dressed and take her. She has always had fun with him and gone everywhere under the sun alone with him. But this slight change in routine of him taking her to the events instead of my mother and him staying home, has thrown her for a loop. She does the same thing when I am working and my parents have something else to do and BF has to watch her.

She worries so much that I think it has a lot to do with her getting up so much during the night. She has always said it is to make sure that I am still there in the house.

[bugsmom]

Uni...this is a tuff one...I know. My Josh suffers from terrible anxiety. He, like your Tiff, has always been an anxious kid, but it didn't really interfer with his life until about a year and a half ago. Without going into a long story, we knew that we had to at least try medication to see if it would help him. This was a VERY hard and upsetting decision to make. It was much harder to come to terms with than deciding to treat his ADHD. His psychiatrist suggested we try Risperdal. Although it is an anti-psychotic, doctors had been treating kids with ADHD/Anxiety/Mood issues with it and she felt it would work well for him. Well, she was right on the money. Although I don't feel this drug is for everyone, it has worked wonders for Josh. He takes the absolute lowest dose, .25mg and in the year that he has been on it we have never had to increase it. I don't know why it works so well but it does. He still has set backs with his anxiety, but it is no where near it was before. His anxiety used to be terrible...now it may stick around for a week or two and then he's back on track. His last set back was about a month and a half ago and he came out of it after about a week. Josh also sees his psycholgist once every two weeks so they can work on ways to deal with these feelings when they come up. Anxiety can be very tricky to diagnosis and treat. I think going the natural route is best. But if the anxiety is hurting her quality of life, then thats when you need to start thinking about treating it. Good luck Uni...I know how hard it is to deal with someone with such fears...It can be very difficult to watch your child struggle in this way. Keep us updated.

[crazyhouse]

Uni I have a couple of nieghbors that suffer from severe anxiety panic disorder. The meds that 2 different people I know are taking them, they are either highly addictive or not very affective. I watch them get all these meds and close them selves up in thier homes like hermits and I don't see them have anything change do to there meds.
My mother has been in to be hypnotised to eat less she is always trying to loose that last 20 lbs She found it worked for her, but I think it was something you had to go in a couple times. You can't build Rome in a day. As for the needles I don't like needles I know they don't go all the way in BUT I'm squeemish and If I had to make that decision I would not have accupuncture. Just because of the risks that are always possible. I hope you find something that helps, I also have problems with depression on occasion and Anxiety problems and it is so hard for people to understand why moving from one situation to the next can be so difficult. When you decide I would like to know what you found keep us updated

[unicorn]

Here is a brief clip from an article. It sums up a lot right here....
She has all of these except #2 quite often.
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All children experience anxiety. Anxiety in children is expected and normal at specific times in development. For example, from approximately age 8 months through the preschool years, healthy youngsters may show intense distress (anxiety) at times of separation from their parents or other persons with whom they are close. Young children may have short-lived fears, (such as fear of the dark, storms, animals, or strangers). Anxious children are often overly tense or uptight. Some may seek a lot of reassurance, and their worries may interfere with activities. Parents should not discount a child’s fears. Because anxious children may also be quiet, compliant and eager to please, their difficulties may be missed. Parents should be alert to the signs of severe anxiety so they can intervene early to prevent complications. There are different types of anxiety in children.

Symptoms of separation anxiety include:

1. constant thoughts and intense fears about the safety of parents and caretakers
2. refusing to go to school
3. frequent stomachaches and other physical complaints
4. extreme worries about sleeping away from home
5. being overly clingy
6. panic or tantrums at times of separation from parents
7. trouble sleeping or nightmare
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[unicorn]

When we went to the psychologist on Thursday she hadn't had a chance to speak to the psychiatrist yet. So for now we are going to keep using talking therapy until we see the other dr. at the end of this week. Some of the behavior modifications did work last week, so we'll see if it continues or not.

[charliegirl]

Thanks for the update. I'm glad some of the behavior mods are helping.

[bugsmom]

Uni...I'm so happy that some of the behavior mods are working. Keep up the good work and keep us updated.

[crazyhouse]

Thats great hang in there

[John]

:-[I personally would not be comfortable doing either acupuncture or hypnosis, for the basic reason that no one seems to know how it works or what causes it to work. I'm to much of a septic . . . I want to know How these things work . . .