LP is INTENSE. There's no other way to describe it. Even since he was a tiny baby, everything has always been "more". The happy days are pure magic, and the bad days seem to be a thousand times worse than anything other kids feel. We've managed. We're managing. He has good phases, during which we can't believe how marvelous and easy life is and think that we might have gotten through. Then often when we don't expect it we come back to yet another bad phase.
It's not that I want to paint him as a monster. 90% of the time he's wonderful, a great, bright, cute, talkative and perceptive little boy. But the remaining 10% often leaves us on a tailspin, taking on each other, feeling awful and helpless. If you meet him on a good day, you'll of course feel that I'm exaggerating and being dramatic, like I admit I can sometimes be. But invariably, people who have witnessed his bad days and have had to deal with it have the same response: they've never seen a child like that. Who's that intense, that needy, that distressed, that deeply affected by things, that emotionally loud, and that seemingly unable to get himself out of his dark mood and back into reality. Mere mortals saying it is one thing; but professionals (including every single person who's taken care of him at two different daycare centers and the medical personnel who dealt with him when he had surgery -at a children's hospital-) also saying it is another.
I'm telling you this as a bit of context before moving on to the horrible week we've just had. Every year around this time, the local fire department comes to daycare for a fire drill. They know around which dates it will happen but never exactly when. In order to prepare the kids and do some kind of a practice run, the daycare director decided to ring an alarm and make the teachers and kids get out. While last year LP did not react to this, something in that situation triggered a real, complete, primal fear in him. He spent the rest of the day crying, not wanting to eat or play, and even developing a low-grade fever that disappeared as soon as M picked him up (early, after they had called). Thinking that the right thing to do was to defuse the situation and prepare him for the "real" drill, I gently talked to him about the fact that it would happen again soon, with the firemen coming, trying to emphasize that it was no big deal.
Apparently this was NOT a good idea. This somehow sent him the message that daycare was not a safe place for him, and that this kind of terrifying situation could happen again at any moment. The firemen did not come over for the rest of the week, but LP kept on getting worse, to the point of not really functioning: crying all the time, having hysterical fits when we left him, barely eating, sobbing during his sleep, waking up constantly... As you may imagine, this sent the whole family into despair, as we couldn't think about anything else while at work (or outside of it, for that matter), and simply didn't know what to do. Trying to get him to talk about it, hugging him close and reassuring him, showing him pictures of last year's firemen visit didn't seem to help at all.
The three-day weekend was just what we needed I guess, to find ourselves again as a family, spend quality and close time together and take ourselves out of this crisis. LP went back to his own self, laughing, being silly and energetic, which made us immensely relieved. But unfortunately it's pretty clear that his anxiety has been transposed to daycare in general, instead of just the specific firedrill situation. This is hopefully, most likely temporary, but it breaks my heart nonetheless. Except for a few specific situations, he's always loved going there, and it's a terrific place we have put our entire trust in, so him dreading to go there and always having (really) bad days is not something I think I am cut out for.
The most difficult thing for both M and I has been to realize that his intensity and bouts of anxiety (which are somehow related) may not entirely belong to the realm of "normal" (whatever that means). We just so wish he simply wasn't that complex already, that he'd just be a easy-going, worry-free kid who didn't feel things quite so deeply! This crisis has shook us and we have felt hopeless enough times already to admit that we might need help. M did a bit of research and found a couple of interesting books on the topic, which I'm looking forward to receiving.
Additionally, we are also going to start seeing a therapist this week, one who has experience with this kind of thing. Just talking to him on the phone made me feel better already, and took me out of the black funk I had been into for the past few days. He says he can help us find strategies to deal with him, ways of understanding him (which I don't think will be that hard, see the title of this post), and to give him boundaries while also respecting his personality (his firedrill distress may be completely out of proportion, but to him, it's still painfully real and traumatizing). We would do anything to help him, try and find ways to make him feel safe, as well as "toughen" him up just the tiniest bit...
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Unfortunately, the apple didn't fall far from the tree
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8 comment(s):
This may sound exceedingly simple and won't help the overall anxiety problem, but have to told LP that there will not actually be a fire when the firemen come?
At some point when I was 4, I started crying hysterically before going to school and my mom couldn't figure out what was wrong. It turned out that we had been told that the firemen were going to be coming to the school. In my head firemen coming meant there was going to be a fire, so I was under the impression that the school was going to burn down.
Hope that all goes well at your appointment this week & you can ease his fears about day care.
Thanks for your comment... Yes, we did tell him this (cute childhood story, by the way), but it didn't change much. One of the good things about him is he is so verbal and capable of expressing himself -even complex feelings, that it's easy to pinpoint what made him tick. He's always loved firemen, firetrucks, etc., and still does.
What he didn't like was the element of surprise and somewhat nervous atmosphere he could sense well, the sound of the alarm (he's always been sensitive to certain loud, sudden, unpleasant sounds), and taking the emergency staircase (even though it's really no big deal).
That's so awful. I'm sorry you and he are having such a difficult time with the firedrills.
I have no sage advice here. All I can say is that as an anxious child, my mom always made me feel better by explaining things (always thoroughly, for whatever my age could handle) and giving hugs. It didn't always calm me completely, but it made me feel better, and my mom made me feel safe.
Marie-Eve-
When I was a child, I was - and to be quite honest, still am - very similar to that personality you describe LP. My imagination and sensitivity often made me see the world as a magically wonderful place on a good day and something terribly frightful on a bad day.
As an adult, I've encountered a few things that have really been able to help me. One of them being a book by author Elaine Aron, "The Highly Sensitive Person". For parents, she has a similar book entitled "The Highly Sensitive Child". It has helped me change my life and understand how to deal with my sensitivity in a world often overwhelming + anxiety ridden. And more than anything, realize that those of us who are very sensitive don't have anything wrong with us, we're just a bit different from the rest of the world.
Here is Elaine's website: www.hsperson.com
Hope this can be of some help.
Thank you Rocio... I have both books already, I'm very much a HSP myself (I just haven't come out of the closet about it yet), and it was very clear from the beginning that LP was, as well...
I do recognize a lot of myself in him, I had insomnia since I was about 7 for instance, during which I would endlessly worry about my family and tried to come up with plans so we could all be safe if a disaster came or something... It seems so silly now, but that's the kind of child I was. One time a random comment made by a boy in my class left me to seriously and constantly worry for about 2 or 3 YEARS. I wish I was kidding.
My husband was also like that and in fact this is kinda something that runs in both families, so, you know, dogs don't give birth to cats (or it is the other way around?)
The only thing that worries us is that it didn't come *that* strongly or at such an early age in neither of us. But having read the books definitely helped me and I feel I am better suited to understand him (compared to my poor mother, who loved me very much and did the best she could, but my, she REALLY ISN'T a HSP, and so oftentimes she just didn't know how to deal with me AT ALL...)
I totally understand all that you have gone through, and continue to go through. I too latched on to the most -according to the majority of world- seemingly harmless statements and actions. To top it off, my mother, a very dear,good human being, has always done the best she can but frequently says to me up to this day, "What am I supposed to do with you?"
If it is of any help to you, I too, like LP, had such issues at so early an age. I remember with such distinction 'nap-time', where all the other children around me were sound asleep, and I laid on my cot, shaking. My mother, who didn't know what else to do at the time, stopped going to work and stood with me at home for a whole year because the day care situation made me physically ill.
I hope all goes well this week. Remember, though it may be difficult, the steps you are taking are totally commendable. I am greatly optimistic much good will come from it all!
Rocio
Sorry you've been having such a hard time, love. I can only imagine what this must feel like, having been that kid (or at least the kid you were, worrying, always worrying) and now wondering whether I will have passed it on. (Nate is definitely not HSP, so who knows?)
Big hugs to you, and best of luck with the therapist, he sounds great.
Oh poor LP! I have never been high strung like that, but my sister is. Not exactly in the same way as LP, but she was always a timid person. We have a lot of pictures of her flinching as a child because she was afraid of the flash. She got picked on in school and had a very emotionally stormy adolescence. I am 12 years younger than her, so it was very hard for me learn how to understand her. For many years I just didn't get it. Just hearing car alarms going off in the street unnerves her, she even covers up the digital clock because the light bothers her at night.
Michael is intense in a different way. He's just very high energy, not very cuddly and often not comfortable with strangers. When he's happy, he's really happy. When he is angry he is very angry! When he wants something it can be very hard to redirect him. His voice is generally on high volume. But he seems to be getting a little better as he gets older.
I'm glad you are working with LP now, because I'm sure it's better to tackle things early. I think he has a great mind and maybe he understands things more than he can emotionally handle at this age.
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