The Imperfect Community

[Scout]

So, Calvin has been going through another highly-sensitive/anxious stage lately. It's not all the time or anything. He's fine at school, he's fine 90% of the time, but he has trouble at night. The kid has hated night time since birth. Dh says he was the same way and remembers having the same kinds of episodes that Calvin has been having. I just don't really know what to do about it. I have watched dh struggle at times with anxiety and panic attacks, as well as his mother and two sisters, and one of my best friends. I just want him to have tools for dealing with his anxiety so he doesn't get to that point.

It started a couple of weeks ago when we were all sitting on the couch watching "Castaway" on TV. You know, where Tom Hanks is stuck on a deserted island? We started watching after the crash scene, so he didn't see any of that or anything. We try to really keep him from seeing anything violent or scary because it affects him so strongly, and he also is good about not watching things that bother him in that way. Anyway, he really latched on to the whole part about Wilson. Remember how he made a friend out of that volleyball that washed up, and called it Wilson? Ok, so when he lost Wilson on the raft, Calvin got really sad and started crying. Of course, I felt like shit because I didn't think anything of him watching the movie--it's a guy sitting on the freaking sand, KWIM? There's barely even any talking through most of the movie. But I should hve thought about how much Calvin fears and hates the idea of being alone. He's all about the family unit or being with friends. So anyway, I could tell he was kind of confused by his own reaction, and I just snuggled him and told him it was ok to cry, and that when people make movies, sometimes they try to make you feel a certain way, even though you know it's not real. And I said it was good in a way that it made him sad, because that means that he cares about other people's feelings and doesn't like to see someone be sad. So he got ok after that, but then at the end, he said "that was a really sad movie." And we sort of realized that the adult view of it, where the guy realizes that life goes on and you never know what is going to happen or who is going to come into your life, in a good way, was just lost on him. All he saw was that the guy goes home to no family, his girlfriend has married someone else, and he's still alone.

Ok, so a couple of night later, he started acting kind of upset, and when I asked him what was wrong, he burst into tears. He wouldn't tell me why he was sad, but I could tell it was sort of that general night-time malaise he will sometimes get. So he didn't perk up after a while, and I was just trying to snuggle on the couch with him and stuff, but it wasn't helping, and he still couldn't bring himself to say what was wrong. After a while I asked him if he could write it down and he said ok. So this is what he wrote:

"I just keep thinking about how sad it will be when Joshua and Somerset die. It's gonna be so sad."

God, I felt like someone just ripped my heart out. Why is he thinking about this stuff? There have been a couple more times in the past week when he has acted kind of sad, and he especially hates bed time unless he is drop-dead tired. He definitely gets this from dh--he convinces himself that he will not be able to sleep before he ever gets in bed. Last night he was awake for like an hour in the middle of the night, even after he got in my bed, and finally told me he kept thinking about people coming into our house and stuff like that. I reassured him that he doesn't need to worry about that, no one is going to come into our house, daddy and I are there to protect him, etc. I told him when he starts thinking "bad thoughts," as he calls them, I want him to picture a big red stop sign in his mind so he can remember not to let himself keep thinking those thoughts. I've just been trying to teach him that he can control his thoughts, and that when bad or sad ones start for no reason, he needs to make a choice to think about other things. I don't really know what else to do.

[Petulant Pixie]

Oh, wow. He and Alex are a lot alike. I wish I had some great advice for you, but I'm just floundering around with it myself. Alex is 11, and puberty is hitting and man, I can just give you a head's up that the whole hormone thing isn't fun either.

Alex got real wiggy when I was pregnant with Liz. I think they have enough world experience to know that their life is going to change forever after the baby arrives. No matter how much you try to shelter them from your own anxieties about stuff, too, they can feel it when they're sensitive like this, and it wraps up into their own fears. I think, too, that he's so young, he can't really articulate his worries, so it's just that one thing is ending and there's this big unknown coming up, you know?

I don't know what to tell you about it though, other than just be there for him and help him feel safe and loved!

[momtofour]

I have a suggestion that might work for you. Schedule some worry time for Calvin. Tell him that he can worry all he wants during his 15 minutes (or 5 minutes or whatever) but he can't worry during the rest of the day. If he has some worry thoughts, he has to save them for his next worry time.

[ExCareerGal]

He cannot stop it any more than I can. So I am not so sure timing or a stop sign is the way to go. But I can chose to think other thoughts. I am still scared of going to sleep and night. When I was a kid I would make stories or "movies" in my head ( usually with me in the lead) and it would be something happy or exciting. As long as I make good things happen in my head ( like they way I want things to be) then the bad thoughts can be pushed to one side. But the bad thoughts need to be replaced with other things.

JC has this a little- so we start telling happy stories when he has nightmares.

Sorry you are having to go through this but teaching him good coping mechanisms will help him the rest of his life.

Janna

[Scout]

Yeah, I'm definitely not like "Just stop it, snap out of it." I thought visualizing a stop sign might work as a cue for him, or as a specific thing that he can remember to do. But I do also try to get him to start thinking about more positive things. Last night, I tried to get him thinking about our upcoming spring break and all the fun stuff we'll be able to do.

I do think it's just really hard for me to understand, because I'm the opposite of a fearful personality. All I can do is think logially about it, KWIM? And logically, it seems like something you would need to be rational about, and not let yourself "indulge" in irrational thoughts. I know that sounds unsympathetic, and I do understand that it's not always about rational thought. I'm sypathetic, but I can't really understand it.

[Petulant Pixie]

I kind of like the "worry time" idea. I am a worrier. Katie borrowed "Wemberly Worries" (Kevin Henkes) from the library a while back and when I read it to her, I had to stop...the damn book made me cry. The mouse in the book worries about everything and it just reminded me so much of ME when I was little that it made me cry. I told Katie that I was just like that, and I rattled off a list of my childhood irrational worries (and I still remember them!) and she thought it was hilarious. I just don't know if there's really anything that can be done. I try to think of what would have helped me, and I just don't know. There's nothing that can really eliminate all danger or unknown.

[Scout]

Maybe I should check out that book and read it with him and talk about it? He really is just so much like dh. I can honestly say that I cannot remember worrying or feeling afraid of really anything when I was a kid. The big problems with my Dad didn't really start until I was Calvin's age, but even then, I didn't feel worried and scared. I just felt angry and unloved and oppressed, lol.

Dh is still a worrier, but I can say "It's all going to work out. We'll be ok, I promise." And he now will say "Ok, if you believe that then I do to," because I've always been right, we're still here and everything. I guess I just want to tell Calvin "It's ok, everything is going to be fine," and have him believe me. But I know he can't. I know that part of it is that he's old enough now to really understand death as being both inevitable and permanent, and that's what a lot of this is about. And shit, who likes to think about that? I just wish I could make it ok for him.

[Petulant Pixie]

The book is simplistic, but maybe it will help him see that he's not the only one (actually, the mouse in the book makes friends with another mouse just like her in school), and then maybe he can find some humor in her worries and see kind of how irrational they are--then he can maybe see how his own worries are irrational, too.

See, I'm like your dh and my dh is like you. God, give me a little tidbit of real concern to nibble on and I'll chew it to death, playing out the worst case scenarios from every angle (haven't you guys figured that out about me yet???) and he's the one who has to tell me everything will be all right, because so far it has.

I wouldn't ride the carousel horses as a child because I was afraid the pole that held them on the top wouldn't hold. I was afriad of the swings because I was afraid the chains would break if I went to high. I had a panic attack once when approaching the escalator to go down and just stood at the top trembling. I had another panic attack in an elevator. I used to lay awake at night with my hand on my chest so I could feel my heart, and I'd worry that it would stop. I was afraid our car would explode. I can go on and on. My childhood was just a series of narrow escapes, really.

[ExCareerGal]

[Scout]

Janna, I just thought what I had written might have sounded sort of harsh out of context, KWIM?

So last night's bedtime episode was about vampires, of all things. He did not want to tell me what he was upset about, and I had to pretty much drag it out of him. He has had this come up before, where he thinks one of us is a vampire. Last time, it was dh. This time it was Joshua, because Joshua had been in the kitchen that afternoon saying "Blood, blood!" in like a cartoon scary voice. he was just being silly and repeating a cartoon or something. Anyway, after he finally told me, I asked him if he really thought vampires were real, and he kind of shrugged. So I told him there has never been a real vampire, even hundreds of years ago, and that they were always just from made-up stories. I said "You know, you are a lot like your Daddy. he can remember being scared of stuff when he was a kid, even stuff he knew wasn't real." And then I told him that being afraid even when you know there isn't a real reason to be afraid is called anxiety, and that some people just have more anxiety than others and have to learn how to control it. We talked about thinking about other things when he starts to have those thoughts. Then we talked about how being afraid isn't always a bad thing, because sometimes there's a good reason to be scared. Like if you see a bear, you should be scared and get away from it. he thought that was funny so we started thinking of silly situations where it would make sense to be scared, and he started laughing and that helped bring him out of it. We went in the bathroom to brush teeth and stuff, and he said "I think I'm all from dad's side of the family. It seems like I'm just like him and not like you." I said no, that he was like me in some ways, so he wanted to know how. I said "Well, you're smart, you sure don't get that from daddy!" which got a big laugh. And I told him he makes friends easily like I did as a kid, but Dad was more shy. That seemed to make him feel good. SO he seemed better by the time we went to bed. After we read and turned out the light, he asked what he should think about. So I gave him some ideas, and then he seemed to fall asleep fine. But he still came and got in our bed in the middle of the night.

[ExCareerGal]

Sounds like you did great with him. Now the crawling into bed with you all is a well reinforced habit. You may need to use incentives for him to stay in his bed. Maybe a new lovey when he stays in his bed all night. And he loses it when he leaves his bed. That is what works for JC. . . among other things. good luck!

Janna

[Scout]

Well, he's 8, so he's not so into lovies anymore. He actually has a huge bear of mine, like almost as big as him, that sits on his bunk. It was mine--I got it for my first birthday. I hugged and loved and cried on that bear until I was a teenager, and he likes it because it was mine and it's "all filled up with my love" from all the years I had it.

I think a lot of the bed thing right now is that dh has been sleeping on the livingroom floor for four days because he's having a terrible episode of sciatica. So Calvin knows it's just me in there and I guess feels like there's plenty of room for him, and he's just less inhibited about coming in there. I know he knows he's too old to sleep with us, because last week he was telling me that he and his three best friends at school had told each other their "deepest darkest secrets" (lol), and his was that he sometimes sleeps with his parents.

[Sewingsiren]

I have an idea, if you want him to think about something else before he goes to sleep: Our kids all sleep in the same room, and a long time ago we started making up this story about " The magic bunk beds" before they go to sleep. The dd and ds bunk beds fly out the window at night and they have all kinds of adventures in magic places. After my youngest was born , they invented a magic rope to tie the crib to the bunk beds. Now they pretty much make the stories up by themselves. I think it makes the feel safe to have something going on between themselves were they don't have to depend so much on grownups Maybe it will help.

[Anthromomma]

Can you come up with a visualization for him? Something that he can focus on when he can't settle his mind down, you know?

I have chronic insomnia stemming from this same sort of thing. What I do is to picture a giant movie screen, dark, with a tiny white dot in the middle. Then I let the dot 'grow', slowly, until the entire screen is white. It takes a lot of focus to do this, and it's very relaxing.

Does that make any sense? I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well.

[Scout]

Those are good ideas. My boys do sleep in bunk beds, and they like it when I make up stories. It gets tiring for me, though, cause I'm lazy.

I think he has kind of tried visualization without realizing it. The other night he asked me "When you count sheep, are they supposed to be inside or outside?" lol I will work with him some more on these kinds of things, like making up a story or visualizing something in his mind to help him break off the negative thoughts.

ETA: PP, it makes me so sad to think of you as a little girl feeling scared of everything. I think my dh and his sister were both like that pretty much. I just can't even imagine.