Pediatric Anxiety

I've been seeing a therapist since I was nine years old.

It started one night while I was sitting in my room, the lights off wondering why in world I even existed. I picked up a small paring knife that I'd taken from the kitchen earlier that day.

As I stared at it, thoughts about how I could end my life flooded my mind. It became too much to handle. I dropped the knife and immediately went to my mother and told her there was something wrong with my mind.

The following week I was sitting in a waiting room, permeated with the scent of hand-sanitizer and bleach. All the other kids were playing with toys and yelling. I was scared for my life. Every time I felt eyes upon me, it was like lasers burning through me. I didn't know how to breathe, how to act, where to move my hands. 

An hour later, I was riding home with my mom crying. This was the beginning of my mental health care. It was scary, but I had a glimmer of hope that I'd begin to feel comfortable in my own skin. 

A couple years later, after many sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy, I was diagnosed with dysthymia, panic attack disorder, generalized anxiety, and social phobia. These big four are still a major part of my day-to-day life.

Dysthymia - that one is easy. My mother has it. And when neither of us take care of ourselves or celebrate small victories from time to time, we fall into a rut that we can't climb out of without outside help.

The panic attacks still happen every day. But with breathing patterns and paying attention to triggers, I can substantially reduce the destructiveness. I used to throw things and break stuff. Now, I step back and try to find out why I'm flipping out in the first place. 

The generalized anxiety? That one will never go away. No matter what I do, no matter how many times I walk into a place I've been thousands of times, I still worry worry worry. It's like nothing is comfortable to me.

Which leads me to social phobia. How does one get social phobia? I have no clue, but I would trade everything I've ever done, everything I own, and all of my friends to get rid of it. The other day I drove past Wal-Mart four times before it was okay for me to park and get out of the car. 

For the last two months, I haven't been taking any medication. I've been seeing a therapist. I can't afford mental health care, so I have to go to a sliding scale facility. I am eternally grateful that I have this resource available. 

However, every day without an anti-depressant is like slipping further into the neurosis I've been trying to avoid my whole life.

At times, I'm loudly talking to myself for five minutes before I realize it's an external monologue. 

People I've talked to in the past, who don't know of my struggles, who talk smack about psychiatry and medicine, have it all wrong.

I do not take a strong anti-anxiety drug as a way to "forget" about my problems. I take it because it helps me to function normally in public. It makes me actually feel comfortable in my own skin for at least 6-8 hours. 

I shake and I can't sleep. I constantly think about how the world would be better without me.

These have been the hardest last few months of my life, and I just thought it was worth sharing.

Thank you, The Band, for listening.

I have been "blessed" with the beauty of Generalized Panic Disorder (GAD) and now panic attacks. I think I have them under control, for the most part, but I know I'm not the only person in my family to suffer from them.

I have a cousin with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and agoraphobia. My mother has been on anti-anxiety medication since I can remember and refuses to leave the house 90 percent of the time. And they aren't the only ones. I don't worry so much about them; they're adults and know of the wonderful resources available to them.

What I do worry about is my precious daughter. She had her first panic attack at age six when she realized that her daddy and I weren't going to be in the same house anymore. My ex decided that it was an isolated incident and would go away without medical attention. It did not. We took her to see my therapist and psychiatrist. The therapy helped, and the doctor put her on a low dose of anti-anxiety medications. Of course the ex didn't feel his daughter needed to be a junkie (his words) and we discontinued them.

Things were alright for a while, but every now and then she would have such severe anxiety that nothing could calm her down. She didn't want to go to school on PE testing days or days when she had to do an oral report. She didn't want to go to school if there had been an incident the day before. After months of dragging her to school, I finally had to sit her down and share my experiences. My mother had never done this with me and I thought if my daughter knew she wasn't alone, she would feel better.

So I told her how my heart would race when I thought of meeting a new person. How my legs would get all wobbly if I had to walk up to a podium or speak in front of people or run a lap with everyone watching. I left nothing out. And my precious ray of sunshine said to me, "I'm sorry you're hurting Momma, how can I help you?"

I wept!

No honey, I'm here to help you, so that you don't have to be alone or afraid. I want you to know that you are normal! Everyone has anxiety! Just not to the extreme that we sometimes have it.

Since this time (about four years ago) she still experiences the anxiety, but we talk through it. We take a time out in a quiet room and I bring her cold water or a snack or just sit at the bed and listen. We are open about it. I know I can't be with her all the time, and I know that there's always a monkey wrench thrown into the mix, but we're teaching her to cope with things as they come. That she is not a alone, and that there is an end to these feelings of anxiety.

She is almost nine years old, slim and graceful, with long, fair hair and blue eyes in a pixie face. Her front teeth are crooked.

She dances constantly to music she hears - in commercials on the television, on the radio in passing cars, and sometimes only in her colorful mind. She dances with a curious combination of self awareness and utter abandon that takes my breath away.

She is staggeringly creative, folding masses of tiny origami bats that she made up "out of her head." These nest in carefully arranged families on her bookshelf.

She has trouble with days and asks over and over again when dance class is or when we are going here or there. No matter how often I tell her, the information won't track, won't stick, won't stay.

She is dyslexic. She reads with a stubborn, gritty intensity. She gets frustrated easily.  She can't articulate why she is upset and stutters and fumes with the passion of a teenager. She has trouble with changes in schedule and does not change gears or transition from one task to another easily. 

She moves effortlessly into her imagination. She returns to the real world with difficulty. When she gets upset, she rocks slightly back and forth.

At school during lunch time she plays with her sister's little friends. She is popular with the four and five year olds. Today, one of her classmates called her weird. She stood there with a stormy look on her face. I wilt inside. I want her to have only sunny days.

Tomorrow we are going to the doctor. Again. She is being assessed. This is a long and convoluted process with various professionals providing pieces of the puzzle. Each new term is introduced in the light of doctors offices and examined by her worried mother in the dead of night. Of course this is when all the most rational and reasoned thoughts leave me.  Socially awkward, anxious, no speech delay; Aspergers?

I don't know what comes next. I know that I have no idea what I'm doing. I know that she will be judged. The labels will stick. I have no defense against this. I only know that I will stick her with my own labels - big, bright pink, glittery labels in neon letters ten feet high. 

She is Beautiful. She is my Daughter. She is Loved.

Once upon a time, when I was about 6 years old, a fireman came into my kindergarten classroom to teach us fire safety. He meant well. His goal was to give us ways to stay safe in a bad situation. Change batteries in detectors.  Have a meeting place outside. Crawl below the smoke. Stop, drop and roll. You know, the usual.

Only, I wasn't exactly a normal little girl. Oh, my true uniqueness wouldn't blossom until middle school. However, I was already a bit on the side of well, me.

While his intent was to keep as safe as can be, he succeeded in opening my eyes into a world of terror.

I spent the next week sleeping on the floor outside my parent's bedroom door.  Too terrified that my house would spontaneously combust to even attempt my own bed. My mother finally coaxed me into my own bed when she bought me my own fire extinguisher to put in my bedside table. I was in my late 20's before I finally got rid of it. (It expired. Also? It was meant for grease fires.)

Even so, it was about half a decade before I could even see a fire truck without having nightmares later that night. I was well past the age of being allowed to touch matches before I could force myself to strike one hard enough to light it and the candle. And at *cough*28*cough* I still can't see fire or explosions on TV without cowering and turning my head.

It's been two decades and I am here to tell you: you never know when it will hit, what will trigger it, or even the rationale behind it. But that's kind of the thing about phobias. They are there. They are mean. They take no hostages. And usually? You can't explain them. If you could explain them? It wouldn't be a phobia. Had my house burned down at 6, it would be PTSD, not a phobia.

My name is Karen Marrs and I am pyrophobic.