Oy! The dark time of year is upon us. I'm afraid it's going to be a wild ride this winter as my youngest, who suffers with some OC and anxiety problems is hitting his pre-teen hormonal stride. He's been spending too much time thinking about his digestive tract all school year, and at his soccer finals last Sunday, the balance was tipped.
We've spent the past week wheedling, cajoling, pleading, using our best drill sergeant routines, and myriad other approaches to try to get him back on track. I finally bought some St. John's Wort on Thursday, really more to show him that the bottle promises "improved mood" more than to give it to him on any regular basis. I don't want to have to see a psychiatrist and go down the path of meds - particularly at this time in his life when his growth will mean that it will be hard to get and keep him regulated.
We've done a year with a psychologist in past (more for the OC issues than the anxiety) but that person really was hugely expensive and not very helpful at all. We seem to have had better success talking to him ourselves.....
So on we go.....
He refused to go to his beloved art class on Wednesday. Then cried later because he was afraid he wouldn't get his first bowl completed (he's made lots of pottery finger pots in past but never anything this large).
On Wednesday evening, he determined that he would prove us wrong and show us that he couldn't leave the house to attend classes any more. We used to be able to reason with him, but the new found pre-teen independence is throwing a wrench in the works now.... He cried off and on all evening and awoke first thing on Thursday to announce that he was "chilling" and had a "fever". Not.
He's fine whenever he's not thinking about his alleged "problem" - which changes from day to day as to precisely what it is, by the way.... I made him go to his lit class. I told him I'd go to the store and buy Tums, etc. for him while he was in class. His teacher mentioned, in jest, that he looked ill and should turn the other way if he needed to throw up. Ten minutes after class started, before I could even get out of the nearby store, he called on her phone to inform me that he'd "thrown up" and "had" to come home. (He hadn't, really.) I made him stay in class and listened outside the door. He was perfectly fine and participated without problem.
On we went to co-op after lunch. I had him on a BRAT diet since I was actually afraid he had made himself so upset that his stomach really might be hurting by that point. I had to sit in on all his classes. What my presence in the room as opposed to out in my car or in a next door room provided I have not been able to get out of him as of yet. I didn't have to stay in the house when we got to LEGO League, but there hasn't been any real rhyme or reason to any of this behavior.....
I actually thought maybe we were moving out of crisis mode this weekend, but this morning he left his youth group in the room next to the sanctuary to come back in and sit with us...... It's gonna be a loooooooong winter....
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