Been so long

It has been so long since my last blog.... life is nuts and unpredictable.  For someone with anxiety that is a nightmare.  Big M changed schools this year. This is her freshman year, and we spent the better part of the summer debating this change.  All in all, this is what she actually wanted to do.  Surprise, surprise...  Unbeknownst to us, she had been struggling with life for about 6 mo. prior to this change, and this was her way of trying to gain back some control.  We changed... all was seemingly going well. Then the bottom fell out so to speak, and life became very messy.
About a month ago, she approached me and said that she had been struggling with severe depression since January and had been thinking about harming herself..  What would our lives look like without her? We had an emergency family meeting and decided that counseling was in order.  So.... now we have a great therapist, whom I will call Dr. R.  My prayer is that Dr. R will help her get a handle on the anxiety.. We have recently seen signs of OCD as well, and that scares me.. I guess they have always been there, but now they are more pronounced.
My heart hurts for her. I see this effecting her relationships with long time friends, and it is beginning to effect her relationship with her little sis.  We have therapy again next week, hopefully, some breakthroughs will be made. 

neat little package

Dear Lord,
Thank you so much for loving me and knowing me so well.  You knew today would hold disappointment for me, yet you wrapped it up in this tidy little package full of happiness and love.  Way too much laughter and smiles to be sad for too long, it was a wonderful day!  Thank you for the lessons in patience as I wait on You and Your timing. Thank you for continually blessing me with much more than I deserve! 
Amen.

The terrible, no good, very bad day

I always loved reading that children's book to the kids I taught.  I wanted them to know that everyone has bad days, even in Australia.  It is how we handle those days that matter.
We have not had an anxiety attack in a couple of weeks. Praise the Lord. I have seen her struggle, but ultimately overcome with huge success.  One of the things that has played positively into this is routine.  It has not changed and that is huge.  That being said, we are coming up on Thanksgiving break.  She will be out a whole week.  This is usually a trigger when it is time to return, so I feel tense with anticipation. But we will take it as it comes! 
Today however, it was my turn to have a bad day.  I had an anxiety attack of my own last night, but was able to overcome fairly easily.  I am undergoing infertility treatments which include a cocktail of hormones every month and to say they make me crazy is the understatement of the century.  I cry, I laugh, I lose things, forget what I was going to say... etc but today was all about the anger and over reaction.  My temper flared for the littlest things and needless to say my mouth got away from me more than once. All I could do was ask for the forgiveness of my loved ones.   I apologized to my girl and we talked it over.  We spent the remainder of the day snuggled on the couch watching funny shows.  Today was my turn to have a terrible , no good, very bad day, and I am so glad I taught my little about grace and forgiveness. 

breathing room

If you have ever been around an anxious kid for long, you will learn that it cycles. Right now we are on an upswing.  School is going well, fears have subsided. Now we do the walking on eggshell dance, but at least it is a calm period.  That said, I have seen M make so much progress and I couldn't be prouder.  I can not wait to see how the Lord will use this as she gets older.  Right now, she wants to help other children who have anxiety.  Maybe she will do that, maybe not, but for right now she is happy just being a kiddo. 
Oh, she learned to ride her bike this past weekend. :)  GO M!

Today was a surprising success.  We had a 4 day weekend, which means a change in routine.  This has always been a trigger for an anxiety attack.   I put her to bed early last night, made a good breakfast, gave her plenty of time to acclimate to the routine.  As we were driving to school, I caught her in the back seat working on her breathing, closing her eyes, calming herself, on her own.  Yay!! This is what I have been working towards, she actually used the tools we have given her by herself.  Major victory! Here's hoping for a great tomorrow.!

It Happened Again

Last week we had a breakthrough with our anxious girl.  She persevered and overcame the anxiety, went to school and came home to announce that she had  great day.  I jumped and cried and praised the L--d! She was so proud of herself.  I was so proud of her!
Then there are days like today...
I knew it would be a struggle, she was anxious before going to sleep last night. Not about your typical 10 yr. old anxieties, but about doing something at school and not getting in trouble ( her conscience), then about whether or not she went to the right number group, because she forgot which number her teacher assigned. Then she was anxious about what would happen if she did get in trouble... Seriously this all occurred before 9:00p.m.  She finally agreed to go to bed and try to sleep and leave further discussion for in the morning. I really wanted that to be the end of it, but I should have known better.  She woke up this morning, first thing she said was " I am still worried"; took a shower, sat down for breakfast and couldn't eat.  10 minutes later she was getting sick in the bathroom and crying, begging to not go to school.  We got her in the car, on the way and all I can do is hope and pray that she makes it all day. So here we are, I am back to searching for ideas to help with her anxiety, and reading my anxiety Bible,  "Freeing Your Child From Anxiety", by Tamar Chansky.  As for now, tonight we will go to bed earlier, and pray that tomorrow is better.