While she is generally a very happy and fun little girl, as soon as bedtime arrives and she realizes that school is coming around the corner, she starts to feel sick at her stomach and often gets headaches. Usually she’ll need to carry a bowl around the house in the evening feeling sick. And morning is even worse! She wakes with a horrible stomachache and insists that she is going to throw up and can’t go to school. She won’t leave the house without a ziploc baggie just in case. No amount of consoling will work unless I say she can stay home from school. When she comes home from school, her stomachache is completely gone and she is back to her happy, energetic self until night comes. OR…. until someone decides to go out to eat! Yep.. over the last couple of years she has developed an extreme dislike of most if not all restaurants. For some reason there are still a couple that she will eat ant and doesn’t feel sick when she thinks about. Hopefully those will remain on the “ok” list. If we insist she goes with us to dine for the evening she will not eat and will have only water to drink. She even turns down desert! She’s also uncomfortable with people watching her or looking at her when she eats. So restaurants are not ideal.
When asked about her feelings, she tells me she doesn’t want to be with anyone except a family member and that is why she hates school. She hates going out to eat because she fears that she will eat something that will make her sick. She fears getting sick and so since she gets nervous about going to school and it makes her stomach ache she then feels like she is going to get sick. So it’s a vicious cycle. When we leave the house on date night and leave her in the care of her older brother or sister(s) she calls us multiple times begging for us to come home.
So it’s obvious to me now that we have a problem. I bought a book called “Freeing Your Child from Anxiety” and felt like I was reading a book written about my child! I was amazed to find the checklist for children in her age group that listed the “red flag” symptoms of SAD or Separation Anxiety Disorder. It was interesting to me because I generally thought that SAD was what happened to 8 month old babies when you handed them to a stranger. But my daughter is 8 years old. Could she still be suffering from separation anxiety??
So for now, I have an appointment with a local counselor (Masters Degree level). I want to make sure that I proceed in a manner that will not crush her or belittle her or even “label” her unnecessarily. I never thought that I would be taking my child to a psychologist but I really want what is best for her and I want to see her learn to cope with the anxiety that she has now before she gets into the teenage years and has even more anxiety!
