Anxiety

This is the face of anxiety.

A face that struggles on a daily basis to do things that 'normal' 4 year olds can do.  I really hesitate using that word - normal - because then it sounds like I'm labeling my daughter, or trying to make her BE different.  When I'm not, the fact is - she IS different.  But that does NOT make her strange, or weird, or unloveable. It just means that she has been given a different lot in life.  A struggle that no 4 year old should ever have to deal with.   A struggle that I am trying desperately to understand so I can HELP her.

Help her be confident, brave, bold, strong, silly, trusting.

Some days are more difficult than others.  Some days I have more patience than others.  Some days I understand more than others.  Every day and every night is an adventure with her.  What works for her one time will not work later so we try something new.  That works then stops and we start the cycle all over again.

Last night was an extremely difficult night - again.  She woke up at 3 am in a panic.  This is not just your normal, run-of-the-mill fear or bad dream.  This is irrational (to me) panic about being in her bedroom which she shares with her older sister, with a night light, and all of her special blankets and animals surrounding her.  A panic that consumes her to her core.  Where no amount of snuggles, hugs, songs, praying, scripture reading, priesthood blessings will help calm her soul.  So we continue to bring her to her bed, to be calm and loving toward her as she wakes up her older sister and next thing we know it's 6 am - time for us to start our day.

This happens far too often for my liking. It doesn't mean I love her any less - it almost means I love her more because I desperately want to help her.  I just don't know how.

We have tried to pin-point what may have brought this on.  Could it have been the surgeries she had to have where she had to leave us?  Where we couldn't go with her when they sedated her.  Could it have been the time she hit her head on the McDonalds play land resulting in a concussion? We hate that play land now and refuse to go back - ever.  Could I have said something to her, a phrase or something, over and over again that caused it?  Is it my fault?  Could the fact that my husband works well into the evening (past bedtime) be a contributing factor?  Is there some genetic factor involved?  I don't know.  Perhaps we will never now. Yet I continue to read and read and read books and articles and journals on how to help.  I am brought to my knees is search of answers.  And yet we still struggle.  We both still cry in fear and frustration and exhaustion.

I know many people think we are 'giving in, not pushing her hard enough, not this or not that' but they don't know our situation.  They don't know what it's like. They don't know her.  They just don't know.  I try hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, to be loving toward them and kind when their comments hurt me.  I just hope one day to know how to best help her.

Maybe this will just be a long term struggle - an unfair struggle - that we all get to muddle through.  I have hope that one day it will all get better, I just don't know when.