How my family befriended and beat the Anxiety monsters

It’s challenging as a parent to watch your child struggle. To hear that nagging voice in your head which tells you that something is not right. There’s just something. It’s even more challenging when your husband disagrees. I am the mum that will not give up, I don’t need my kids to excel at everything, but I do want them to be happy. For me that means able to experience and engage with life. I will challenge, push, and let’s be honest – probably fight anyone who gets in the way of that. So, my journey with beating and befriending our anxiety monster started with lots of late night chats with my husband, insisting our child needed more than we knew how to provide.

So, I like many others started with a G.P. and school visit. The school reported that all was well, no obvious issues there. The G.P. was very supportive and made all the necessary referrals. I Doctor Googled everything I could find. It led me, thank God, to Relax Kids. I started with listening to the CDs which helped with the challenges we were encountering going to sleep. I was so impressed with Relax Kids information that I decided to train myself. It has changed our lives in so many ways.

I quickly came to understand through training that I couldn’t fix my child’s anxiety, I had to tell a six-year-old that she was responsible for how she felt and that I would move mountains to help and guide her, but she had to accept that this is part of her personality and she would have to work to befriend and beat that monster called anxiety. Heartbreaking – but necessary and empowering for her. I learned to ask her, what are you feeling not what’s wrong with you? I also learned that it could be fun. We as a family could take on this challenge and build our little unit and have a fun time doing it. Woo Hoo, Win Win, my kinda solution.

So, we began by learning about the brain and how it functions with and without anxiety. The Monkey Brain is our fight, flight and freeze (anxiety center). He has a role to play in keeping us safe. So, we learned how to listen and give him attention when needed but also how to stop him in his tracks, so he doesn’t take over and stop out elephant brain (feeling and memory) and owl brain (Logic, Reasoning, Problem Solving) from functioning.

We shifted in our house from tantrums, crying, sleepless nights, restless nights, build ups to events lasting up to seven days of negative thoughts, constant upset over getting something wrong in school, re-living little arguments with friends in school over and over, inability to cope with me being away in the evening at sleep time, requesting that I always be at home with her, inability to be flexible around plans for days out, time sensitive about getting places like the world would end if we were late. I would tentatively wait at school at pick up time to see what the body language was for that day as I knew by how she held herself if we were going to have a meltdown when we got home.

Now with our behavior looks like this. If our Monkey Brain is acting up and making us feel anxious we have a range of tools, we use to help him calm down. We move, that can be a cycle around the house to distract him or turning the music up loud in the kitchen and dancing around like were in a music video. If we’re in the car and the monkey is being cheeky we play a game to distract him, for example the five senses game or we use the now clock. It’s one o’clock – take one deep breath and ask yourself, am I ok right now? If that monkey is still being too loud then move to two o’clock and take two deep breaths and check in again. We have positive names for ourselves like Brilliant Brendan and Super Sinead. They might shout them out and that helps calm the Money Brain and send positive endorphins throughout the body. So, we start to feel better and less frozen with anxiety.

Anxiety lives in the future and past not now so anything that helps bring the attention back into the present is vey powerful. We also actively focus on what we want and try not to give any attention to negatives. “What you think about you bring about” is one of our daily mantras, as is “So I say so I believe so I behave” no negative self-talk allowed.

By the time we were called for our psychologist appointment, we were well on the road to beating and befriending our anxiety monster. The feedback we received was that while she is naturally anxious she has a clear understanding of it and how to manage it. The psychologist asked me where I had learned all the tools. The magic that is Relax Kids.

To help my child recover physically from anxiety I also starting using essential oils, and I took her to occupational therapy to check for sensory issues as they tend to go hand in hand with anxiety. I also brought her to an osteopath and homeopath to ensure all was well. I engaged with these services as I could afford them and feel they all benefited her to build up her immune system and restore balance within her body. Anxiety when it strikes and takes hold sends stress hormones through the body, all these services I felt did help restore her balance.

What I love about this approach to dealing with anxiety is that it empowers the family to deal with the issues. We know each other better than anybody else and thus are best placed to heal and manage any issues that may arise. I am forever grateful now that my child needed this help. It has changed my approach to my children, life in general and my working life. Our relationships are closer now and more connected to each other. Are we the picture-perfect family, not a chance, but we are positive and strongly connected and excited about facing all that life will throw at us?

My child recently received her first Holy Communion and First Confession. On the day of the Confession I asked her, “how you feeling about tonight”? “Ah bit nervous mam but I’ll be grand, I’ll do my breaths and I’ll be sound”. She was asleep on the night before the communion at 9.10 pm, rested and comfortable. I had to call her for the hairdresser appointment. All amazing achievements for her, which made our hearts sing. In the Church she read her reading like an angel and was present in the moment and enjoying herself. It’s hard to express how awesome that was to watch. She now has what I hoped and dreamed she would have and it kept me going when I was exhausted. She has a “Lust for Life”.