Caring for your child if you have panic disorder

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“I was sad today because I was in a lot of pain!” It’s a Monday and we’re cycling home from school. My almost seven-year-old son sits at the front of the bar. “I had fallen, but when that happens A. will always do very crazy things, then I have to laugh and then I no longer think about the pain. That’s really soooo nice mom, that I have such a boyfriend!” I almost want to say something back about that it’s okay to just feel pain for a while and that you don’t have to think about anything else right away, but I swallow it just in time.

Own lessons

Deep down I really have the confidence that my child is completely fine the way he is. That he has his own lessons to learn in life. That I can sit back a lot more and watch it unfold in him and around him, but still I tend to be too pedantic sometimes. I want to protect him from the mistakes I made myself. Not a broken heart or those shoes that are just not in his size, but all those pent-up feelings. I want to teach him that everything is okay. May it all be there. May you cry and stamp your feet, even if it is not convenient for those around you.

Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that when I’m so on top of things, I’m doing the exact opposite of what I want to achieve. If I make him feel everything, then there may not be a lot, namely denial, anger, resistance, distraction and so on… I can learn to sit on my hands. My son has his own path.

Unsafe

From childhood I had extreme feelings of fear. I remember one time when my mother knocked on my nursery door to tell me to hurry up with getting dressed. Suddenly I thought it could be a wolf knocking on the door and then started screaming loudly. Or that we were on a train on our way to a family outing and behind us a homeless person mumbled and cursed to himself, probably under the influence of something, and I got so scared I couldn’t keep my pack of drinks still and apple juice spilled everywhere.

Life often did not feel safe. As a teenager, fresh out of the house and desperate for the sense of freedom I’d longed for, I crawled into my roommate’s bed almost every night, convinced I was going to have a heart attack. Many a nightly doctor’s visit followed, but I never got a satisfactory answer. Until the moment that I no longer dared to go to my studies, no longer on the bus and actually no longer to the supermarket. Then it finally became clear that some alarm bells in my brain might be overreacting; I had a panic disorder.

panic disorder

I learned to live with this carefully. Especially the stubborn will not to end up behind the geraniums always pulled me out. Then I had an upswing and I temporarily stopped avoiding the exciting things, but much more often I retreated into isolation and avoided everything that had to do with fear. Then I got pregnant unplanned. Mentally I wasn’t ready for that yet.

The year before my pregnancy, I often lay in my bed for days on end. I didn’t do much other than watch endless series in my pajamas. I ignored all the mess in the house, until it really couldn’t anymore. Then I moved for a moment, just enough to brush off the worst.

“When I was under the influence I didn’t hear my fears”

I spent most of my time away from home under the influence and at parties, because then my head would stop for a while and I wouldn’t hear the fears. My life was still a mess and suddenly someone who was totally dependent on me would come along. I could no longer go through those brief moments of stubbornness alone.

Read also – Always scared: ‘I thought it was normal that I kept hyperventilating’ >

Unrest

I found childbirth intense. I had contractions and felt very out of control. Once my baby was on my chest, the midwife tried to tell me that I had done great because I had convinced myself when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore. However, my body was left with a feeling that a tiger could enter my room at any moment and the adrenaline made me find no peace. This feeling never went away.

The combination of constantly having to worry, lack of sleep due to a crying baby and a relationship that was not going well, resulted in a burnout. For months I lost weight, I slept less and less, I hardly went outside because of the increasing fears and I often fled to my parents so that they could take care of my child.

Ground underfoot

I almost lost hope, because life as it had become was unbearable. In the midst of despair, I suddenly found one clear moment. I had a choice. I could choose to let this be and run away from all feelings by taking more and more intense drugs, or I could really start looking fear in the eye. I knew it would be incredibly hard, but I wanted to get rid of it so badly. I wanted to live! So I chose to fight.

I left his father’s house with my child, where there was far too much fighting and the tension was increasing. I sought help from a group of fellow sufferers and I told my toddler every day that he didn’t have to take care of me. That I went to the doctor or to other people to talk and make myself better and that was my job. That he could play and be a child. Of course he didn’t understand, but I kept repeating it anyway. Because I hoped there was something subconscious in him that understood. Slowly with help I found solid ground under my feet.

Seeing feelings

When my son was three, he could accurately feel the difference between things he found exciting and things he found scary. Birthday party: exciting! Monster under your bed: scary! Also, while other kids would start screaming or throwing things in the same situation, he learned to come up to me and say, “Mommy, I want attention.” (By the way, he always uses this now at the most impossible moments and step two I believe is learning that you don’t always get that attention.) He can feel the need behind his action and can name it.

“I became more loving to myself: my child taught me to be gentle”

Now I don’t want to say that you need a mental disorder or problem to teach this to your child, but I clearly see that he can do this better than peers. I learned to feel and talk and then teach this to him as well. It’s not his favorite activity, but it’s my proudest moment in motherhood. What do you feel and what does that do to you? There is attention for that in our house. For him, but also for me. By seeing his feelings, naming them and embracing them compassionately, I also became more loving towards myself. He taught me to be soft.

Give in

During the holidays I sometimes take my child to my peer support group. There he sees several adults talking about their feelings. He also hears men who mainly look big and strong to him say things about fears. That being brave means that despite your shaky knees you still do something that scares you. That’s really tough. During those moments, I am incredibly grateful that my life became so unmanageable that I needed help. Because when I look around, I see plenty of people who haven’t received this happiness of support and talk.

If my child cries and asks to sleep in my bed instead of his because he finds the dark so creepy, I’m absolutely afraid I’m passing on some of my fear to him. But when I look at him when he’s made a new girlfriend on the playground and he proudly tells me that he’s mustered all his bravery from toes to head to step up to her, I know I’m giving him something too. gave you beauty. Something I wouldn’t have possessed myself without my fear.

Bravery

It sometimes suffocates me that I can’t always do everything and there is a chance that I will one day fall back into a period in which panic prevails, but I also know that this is part of life. It was hard to have a child at a time when I was still so conflicted with myself, but it also saved my life. I could fight for him in a way that I couldn’t for myself.

I overcame something and he saw it. He suffered from this, but we also built something special together. We’ve given new meaning to strength and bravery. Knowing that we have help around us, that we are supported and that we can always claim it when we need it. We have built a safe house where there is room for tears and softness.

“We have given new meaning to strength and bravery”

I taught him that we all have different battles. That we don’t have to put them away. That everything may be there. That we can be different. That we bear that together as a society and that together everything always becomes lighter.

So I smile again and look at my tough, handsome, brave and very funny child on the front of my bike. We’re doing well. Everything is allowed, and sometimes you can also choose to focus on the fun in life. “Yes dear, it is great to have such a friend!” I answer.

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