Maybe we're getting somewhere!

Anxiety is something I've lived with all my life. I remember having my first anxiety attack when I was six years old. I remember the situation, I remember how it felt, and I remember feeling so out of control over something that shouldn't have been a big deal to a first grader, but never-the-less it's something I've battled ever since.
Most people know my son has inherited the anxiety gene from me. I don't know how much he understands his worry and obsessiveness, but I know there have been plenty of times where he has felt out of control. But unlike me, he is very verbal in the midst of his anxiety. I have always tried to hide it. I can be a drama queen when I want, and I can slam doors and rant and rave about how unfair things are or how upset or hurt I feel when I am so inspired, but anytime I feel anxious or have insanely ridiculous thoughts race through my head, I try to bury them as far down in my belly as I possibly can. I like to appear to be in control at all times and cool as a cucumber. I didn't get the nickname "the rock" for nothing! I am difficult to rattle, I'm hard to shock. I solve problems in a very diplomatic fashion. I keep my cool. Or so I seem. My son, on the other hand, does not keep his cool. He looses it. He will have monumental freak outs when the anxiety is too much. He has been known, in the past, to walk in circles, pulling his hair, tears flowing and fear in his eyes because he doesn't know what to do with the emotion he is feeling. This is the typically well mannered boy, who wouldn't hesitate for a second to jump out of a dentist chair and run down the hall screaming because the anxiety of being at the dentist or dr.'s office is too much for him to handle. This is the child who literally rocked back and forth and could not get past a ride in a dirty taxi cab through a NYC borough where people had, GASP, spray painted all over buildings. As a mom, it is so terrifying and heartbreaking to watch. And as a mom with anxiety issues, I have lost so much sleep over it. My son is so black and white, so right or wrong. And he can verbally debate a subject until you are worn into the ground. He worries about starving children, he worries about the homeless, he worries about the polar bears in the Arctic, he worries about the economy, he worries about who he'd vote for if he were eighteen (no joke). But this is nothing new. He's always worried about things, it's part of his makeup. It's the way God made him. So I have been working hard for some time to give him the tools to deal with his anxiety in a healthy manner. I refuse to even think about medication and I refuse to let him go through life without feeling like he has the tools to battle this frustrating "condition". I don't want him to be thirty four and still not know how the heck to handle his anxiety. I know I can't guarantee this, but I can sure as heck do my best to help him feel like he can handle life. So we have gone through all sorts of stuff. Everything from breathing techniques to talking the worry of the moment out and deciding if it's something we have a solution for at this moment, from giving him opportunities to talk out his worries freely and calmly, when he isn't in a freak out mode, to learning different ways to stop his brain from going a million miles a minute when the lights go out at bedtime. At first it didn't seem like it was working. When something triggered a freak out moment, he had them full on. And you couldn't calm him down. But lately I've noticed a change. I almost hate to think it. What if I jinx it. But lately he seems to take things in stride a bit more. He still gets upset in different situations, but it doesn't get to the freak out point as often. And he seems to be better at verbalizing it, then moving on. This morning for example. He's home sick. In the past, he would have had a meltdown about missing school: he will have work to make-up, his friends won't know where he is, his teacher will worry, what if he misses an important announcement, what if they have a quiz, what if something really exciting happens. This would have gone on and on all day. Every hour his mind would pace back and forth coming up with new reasons to tense up over missing school. But this morning he hasn't done that so much. He wasn't happy when I announced he still has a fever and couldn't go to school. He did say he hopes there isn't a ton of makeup work to do and did make sure I emailed his teacher and his best friend's mom to let them know he was ok. But that's about it. He really hasn't said anything else about it, other than a brief "I really don't like missing school" about two hours into his sick day. Maybe we're getting somewhere! Maybe he is growing up a little and can rationalize better in his ripe age of nine. Maybe he is learning to stop and breathe when things start boiling inside of him. Maybe his experiences have taught him that the world still turns, every single day, even amidst homelessness, dirty taxi cabs, and sick days. Maybe all the praying I've done for this boy is paying off! Maybe it's a little of everything. I know it will be something we battle forever with him, just as it is with me. But it's nice to see a little more control with the situation. It's nice to have some positive experiences with difficult moments. It's nice to think maybe he won't be on Xanex by the time he is twelve. :-) Whatever it is, it feels pretty darn good.