Preschool and Panic Attacks
// 9.20.08 // 12 Comments » // My Daughter, Parenting
This has been a week of change for my family. And with my kids, that means a week of hell.
As you know, we are homeschoolers. But over the summer we made the decision to enroll my 4 yo daughter in preschool for the year. She’s a very social girl – she likes to make friends and be out doing fun stuff. I decided that if she went to preschool three mornings a week, I would get some time to do one-on-one school work with my son and she would have a great time. And she’s never really had much separation anxiety. Until now, of course.
This week my daughter has turned into a whining, clinging, crying-and-deathgripping-my-neck child. I’ve been completely blindsided by her behavior. She took dance, gymnastics, and swimming classes all last year. She went to “camp” this summer where she was away from me every morning for a week. She might have been a little nervous as first, but she never reacted the way she did this week.
She cried through her first three days of preschool, she had to be pulled off of me by the gymnastics teacher, she curled up in a ball on the floor and cried during ballet class, and she cried in swim class until I came and sat by the pool. At home, she wants to be within touching range of me at all times.
So me? I had my first panic attack. For a little background here, I had been taking Lexapro (an antidepressant) for about a year. It worked fantastically for me and in July I decided to start weaning off it. I was feeling great, losing weight, and ready to see how I’d do without medication. I instantly noticed that I was a little bitchier, sadder, and more anti-social. But I wanted to try to work through it. Then this whole “new fall schedule” came about and threw me for a loop.
For a family that is used to getting out of bed and laying around on the couch, watching TV and picking at granola bars and bowls of dry cereal, getting me and the kids up, fed, dressed and out of the house by 8:35 is a challenge. Mornings have been stressful, and dropping C off at preschool has been even more stressful. And then my whole body went numb.
My arms, legs, head, lips – even my tongue – were tingly. I kept hearing a buzzing in my ears and I felt like my chest and stomach were in a big knot. When I didn’t feel better the next morning, I paid a visit to my doctor and confirmed what I had Google-diagnosed: anxiety attack. My doctor and I talked about the stress, he wrote me a new prescription for Lexapro, and he told me, “Don’t deprive her of the opportunity to work through this on her own.”
My doctor has an amazing bedside manner and he has always been able to say things that really make me think. I agree with what he says, but putting it into action is another story. This morning, after another round of crying and clutching, I developed a painful cramp in my back that goes from my shoulder blade down to my hip. I’m a mess.
I’m trying to keep a stiff upper lip and show my daughter that there is so much fun to be had in the world and that Mom doesn’t always have to be there. At home, I’m trying to give her lots of attention and love and cuddling. I have to stick with this – the classes, the preschool, the schedule – but I buckle under the stress so easily. I feel so weak and I need to be so strong.
I know it will get better. The routine will become more routine. There will be more smiles and less tears. For now, I sit here with the heating pad on my back, my little girl pressed up against me. And I wait. Because this too shall pass.
