After a couple rough days, she's doing much better. Sunday night at bedtime, she cried and cried and the prospect of going to school the next day. Worked herself into an escalating crisis thing, where everything she thought of was a tragedy. Everything was overwhelming to her--the homework, the curriculum, music class, being behind from being out last week. So I told her about a book I'd read, written by a writer (Anne Lamott) to other writers about the writing process, and how her mantra was "Bird By Bird," based on something her father had said to her brother when he was in an escalating fret about the sheer magnitude of a report on birds. "You just have to take it bird by bird." Soon she had assigned all her school subjects with a bird name (math was a dodo-bird), and she was able to go to sleep with this strategy planned.
Yesterday morning, though, all strategizing had gone out the window and she was just a wreck. Cried the whole time she was getting ready for school, cried on the walk to school (while her friends didn't comment on the crying other than to say, "Come on, you can get through this" and kept including her in their cheerful conversation), cried in line waiting to go into the classroom. I caught her teacher as she was heading to the classroom, explained the situation, and reiterated that if she could help DD get through the day, it would help her confidence level tremendously. As I left DD in line--poor thing, all puffy--I told her, "Look, there's a new boy starting in your class today," and gestured toward a new kid who was standing away from the group with his mother, who was talking to the teacher. I told DD, "Be nice to him. I guarantee he's more nervous than you are this morning."
And I went off to work, eyeballing my cell phone all morning and worrying about my girl. About 1 o'clock, I got an e-mail from her teacher saying that she'd had a great day so far. No tears. Lots of smiles and laughter. Played hard with her friends at recess. "Told me about a list of birds that she thought was funny," the teacher wrote.
After school, I asked DD how it had gone and she said it was fine. That she had one or two tough moments, but that she "bent her mind" to take her mind off the crying feeling. I had talked to some of my friends at work who are 20 years younger than I, and one in particular, who my DD knows, recalled that she had a similar experience at 11--panic attacks that hit in the middle of the night. They didn't last forever, but they came and went for awhile, and now she knows they were hormone-related. Then Little DD started asking about hormones, which gave Big DD and me a reason to discuss them again, and this time, Big DD seemed to get it. Something about explaining it to her sister seemed to help her get on top of it.
This morning, she said she felt fine and that she didn't expect any problems, even if she did get that crying feeling. She felt she could distract herself with her list of birds or by telling herself that "it's just too many feelings because of hormones, and they don't last forever."
I don't believe that we're done with this, but I do feel that she's getting more familiar with it all and gaining more confidence in her ability to cope. I'm hoping for a few good days in a row!
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