Kid stuff

Things are better.  About a month and half ago, it finally got to the point where we took my eldest in to have a psychological evaluation.  What we were seeing was that she had these strong, visceral reactions to certain noises, like chewing at the table, or scuffing feet on the carpet.   She would turn into a twisting ball of rage, screaming at the person who was the source of the noise.   It happened all the time. She seemed fine in school - it was mainly directed at myself and at her little sister.  I found myself anxiously biting into a piece of cucumber even when I was on a business trip thousands of miles away in California.  She seemed deeply unhappy.

There's a name for a syndrome (misophonia) with some of these symptoms, so we focused on that and tried things like getting her noise-cancelling headphones, letting her eat at a different table, etc. That helped a bunch.  And we went in to have her evaluated - only getting to meet with the doctor today because of her schedule.

Things had gotten way better in the meantime.  She'd discovered Calvin and Hobbes and consumed them voraciously, and just seemed happy and more relaxed overall.  Talking with the doctor today, everything seemed to make so much sense.  She's a very anxious child.  I knew that.  But I guess in my head I imagined that anxious people hide away and are quiet - something that doesn't really describe my daughter.  Apparently, it's quite common for anxiety to manifest physically - particularly when kids feel like there are things outside their control.  She tries to manage her environment, including noises, and now that I look back I can see how desperate she sometimes seemed, and how well she responded when she was given more choices. 

So we have some new strategies now that we'll try, and resources we can tap into further if need be.