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Post by monkey on Jul 4, 2014 21:23:35 GMT
LO had a "shutting down" episode last week. We get these probably twice a year in response to an anticipation of something unknown. She is horrendously hypervigilant and needs to know everything that is going on. Although she is almost 7 her understanding is delayed and sometimes she doesn't or can't understand our explanations. This leads to extreme anxiety which I believe her body deals with by shutting down.
LO is usually one of the most active children you can imagine. She is moving from the minute she wakes until the moment she goes to sleep and she makes noise for the whole of that time too! When I say that she shut down, she didn't move for 48 hours - she just laid on the sofa or in her bed. She didn't eat and she hardly spoke.
My worry is that yet again I missed it and therefore didn't handle it as well as I should have.
I thought she was ill (she wouldn't usually say if she hurt / felt unwell so its a bit of a guessing game generally) so I plied her with paracetamol and ibuprofen. It didn't seem to make any difference so I don't know why I continued with it.
What she really needed to do was to talk through her feelings and some empathy about the worries she had.
It's been nearly 3 years - why are we still only spotting these things after the event? Anyone have a crystal ball?
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Post by lilyofthevalley on Jul 5, 2014 8:03:46 GMT
Hi monkey
That sounds very difficult and worrying for you. My thoughts are that you should be seeking professional assessment and guidance. I would suggest that you go to your GP and explain exactly what has been happening and why you are concerned. It is important to check out if she is suffering from any physical medical condition first.
If she is deemed to be physically fit I think it would be a good idea to request a referral to CAMHS. They need to determine what the psychological issues are and how best to treat them. It may be she would benefit from some form of play therapy or art therapy. I think you definitely need expert guidance and help. You don't want to be giving her paracetamol and ibuprofen unnecessarily. I hope things improve for you all.
Lily x
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Post by monkey on Jul 5, 2014 18:25:53 GMT
Thanks both and sorry, I know this is on the wrong board. We are having input from CAMHS and they are aware of these episodes. They don't think there's a physical issue - it's all attachment related. She has a diagnosis of Attachment Disorder and whilst most of the time she is clearly ambivalent we have these blips into total avoidance when she switches off and doesn't seem able to cope with what's going on around her. It must be really scary for her but it's so hard to know what's going on in her head. I know that I shouldn't beat myself up about it but I can't believe it didn't ring bells at the time.
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Post by shadow on Jul 5, 2014 18:34:23 GMT
I am sure pear tree will be along - and will give her the heads up as I think she has loads of experience with this
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Post by corkwing on Jul 5, 2014 18:46:08 GMT
Hi, Monkey -
We didn't get a crystal ball on our prep course, either. Lots of times when we looked back and realised that we'd missed something that, in hindsight, looked so obvious. To me, it's all part of being human.
Love,
Corkwing
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Post by shadow on Jul 5, 2014 18:46:44 GMT
I have some experience - it can be dissociation - they cant cope with whatever stress there is and switch off - I have seen shadette completely switch off -no movement , eyes flickering for short times, and when under extreme fear become very zoned out for longer - ie me needing to dress her and take her to the toilet at age 13 - CAMHS don't always have loads experience in dissociation as they are busy with anorexics and diagnosable psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia so ours seem fairly low key compared to that instead of attachment disorder - which if they are diagnosing reactive attachment disorder means they are taking her seriously - also google developmental trauma disorder - which she can also have but CAMHS tend not to be intio - and also dissociative disorders - which as a natural response to early trauma - www.pods-online.org.uk/ are very good - especially for older people but have information about dissociation - also catchpoint-http://catchpoint.org/ are good on dissociation/catatonic stuff - and will give a free consultation
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