Reply to Extreme reactions to insinuating weakness

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kiddo had aggressive and threatening behavior from extreme anxiety, so it's possible. There also sounds like an element of shame and anxiety over having attention. Have you had an evaluation? Therapy might be difficult if she can't tolerate a challenging discussion, so it's possible that if this behavior is related to anxiety, medication may lower the anxiety level enough to benefit from therapy. (But you need an eval first.)

As far as how to respond to the behavior, we really needed parent coaching for this type of thing. And I would say you need a next-level type of parent coaching - a therapist who is used to disruptive behaviors. Some therapy practices offer Parent Management Training which is a specific curriculum for managing challenging, disruptive behaviors based on the work of Alan Kazdin. We found it extremely helpful. If you can't find that, we have also found that a therapy practice that offers DBT programs (not just DBT-informed) will also have therapists who are trained in helping parents with more extreme behaviors.

I will also add that although this behavior started only at home, it did eventually start to creep into other parts of life at age 14 so now is the perfect time to get the ball rolling. There were some big social impacts for my DD when things happened in front of friends.[/quote]

We've talked about therapy, but with her extreme emotional reaction to any insinuation that something might be wrong or off with her, yes, it would be very challenging, to even get her to the first visit.  Even an eval would be very challenging - not insurmountable, as I think I can successfully frame it in a way that is more of a solution to her unique way of thinking/working and figuring out ways to work with her differences.

I appreciate the warning about how the behavior started to creep into other parts of life at a later age.

I also noticed the behavior comes out more in times of stress, when she's coming down with something, or hasn't been getting enough sleep, or hasn't been eating enough.

As for anxiety....I have a lot of trouble understanding her type of anxiety.  I do think she experiences anxiety, but very differently.  You might describe her as almost completely lacking any anxiety over most things.  She does not care what her friends, peers, or teachers think, what she looks like, whether she sticks out, or looks odd.  In fact, she thrives on being different and "unique" and doing her own thing, her own way.  She has almost zero fear and doesn't get grossed out by anything- she loves scary, thrilling things, gross things.

But then I do think she has this anxiety around the finality of death, about illness, about weakness, and vulnerability.  And she has some sort of social anxiety, but it is very different.  She doesn't care what people think, but at the same time, she avoids social situations because she doesn't know how to act, or as she says, she simply doesn't like being around people.  She's very quiet, and nervous about talking in front of an audience, but then when the time comes, she's like a pro and she presents with confidence and no sign of nervousness.

I experience anxiety myself, but the way we experience it is so vastly different, I don't really understand the way she experiences it.[/quote]

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