10 year old bedtime anxiety - please can anyone help?

[Margot78]

My dd has been having anxiety at bedtime for over two years now. Thinks that an intruder is going to come and kill her. She gets hysterical if we don’t complete rituals that make her feel safe. She has never been in a dangerous situation in her whole life, it is entirely coming from intrusive thoughts.

We were at breaking point not knowing what to do last year but finally a camhs referral came through. We have been speaking to a lovely lady (virtually) but it’s all about us managing it, no-one ever speaks to dd and so it puts a lot of pressure on us. We’re coming to the end of our time with camhs and things did improve a little. They seem quite keen to sign us off, keep giving us questionnaires to try and tick the boxes I guess so they can say things have improved. We have techniques to manage it but her anxiety is still there. Tonight she screamed the place down because we wouldn’t do something ten times so now she thinks she’ll die. She also has issues with clothing but camhs say they can only deal with one issue.

I’m exhausted. I can’t talk to anyone because dd hates me telling people but I feel so low all the time and have to pretend I’m ok. I just wish I could take her anxiety and rituals away but I can’t.
I am posting this hoping that someone has some advice about what we can do next. Our doctor said that camhs was the only option but I’m hoping it’s not. Thank you for reading.

What techniques have you learnt? We use a variety of breathing exercised and an exercise called Safe Place with my anxious 9yo with some success.

There's a CBT based book for kids called What To Do When You Worry Too Much which you could work through together.

Are there specific things your dd is comforted by? When things are difficult I sit with my 9yo while she is going to sleep. It is a pain, but the alternative is worse. She has a particular blanket and soft toy, and there's a particular song I sing to her.

Are you considering whether ASD could be part of the picture here? Is the issue with clothing a sensory thing?

But I is really hard and I suspect no one has a quick solution.

Tapping therapy sleep on the Tapping Solution App - I don't know by what magic it works - it rewires the anxious brain somehow but it worked for us. 💐

Ask me anything else here if you need to.

My DD has anxiety and we initially got counselling help via her school - we found it really generic and unhelpful, like they were just ticking boxes to say they'd done something, but it was actually of very little help and all their suggestions were things we'd tried already. We ended up finding a counsellor privately who specialised in children with anxiety and found it much better - more in depth and bespoke to DD and her particular anxieties. There is no magic instant cure, but if you can afford to I would seek out a counsellor privately - ours costs £45 a session. It has been worth the money, even though we've struggled to afford it at times, but our DD has found it a big help. She still has anxiety but copes so much better with it these days and is more stable and happy - even panic attacks she takes in her stride now, whereas before we'd be up half the night and it was really truly awful. Finding a counsellor who she can trust and who can talk her through her worries and also put calming techniques in place for her when she panics could make a lot of difference over time - well, there would be no time limit on number of sessions either, you can't put a deadline on these things, it's gradual. Finding the right counsellor is key.

Also, she might find it better to have face to face sessions with a counsellor rather than virtual.

This may be way off the mark, but when my DS had anxiety around the same age about the house burning down we took him to a fire station. He got to ask all the questions he wanted and it de-mystified / de-catastrophised it for him. Needs some careful thought not to backfire but maybe loca community police might be willing to have a reassuring word??