My 4.5 year old has been on a steady downhill spiral for the last couple of months. To take things back to the beginning, she was a super difficult baby- terrible sleeper, tantrums, separation anxiety since birth and basically screamed constantly from birth until around 2.
From 2 onwards she really mellowed out but has always been a bit of an introvert.
The last few months her anxiety is really hindering her life- she's been unable to go to pre school the last two weeks despite having gone since the age of 2 and never cried. She cries during swimming lessons and refuses to try anything that the other children are doing and she is afraid of everything. We can't go for walks because she's physically shaking and trying to climb my leg due to dogs, she gets distressed if one of us doesn't close the door properly, she gets obsessed by her fingers getting wrinkly in the water and starts panicking in the bath. She also sits on my lap and cries through every single party we've been to this year. It's loads of these things that are just accumulating and making life really difficult and I'm starting to worry about her starting school in September.
She's a January baby, very competent and able to do almost everything herself. She acts like a 5/6 year old and most of the people she resonates with are children 1 or 2 years older than her.
She is physically very capable and has great spatial awareness, speech and logic. She does really well 1-1 with friends she knows but as soon as that friend starts interacting with another child she spirals and sits on my lap crying. Does not make new friends easily and selectively mute around people she doesn't know.
A lot of things are floating around my head and I'm starting to wonder if she may be autistic or on the spectrum somewhere. I think if I knew, I'd be able to support her and maybe speak to the school about it. I guess I just don't know if this kind of behaviour warrants a GP visit or would I be laughed out the room?
I'm 99% sure I'm also on the spectrum somewhere but I've masked all my life- and it's been absolutely exhausting. So I guess that's why it's on my radar. My husband is the most NT person I've ever met! Any advice with this sort of thing would be amazing!