Anxiety and motor tics

[HJBeans]

My DS (12) has a long history of anxiety which has ticked up since starting secondary and he is now having an acute period of poor health - missing school, constantly on edge / overwhelmed, startling each time he wakes up, finding normal sounds and lights too much, etc. You can see he is constantly hyper-vigilant and then physically wiped out - when he’s not at school or football he wants to sleep and sleep.

In the last few days he’s developed motor tics - mostly blinking and scrunching up his face - which have been noticed by peers. We saw the GP this morning and have an urgent CAHMS referral. He’s previously had a few sessions of private therapy, lots of school support, and lots of home support with self-help CBT materials. But the physicality of this flare-up of anxiety is like nothing I’ve seen, and the sudden appearance of tics is really hard to see.

I was wondering if anyone has had similar experiences and had any advice to help him or happy endings to share? School and GP have been great, but still feeling very alone with this.

DS had REALLY bad motor and vocal tics from the age of about 8 until 13. After that it gradually reduced and now he's in his 20s they're pretty much non-existent most of the time.

As you've realised, they are associated with stress, so anything you can do to reduce his stress will help. Do you know what it is about his school that's causing him so much stress?

When we saw CAMHS they told us to ignore the tics, never mention them and just be as supportive & loving as possible. Be assured that most children do grow out of them. Another strategy is to divert the tics onto something else that is less obvious - DS used to scrunch up his toes really hard inside his shoes or squeeze his fists together when he was at school, so it wasn't obvious to his classmates. Any relaxation technique like meditation or mindfulness might help. Or stare at a spot on the floor really hard whilst taking deep breaths.

CAMHS may make different suggestions to you, but just wanted to give you some initial ideas whilst you're waiting for the appointment.