Does anyone else worry too much about their child?

[ilovehugs]

I was wondering if anyone out there can relate to this or give me some advice.

I have a DS aged 6 and a DD aged 4. My DD had a birth defect and needed surgery, extra care and had a pretty tough time until about three when we made some good progress with her. She needs some extra care now but allot less -basically extra support with toileting, diet management and some medications. She is doing very, very well now through. But I cannot, no matter how hard I try, stop worrying about something else being wrong with her - which I know is irrational. It isn't all the time and I am a master of hiding it because I don't want to damage her mental health. I love both my children utterly and completely but I am so much more chilled about DS. Given her past, I don't feel it is good for her to be taken to the GPs just for me to have reassurance, so I only take her when there is a real, genuine need. At the moment for example, I've noticed something with DD which both my sensible DP and I agree that we should just 'keep an eye' on. I am certain that a GP would say the same and DP, the GP & myself would not want to subject her to tests unless there was more of a need. It's situations like this that bring out this awful fear of her having something else wrong with her and ultimately loosing her - which I know is very irrational. In weak moments I end up wasting my precious spare time googling stuff, which sometimes scares the hell out of me and I know is bad. Sadly when she did have her big health issues as a baby, it was my googling - and contacting her surgeon that saved her from what would have been a MAJOR health problem - so I struggle to 'let go of the googling' :( :( She did have a hideous time as baby: Three major operations, lots of tests, painful and invasive treatments. Perhaps this is why I feel like that about her. I feel like she is such a special, beautiful, amazing little treasure of a girl - I can't bare the thought of ever having to go through ANYTHING medical with her again and this fear of loosing her is horrible and always at its worse when I am tired/pre-menstrual.
When I see/hear anything to do with critically ill children I feel physically sick sometimes.
Am I a nutter? Can anyone else relate to this? How do I stop being like this?

I don't have any suggestions but I entirely understand where you're coming from.

DS1 was 5 weeks prem and spent ten days on SCBU. He was very ill at times, loads of tubes and ventilator and so on. He made a rapid and full recovery and has been fine ever since. He is now 6.

But I am still totally terrified that something will happen to him. I still have a monitor by my bed so I can hear his breathing at night!

DS2 is 2 and I'm much less neurotic about him.

I never take them to the GP as luckily I am a GP myself, so I can tell when they're properly ill. But I can't shake off the terror that DS1 will just stop breathing one day. I guess those beeps and alarms in SCBU never truly leave you.

You're not alone!

ask for GP appt for yourself and explain to GP what you seen in DD - Gp will say if you should bring her in or not.

and you could ask GP for counsellor referral maybe just a few sessions of CBT type therapy would help you deal with the anxieties etc.

I love hugs - firstly please don't refer to "nutters" on the MH thread. I'm sure you didn't mean to cause offence, but sadly the stigma of people with mental health illness still remains, and shows no signs of abating.

It sounds like you are suffering from anxiety and the GP may be able to refer you for CBT counselling. It's a straight forward kind of theory and encourage us to stop the negative thoughts spiralling out of control, and to replace them with more balanced thoughts. There are strategies you can use to help. The NHS usually pay for 6 sessions, but there is often a long waiting list. Can you afford to pay for therapy, in which case there would be no wait, but would cost around £50 per hour dependent on where you live.

Were your own parents anxious about you being ill as a child. I ask because this is what happened to me and consequently some of that anxiety has been passed on to me. My "kids" are in their late 30s and early 40s and I still worry over them if they are ill (which they seldom are) or if I can't get hold of them on the phone, my mind can run away with me till I am organising the funeral! Being a parent is a life long sentence. The worries change of course but the intensity doesn't.

You will have to be careful to hide your anxiety from her as much as possible, to prevent passing it on to your child, and her becoming an anxious mother when it is her turn. Re Dr. Google - it is a mistake to consult him but I can well see why you do, given your past experience. I think however if you could put that down to one good experience with Dr G, and endeavour to stop yourself consulting him again. The old Family Dr books were better because you only got a para on any ilness, whereas Google will take you from beginning to end. My gr/dghtr at 2 days old had very high levels of a dangerous chemical in her blood and did not respond to the light therapy and I had googled and had "diagnosed" her with liver failure and was at the end of my tether, and was wondering if she could have my liver! Parents were worried of course, but the light therapy started to work on Day 4 and she was fine.

You can get books on CBT on Amazon so maybe you could get one of those.

'I guess those beeps and alarms in SCBU never truly leave you.'

I think mine have finally left me, after EMDR treatment from a competent psychologist who I went to see over crazy making anxiety over ds's health. He's nearly 4, disabled, small but sturdy and I had started losing the plot when he had a snotty nose, in case it was a cold, in case he then got a fever, in case he then got something serious and I was sure under all that he had leukemia...

OP I tend to restrict my googling to the NHS website as they have dry non-sensational lists of symptoms that I can use to tick off.

But yeh, under all that is this terrifying fear of losing him.

Thanks for your responses everyone.

Madmouse - Would you be able to explain to me a little bit about the EMDR treatment and if/how you managed to get it on the NHS?

'in case it was a cold, in case he then got a fever, in case he then got something serious and I was sure under all that he had leukemia...' - I can really relate to feeling like that at times. It's a horrible place to be.

Thanks again everyone. Good advice oo tre limiting the googleing to the NHS site.

I can empathize with your plight but I suffer with anxiety anyway and my two year old dh is fit and healthy. I try my best not to pass it onto him and to keep my worry to a minimum. It is hard though as I am pregnant with another baby and have had a threatened mc so that is giving me palpitations and sleepless nights. I would advise you to seek therapy but as a psychotherapist myself I would stress do not get hung up on what type. See what is available through your gp first as it will be free;and then check out the bacp website for good private therapists in your area. It is important to try and see someone who is accredited if you can as they will have more experience but at least see someone who is registered with this society or alternatively a psychologist.

I'm paying for the EMDR. I was on the NHS waiting list of CBT and just got worse and worse so with dh's blessing looked for someone privately. She happens to be a well qualified psychologist who started to suspect that all this was caused by trauma.

It is a slightly odd procedure as she will sit quite close to me and ask me to focus on a bad memory. She then helps me to name the feeling that matches the meory, eg 'helpless'. She then asks me to stay with that feeling and moves her hand quickly asking me to follow it with my eyes for about 15secs. She then asks what has come up now and I tell her and this is repeated. To my shock the worst memory I had related to ds's first 24 hours had faded to black and white after one session and it has stayed that way, filed in the past.

I have found it quite painless, if tiring. we are now using the same technique for the child abuse issues that underlie the reasons why I coped so badly with SCBU and this has at times been more painful, but it does work.

She costs £60 per hour by the way, which is not as much as some. Not something we can afford easily in the long run, but I won't have to see her for years on end and she's worth it.