DD "hearing voices"

[wordsandmusic]

Hi, I haven't posted on here for ages as life has been hectic.... But I'm at a real loss about what to do to help my dd (aged 4) and would be grateful to hear from anyone who's experienced similar...

A bit of bakground: Ds (aged 6.5) has Aspergers and dyspraxia. DD has some similar traits, which are becoming increasingly noticeable, and also some extra ones of her own, so was planning to go to GP and get a referral. I'm especially keen to get some help/advice/support before she starts school, which I think she'll find difficult to cope with. In summary, she has no friends/no real interest in peers, was totally overwhelmed at nursery, has very high anxiety levels, big meltdowns about nothing, loves sums and numbers, has quite unintelligible speech (still can't make lots of speech sounds) although very advanced vocab/sentence structure etc.

Anyway, over the last few weeks, she's started to tell me she hears voices in her head - she usually mentions it at bedtime but she says they're always there. They seem to say a few set phrases, which come from scary dreams or sometimes from books. I'm trying not to make a big deal of it but it seems to be really worrying her. "When will my voices go away" etc etc. Anyone experienced anything like this? Any ideas what it could be (just anxiety?) or how I can help her?

psychosis does VERY rarely occur in children - please get her checked out by a consultant shrink - NOT a psychologist/support worker or any other wanna be expert as this is potentially very serious but utterly treatable.

Hi, thanks so much for replying and for your advice. Polter, I know what you mean about what the voices are saying - at least they're not telling her to do bad things....

But the level of anxiety seems really disproportionate - and I'm just not sure why she's experiencing life like this at the moment... To be honest, she doesn't have much scary in her life - ds is pretty immature for his age so he's still on Cbeebies etc, and no computer games. But I guess she might well be scared by some of ds's meltdown-type behaviour. She has really disturbed sleep - crying out, obviously having scary/anxious dreams, but usually about mundane things (eg arguing with her brother - rather than monsters etc).

I will check out the book - the "What to do when you dread your bed" worked really well with ds.

Bochead, who do you think I should ask to see - any consultant psychiatrist? Or somebody who specialises? Any recommendations really welcome - happy to pay if we need to, though any NHS recommendations even more welcome. We are in the south east and (I think) should be able to request a referral to London.

Thanks again for your replies.

Just to reassure you that voices in psychosis are extrinsic voices, so are heard outside the head, like they are hearing a person talk. Intrinsic voices are usually a manifestation of anxiety, rather than a psychotic illness.

Maudsley childrens department - even if only for a reassuring chat.

Or - The Bethlem children's department out at West Wickham. nearest train station = Eden Park. be warned tho- referrals to there are like gold dust or a lottery win.

She's not on any medication is she?

DS1 (not SEN) used to hear a voice in his head (who he thought was God) 24 hours a day telling him to kill himself. Like your DD he had very disturbed sleep and used to ask me when the voice would go away.

Eventually this was linked to a prescribed medicine he was taking. Some medicines can cause depression / anxiety / suicidal thoughts etc in a very small % of cases, so it's worth checking this out.

Pencil thanks very much for your reply - she's not on any medication. Thanks for the recommendations Bochead - seeing GP on Weds so I'll see how we get on...

Is she waking in the night? It might be a simple thing such as getting hungry or needing the loo that then manifests itself into a 'wake me up' dream - where you have a nightmare because your body needs to be woken up for some reason.

Make sure she has enough slow-release food before bedtime and goes to the loo before bed. At least to eliminate that from the equation. Of course it might be something else.

If she has just started school that can often upset a child and give them the terrors. You are right to consider the impact of DS's meltdowns on her, not sure what you can do about it but it might help to try and explain to her how he really feels inside and that it seems worse from the outside.

Thanks horsetowater. She does wake in the night - though often in a not-really-awake sort of way, in which I can neither wake her nor get her back to sleep. I do think she's often in physical discomfort when she wakes - she has a reflux problem, which is a whole other story... But there is a lot of anxiety too - both in the kinds of things she's saying when she wakes and also in her behaviour the rest of the time.

She hasn't started school - she was at nursery until xmas - had a horrible time and it certainly increased her anxiety levels. I couldn't keep forcing her to go so so we're currently having a break from it all. I'm aware not everyone will agree this was the right decision but had just been through a terrible few months of school refusal with my ds and did not want to repeat it with my dd, who was then only three. Ds is now absolutely loving his new school so I know that if the setting isn't right it can really make a difference. Sorry - rambling off-topic again

Thanks for all your guidance on this.

Perhaps she's still recovering from what happened at nursery. It's only been 3 months.