14 year old dd feeling anxious all the time

[DorothyL]

There's no real reason, she has the physical signs of feeling anxious but doesn't reall know why. What could it be? I'm eorried about her

No real advice but my 13 year old DS is the same and I think it stops him doing things.

Sorry to hear this. Can your dd give a reason? What signs is she showing?

She feels "anxious-sick", as she calls it, but can't identify a reason. She is at a very high achieving school but is fine academically, though there's more work this year.

When is she having these feelings? At home or school?

There will be a reason she either can't pick out herself or perhaps doesn't want to articulate.

All the time, but she says it gets worse at school. I was thinking there must be a reason, but I just don't know how to help her!

I think trying to get her to open up and talk about it would be a good start. If she can start to identify what triggers her anxiety more (in the school sitiation) then you can start to look for things that will help her, like breathing exercises or taking herself away for a few minutes. Even if it's not affecting her 'functioning' at school academically, you should consider speaking to pastoral care/student support to flag it up with them. She shouldn't have to feel like this all the time.

www.youngminds.org.uk/for_parents

very helpful ime

My 13 year old DD has this too. There is nothing really wrong, although she is worse when she has a lot of schoolwork on. She had CBT privately, not sure it made much difference, but she copes with it on a day to day basis. I have also bought her a hypnosis cd for anxiety but she hasn't got far with that yet. She also spoke to the school counsellor first off, so that's somethign you could consider.

I used to have this when I was a teenager - constantly feeling sick at school. It was because I was having panic attacks but didn't know what they were, so I got it the wrong way round and thought that it was the feeling sick which made me anxious, when actually it was my anxiety making me feel sick.

Some people are anxious by nature, and this is something that potentially can be helped, but there doesn't have to be an underlying cause - there isn't with me. The problem is, that once you start having anxiety, the fear of the anxiety makes you anxious. And then it snowballs.

The most helpful thing for me was to have a small amount of power to control the situations I was in at school. Me and my parents achieved this by letting the teachers know I had a problem, and gaining agreement that if I needed, I could leave the classroom when I wanted (I too was a high achiever, so no suggestion that it was just an excuse to skive). Just knowing that I could go out if I needed meant that I was less anxious, and so I didn't need to use this tactic that often.

If my experience resonates with your dd, let me know and I can perhaps suggest some other ideas which helped me.

My dd also suffers massively with anxiety. She gets worse when her iron levels dip so I give her iron tablets. Worth a try. It's very hard to know what to do, we have ended up with school refusal and CAMHS involvement..