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Although not diagnosed, separation anxiety falls under a Autism/Asperger's diagnosis and there's no doubt Mikey has it. He hates leaving the house. Yes, it's partly related to his computer but I can even send him to his room and he will read, play with toys and entertain himself for hours (as evidence by several sleepless nights this week that I will get into shortly).
And he also hates to be away from me or Jason, although it seems to be mostly me, I can leave him home with Jason and he's fine. But say, I walk out of the room to do laundry or something and he suddenly realizes I am not in view, he'll start calling for me, jumping up, trying to make sure I am still somewhere in the house.
You cant have anything on near him that involves crying, yelling, injury, death, etc etc. He immediately starts to freak out and even if its a movie and we try to tell him its not real, he's not satisfied. Needless to say, I read the news online because I can't play it when he's awake. He obsessed over Michael Jackson's death for weeks.
He was recently thrilled when I got on Yahoo on my new phone (I got internet free for a month) and messaged him from Walmart. Constant contact with Mommy.. what could be better?
However an area we have struggled with for SO LONG and currently is in some of its worst stages is one I never connected to separation anxiety. His sleep. It's long been an issue due to the stimulant he takes in the morning but even with the pill, he was often up way longer than we wanted, constantly calling me from the bedroom, telling me he can't sleep right away. We'd just go round and round and round till he either eventually passed out, I laid down with him or we let him come out to the couch to sleep.
On those occasion where we let him come out here in 99% of the cases he was sound sleep in minutes. After hours of arguing. Jason and I would make note of it to each other but didn't think about it much past that.
As I felt his nighttime meds were wearing off we started him on something new. It helped his appetite greatly but there were several nights he was up till 2 am or later with us fighting him the whole time. When I would finally go lay down with him, he'd fall asleep. We changed meds AGAIN and same issues. I had to keep him home from school Monday for him being up so late. But he was up just as late that night and I sent him Tuesday anyways, hoping to wear him out.
He did sleep. Around 10:30 or so. Same deal this week. Argue and fight until I laid down with him or he came out here and then BAM.. asleep.
So today I am reading more about Separation Anxiety and came across this:
Persistent reluctance or refusal to go to sleep at nighttime without being physically close to adult loved ones
Well now. Really? /smack in the forehead
So tonight I am trying an experiment. I am just going to start him off out here. I only watch tv shows one night a week so the living room will be mostly dark, only the dining room light on. I dont raid again till Monday so I wont be talking. I wanna see how long it takes him to fall asleep if I let him sleep out here to begin with.
I'll let you know how it goes.
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3 comments:
Well, that explains a lot of his behavior when spending the night with grandma and granddad. We also found that if we let him come out and lay on the couch he would fall fast asleep.
Our little guy...we love him so much.
Yes we do. I'm so sorry that you are all having such a hard time. Let us know what we can do to help. Especially with the move.
first of all LOL at *no raids til monday*
Secondly, we have had the sleep issue with Eli for YEARS. Before we moved up here, Eli had slept with me literally nearly every single night of his life. It's still a constant struggle to keep him in bed at night. And I can't tell you the nights I (and now Justin) lays down with him until he drifts off. I never would have put it together with anxiety though. Even knowing Eli's got HUGE anxiety issues same as me, I never would have put it together.
What meds is Mikey taking now? I know they're different because Eli's just ADHD, but they're probably somewhat the same. Eli takes 10mg Adderal XR in the AM and at 4pm takes 2.5 to 5 mg of regular Adderal. I hate having to give him the extra dose, but otherwise he's a hot, moody mess. He's been on the meds for about 6 weeks and has lost 15 pounds though, and Eli's never been a big kid to begin with. We've added Stattera to him at night so that MAYBE we can back off of the Adderal and get his appetite back up so he at least stops losing weight.
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