My mother used to call fear anxiety and depression the unholy Trinity. Although she was being melodramatic when she said it, it held a lot of truth for her. She always had some of the symptoms of anxiety attacks whenever things got tough for her. There are certain things she was phobic of and, no matter how much she did try to treat them, they never quite went away. Her fear anxiety symptoms, I am sorry to say, lasted from her childhood until the day of her death.
When I raised my own kids, I vowed that nothing would give my children anxiety attacks. Sadly, there is only so much you can do as a parent. I don’t know what it is, but my youngest ended up having the same symptoms as my mother fear anxiety and depression. I was heartbroken. I thought I’d been a bad parent at first, but then one of my friends told me to wise up. He pointed out that fear and anxiety are at least partly genetic. There is only so much you can do as a parent to prevent certain conditions. What I really had to do was to get the kid treatment.
She got some relief from traditional methods. I didn’t want her to get drugs, but the doctor convinced me that anti anxiety medications would be very helpful to get the symptoms under control. Sure enough, once they were prescribed for her, she stopped having panic attacks. Then we got to the root cause of the fear anxiety. That required a lot of therapy. She went to a psychiatrist several times a week. That cost a lot of money, but it really helped her. Besides that, she started going to a children’s anxiety support group. In the long run, it worked wonders. Now she is a happy, healthy, well-adjusted kid. I am glad I stuck with her through all of it.
If you have a kid who suffers from fear anxiety, don’t waste time blaming yourself. It doesn’t so much matter who is at fault as what you can do to stop it. People now understand that fear anxiety is an extremely complicated thing. There is a genetic component, an emotional component, and a social component to it. Sorting it out can be a lot of work, but it is worth it. When you see your kids finally live panic free, you’ll know what it is to be a happy parent..
