Raising a Child with Anxiety

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, while expecting a different result.
Sometimes I wonder what it means when you do the same thing every morning and always experience a different result.  That's what it's like parenting a child with Anxiety.
We never know what will set her off.  Some days are perfectly fine.  Other days?  Other days the wrong person woke her up.  Or I sat on her right side instead of her left.  Or...or we don't know because she can't talk.  She can only gasp for breathe between hysterical sobs and refuses to let me touch her.
She's doing well now.  "What are you doing differently?" her doctor asks.
"Nothing," I tell them, with a helpless shrug.
"There must be something," they tell me.  I think they're trying to be reassuring.  It isn't working.
The best I can tell, there is a cycle to anxiety.  I don't know how it works, exactly.  I'm not sure anyone does.  But as far as I understand she views the world in black and white, there's right and wrong.  She envisions a scenario, works out the kinks and plays it out.  She can adapt some days, when she feels quick on her feet.  And other days?
Other days, she hides under the pillows.
It's enough to drive a parent crazy.  And the worst part?  The worst part is asking for help.  Because there is still a stigma.  You must be doing something wrong.  We go over and over every moment of the day, every reaction, every pitfall.  We stress about every problem in our household.  (Although we realize there is nothing we can do to change the fact that she needs to share her room, or our financial standing, or choices we've made in the past, somehow it doesn't change the guilt) We talk about rewards and punishments, which only work when she decides they will and only bring us all to tears when she's too far gone to care.  (But consistency is key, they tell me.) 
On second thought, the worst part is the toll it takes on the family. Our other child can't help but feel the stress and act out.  I can recognize that she's acting out, but it's hard to convince her of that.
Raising a child with Anxiety isn't for the faint hearted.  It's not about reassurance or being patient.  It's about being ready for anything.  One day I say "Time for shoes," and she laughingly waves her be-shoed feet in the air, proud to have beat me to the punch.  Another day I say "Time for shoes," and she hides under a table.
But there are rewards too.  The snuggles and sweet whispers, the whispered stories, the innocent indignation.  She'll surprise us by washing her own dishes (but only her own, that's only fair) when the dishwasher goes out.  Or put hours of work into a surprise.  
We're proud of who she is, even when we're struggling to help her learn how to function in society.

Dropping the Donkey

Aesop has a fable about a miller and his son who take a donkey to the market.  Along the way, they receive repeated criticism and advice for their handling of the donkey.  In the end, the donkey falls into a river and floats away. 
Some days I can really relate to that miller. 
With the food allergies and the migraines, I kept circling back to square one, but at least I felt in charge.  We were solving a puzzle.  Most of the pieces fell into place under the headings of either "corn" or "gluten". 

I still deal with the whole donkey-in-the-river scenario sometimes.  I feel like I need to use mind over matter to deal with symptoms rather than the simple (and sometimes not so simple) act of avoidance.  It's not entirely rational, but I spent a long time working with professionals on the premise that my symptoms were just stress related.  Just because they aren't doesn't undo that work.  

You'd think I'd have learned. 
The trouble is, when you are in over your head, you turn to others for advice.  Sometimes, you get lucky and stumble into people who know the best next steps.  And sometimes, you don't. 
This is what seems to have happened to us with Bumblebee. 
We've spent 4 years working with professionals who felt that labels hurt kids.  That anxiety is rational.  That we, as a family, were doing something wrong. That we needed to really think about it.  That we should analyze our actions. 
We've been told to and tried rationalizing, bribing, and taking away priviliges.  We've tried encouragement and sticker charts and good-will offerings.  We've tried starving her into verbalizing if she won't touch dinner, and we've tried being a family of short order cooks.  We've stood firm.  We've given in.  All on the advice of others because what we were doing wasn't working. 
It turns out that rather than getting advice on how to TREAT anxiety, I should have been learning about how, exactly, Anxiety Disorders work.  (And it is worthy of those capitals, believe me)  Because the current belief is that they aren't rational, by any stretch of the imagination.  There isn't control over her feelings and since those feelings are overwhelming, she didn't have control over where they led her. 
By treating her like she did have control, or bending over backward to 'compromise' and then being frustrated at her refusal to cooperate; we've got a child who's no longer in tears.  She's angry, she's sullen, she doesn't want to treat us with respect because she doesn't feel respected.  She put up with food allergies, and dietary mayhem for years.  And us?  When she felt 'sick' we dragged her off and abandoned her at school, where she was overwhelmed and didn't have the tools she needed to deal with those feelings.  It doesn't matter that I was dying inside each day I left her, or that everyone told me it was the right thing to do.  To her, what matters is that she felt alone and overwhelmed.  And then once in awhile, she is terrified and needs us again...and at the same time, she hates us for being needed. 
Rather than getting her through with our own problem solving techniques, we asked for advice.  And based on the results, I feel like I'm watching my daughter floating down the river on Aesop's donkey. 

The good news is, we're no longer looking for what's wrong with us.  We aren't hunting in the dark for a magic cure.  There isn't one.  We just need to fish that donkey out of the river, dry her off, and set off again.  And maybe this time, we'll make it to market unscathed.