Social Anxieties

Social anxieties...it has made me go gray and numb.

Madi who is our in house dictator runs her mouth at home like you wouldn't believe. She tells us what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Not that any of us comply with her demands, but that doesn't stop her from giving them. However, take her out of the home and she "transforms." That's when I just want to die.

See Madison has a lot of social anxieties and we believe it stems from her speech delay and we believe her inability to communicate as well when she was younger has resulted in the lack of confidence in a new setting. And yes we understand the whole psychological aspect of this and yada yada yada, but bottomline is that my daughter turns into a monster.

Did I not want to kill myself when we went to Chloe's birthday party at the gym. I didn't know all the parents there so I too was in a new situation. Madison was all excited that morning and got dressed and finally it was time to go. She tells Tyler that she'll be back shortly and climbs into the car, what a sweet angel. Then as we pull into the parking lot she starts..."I want to go home." GAWD! Here we go again!!! "Madi, all your friends are here and it will be fun, AND there will be cake!" "NO! I don't want to go!!!" This is where I would have to wrestle her out of the car and we walk into the gym. She enters and we drop off the gift and everyone is saying hi to Madi and everyone's nice, parents are introducing themselves...and Madi screams, "I want to go home!" and begins to kick and scream. KILL ME NOW! But then we were saved by her flavor of the month at the time. Phew!

This sets off a bunch of emails with her teacher which resulted in the following advice...write a social story before each party or new setting we are taking her to. Are you serious?!?! I have time to write a flipping story before I take her out of the house?!? Is it the water? Global warming?! Cuz I know my parents didn't have to do stuff like this with me and I never heard of this until now. Oi vay! But ok, I will give it a try.

I knew we had a dentist visit coming up so I sat down and wrote a story about going to the dentist and getting her teach cleaned...my eyes were killing me afterwards because I was rolling them so much as I was doing this. So I read her the story when we were done and we read it for a few days in preparation. And then it was that day.

We get in the car and talked about what was going to happen and that it doesn't hurt, it's just like brushing your teeth with a cool toothbrush. Great, everyone is cooperating. We walk in the office and she starts...and I seriously wanted her to punch me out.

"I hate it here! I want to go home! This stinks!" and then she begins to punch and kick the walls!!! All I wanted to do was ram MY head into the wall at this point, and right when I thought it couldn't get worse, it was my turn to check them in. Madi turns to the receptionist points her little finger in the receptionist's face and says "I don't like you!!!" OMG!!!! Now I'm apologizing profusely and she's very nice and understanding...thank god. And Madi kept going with the punching and kicking of the walls. I really thought they were going to kick us out unless they wanted that wall down anyways. So I finally shut her up and calmed her down...and it was our turn. But this time I smartened up. I told the nurse that if SHE said something to Madi that it would be more effective and she did and Madi actually did stop. Amen! We did manage to do what we needed to do and left without totally remodeling their office with Madi's bare hands and feet.

Now that she is 5 my days of wanting to die on the spot has not subsided, but for some different reasons. Don't get me wrong, she still has the anxieties and hopefully by the time she's 35 she won't be kicking down walls anymore. Kindergarten registration was a nightmare. There we were in the middle of the lobby, all these little 4 and 5 year olds all excited for kindergarten and parents around...so these are families who actually live in our neighborhood. All of a sudden Madi screams out "THIS SCHOOL STIIIIIIINKSSSSSSSSSSS!" Can you say holy shit just kill me?!?!? So it hasn't gotten much better....but her speech has definitely picked up. So her confidence level is picking up as well, this is why she's perfectly fine pointing out that someone needs to go on a diet...and this begins the next era of "just kill me now" moments.