Therapy #2

We saw the counselor last week and I forgot to write about it. We met with her as a group for about 15 minutes and then she spent the rest of the time with Ariana 1-on-1. Her goal is to help us teach Ariana tools on how to effectively manage anxiety/stress/fear. At this point, we have nothing. We try to talk her down when she's in a state of anxiety or fear, but it takes a while if we can get through to her at all. Thankfully, things don't escalate very often but when they do...watch out.
The counselor is concerned that if Ariana doesn't figure out how to deal with this that she could potentially develop an anxiety disorder or even OCD later on in life. Which is one of my greatest fears and something we want to avoid for obvious reasons.

The pain of not being able to help your child sucks. Plain and simple. To not know what to do to help her, or comfort her. To have her get "in a mood" and have tempers & patience tested. Things are extremely stressful at the moment in our lives and that doesn't help this situation at all. There are moments I feel like she will never eat again, even though the counselor is hopeful this can be resolved in a short amount of time. I'm tired of fighting with Ariana over little things. Things that will probably always be an issue for her. Picking out clothes and getting dressed is an issue. Some days it's smooth as a baby's bottom and other days it's like Hell just ripped open and some demon inhabited my child. Not in a scary demon kind of way, but in a way that she can't control frustration, etc.

I just want her to fucking eat. The counselor does not want us to talk about it with her, and to keep it low key. We're trying, but it's really damn difficult.

Next appointment is tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have something to come home with technique-wise.