My daughter is 11 yrs. old and comes home everyday worrying about every health ailment you can possibly think of. She thinks she will get lead poisoning if her finger rubs against a pencil or ink poisoning. And the list foes on. Even when we tell her she will be ok, she still gets upset. She just started 6th grade (Middle school). So is this anxiety or just a phase? Help We haven't even reached PMS yet!!!
Thanks eveyone for the good advice. I did mention to her that there is no lead in pencils or poison in pens. We talked it over and she seems a little calmer. She finds a new health issue every day but we try to talk to her. When she's worried that's when she's really upset and scared. I tried to calm her down and will just have to get past this.
Is she worrying to the point of missing school and/of losing sleep. If not, educate her and don't worry.
If it is, talk to your pediatrician. Hormones can throw emotional equilibrium out of whack and if it's affecting her life, it might need to be rebalanced.
Just a thought but it could be OCD.
What Is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
Everyone feels anxiety, fear, uncertainty, or worry at some time. These normal emotions and reactions help people protect themselves, stay safe, and solve problems. Usually these feelings don't last long and don't come too often.
But for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), these feelings are taken to extremes. It's as if the brain's filter for sorting out what's dangerous from what's not dangerous isn't working properly. Instead of keeping normal worry in perspective, there is a constant stream of uncertainty, doubt, or fear in the person's mind.
OCD is a type of anxiety disorder. People with OCD become preoccupied with whether something could be harmful, dangerous, wrong, or dirty — or with thoughts about bad stuff that might happen. With OCD, upsetting or scary thoughts or images, called obsessions, pop into a person's mind and are hard to shake.
People with OCD also may worry about things not being "in order" or "just right." They may worry about losing things, sometimes feeling the need to collect these items, even though they might seem useless to others.
People with OCD feel strong urges to do certain things repeatedly — called rituals or compulsions — in order to banish the scary thoughts, to try to ward off the bad thing they dread, or to make extra sure that things are safe or clean or right. By doing a ritual, someone with OCD is trying to feel absolutely certain that something bad won't happen.
****Sometimes the obsessions and compulsions seem to be related to each other. For example, if a person with OCD has obsessions (worry thoughts) about germs and about getting sick, these might be accompanied by compulsions (urges and behaviors) to wash a lot, clean things, or try not to touch things that might be germy.*****
But sometimes the compulsions don't seem to have anything to do with the fear a person is trying to banish. Someone with OCD might get the idea that if things aren't arranged just so on a desk, someone they love could get sick or die. Many times, the rituals seem odd even to the person with OCD. For this reason, many people with OCD try to hide their symptoms from others.
Although people with OCD feel a brief sense of relief when they do a compulsion, the compulsions actually strengthen the OCD thoughts, encouraging them to return. The more someone does the compulsions, the stronger the illness becomes.
When OCD is severe, the obsessions can be extremely distressing and rituals can take up hours of a person's day. But for someone with OCD, resisting the urge to do compulsions can be very difficult.
I was the exact same way!!! I still freak out and its because we are scared of getting sick. We are hypocondriacs and there is really nothing you can do about it. Listen to her and comfort her. Educate her that you cannot get this from that. I think mine really started around middle school. It wasn't so bad in high school as i realized i wouldnt get lead poisoning but granted if i stabbed myself with a pencil I would watch for red streak marks but it wouldnt be a freak out. But so far I have had every ailment possible, never diagnosed :)
I've seen that kids like that do tend to have anxiety issues. Maybe you could start with the school counselor?
I would talk to her about her fears. Has she had health class? Can you have her pediatrician talk to her? My SD went through a phase (when her mom was dieting) that she had to measure and insepect all her food. We just encouraged her to eat well and eat a variety and get good sleep and exercise and that she'd be fine. We told her that she didn't need to have reference books at the table for portion control. She can start with less and get seconds if she wanted. Etc. Tried not to feed into it. 11 is an age where they start to get a better understanding of the world, see things from a new POV.
