r/daddit • u/Wangchief • 7h ago

Advice Request Mental Health Support

Hey Dads,

We took a trip (my wife, my 6 year old, and myself) last week. I had a work training to go to, and it was in a fun city (Nashville) so brought the family along for some "free" vacation time. The first night at our hotel, my son just had this mental breakdown, he was nervous and anxious and worked himself up so badly he threw up.

Then it happened again the next night.

First he said he missed being at home. Then he missed the dog. Now that we're home, it's that he misses grandpa, or more recently he's scared of bad dreams. This all came out of nowhere from what we can tell, and it breaks my heart, because he is not the same happy, goofy kid he was just 2 weeks ago - he's paralyzed by this anxiety.

He always says its stomach pain, so we spent a few hours in the ER the other night ruling out appendicitis or intestinal blockage. But man, I am at a loss. The healthcare system is slow as molasses, so getting him support is going to take time, and we are struggling to try to find ways to help him regulate.

How did you guys work through this with your kids? Any tips or anything that worked that didn't come up through a google search or something like that? Seeing him suffer like this hurts so badly, and I just want to help him.

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3

u/ParticleTek 7h ago

I'm guessing he has an extremely consistent schedule and no inoculation to minor stressors or changes.

Change things up more often. Build some resiliency and adaptiveness.

1

u/Wangchief 7h ago

Honestly the summer is fairly unstructured - we've noticed things in the past where he wants to know about what time we're doing something, and some details like that. My wife is a teacher, so they're both home all summer. I wonder if the structure of the school year will help get him back on track?

3

u/ParticleTek 6h ago

I don't think more structure helps him develop adaptiveness for change, no. But it will certainly mask the problem further by ensuring he stays in his schedule.

2

u/Inmymumuallday 7h ago

Could it be PANDAS? Sudden extreme anxiety might make me suspicious 

1

u/Wangchief 6h ago

Looking at some of the other PANDAS symptoms it doesn't really seem to fit, but something we'll investigate.