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Taking the power back means changing the way we perceive the attacks and the anxiety. We see them as being life threatening, or a threat to our sanity, or as causing us severe embarrassment. There is no doubt the anxiety can cause extreme discomfort and the attacks can feel quite violent, but they are not life threatening, nor a sign of impending insanity. We may feel as though we will be significantly embarrassed, but what is embarrassment? It is a state of mind, produced by the way we think and a point I will return to shortly. We compound the disorder by continually thinking about ‘worst case scenarios’. We need to see the anxiety and the attacks for what they really are: anxiety and attacks. Nothing more.

Our thinking is so much a part of us, we don’t pay any attention to the process. Without realising it our thoughts create, dictate and control our life. All of us know the endless silent conversations, the chattering thoughts and the continual negative cycles of thinking. They roll along, carrying us with them. Yet it need not be like this. We can step in and take the power back by learning to control them. We don’t have to be dictated by them. We can dictate to them. The ‘what ifs’ and the self absorption are part of the control we all use. Although we need to let go of them, we can also learn from them. We are creating the fear by the way we think. The ‘what ifs’ and the continual monitoring of our symptoms don’t protect us or provide us with an ‘early warning system’, because they create the very symptoms we are trying to protect ourselves from.

We never take time to examine our thoughts. We don’t even realise we can. We never watch the internal world of our thoughts as it spins this way and that. We react to our thoughts without realising they are actually separate fleeting moments in time. We don’t see this separateness. Instead, we believe we have no power over the continual progression of these thoughts, and the feelings caused by them. We don’t see how our feelings can change within seconds of a change in our thought pattern. We can be calm one minute and anxious the next. Not seeing the progression from one thought to another and thus not seeing the progression from one feeling to another, makes it appear our anxiety and attacks are beyond our control. They aren’t.

Our thoughts create the fear, which creates its own symptoms. The symptoms create the ‘what ifs’, which creates further symptoms. It is not so much the original stress which perpetuates the disorder, as the stress of the disorder itself. We need to be able to see how we create this stress by the fear of what we are thinking.

We need to be in control of ourselves and our environment, yet the only thing we do not control is our thinking. We need to change this by letting go of the overall need to be in control, and control our thinking.

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If you are wondering if your child’s sleep habits qualify as a “problem,” you might want to consider the following issues. Mark each statement A (agree) or D (disagree). If yours is a two-partner family, it is helpful if both partners mark the statements separately to see how each of you feels about the situation.

     1.1 feel my child is not getting enough sleep. He is irritable during the day and shows subtle

signs of lack of sleep.

     2. My child wakes too early or goes to sleep too late.

     3. Sleep seems frightening to my child.

     4. My child wakes during the middle of the night.

     5. I wonder if my child is eating too much or too frequently.

     6. Bedtime is unpleasant for my child. She goes to bed angry, sad, over-stimulated, or

frightened.

     7. I believe an undesirable pattern may be developing.

     8. My child needs me at times that seem unreasonable to me. I fear he may be overly

dependent on me.

     9. Bedtime is unpleasant. I dread it.

    10. I usually feel deprived of sleep. I crave a night of undisturbed sleep.

    11. I need to go to bed sooner than I would like in order to accommodate an early riser or a non-sleeper.    

    12. My fatigue or anger is affecting my relationship with my child, his siblings, or my partner.

    13. The current situation feels out of control.

    14. I find myself asking, “Is my child the only one acting like this?”

    15. My child continually disturbs the rest of the family.

Some of these statements reflect the child’s behavior. Others reflect the family’s response. If you agreed with three or more, there is definitely a problem within the family system. This checklist is only a guideline. A child may show only one area of difficulty that turns the family upside down. Go back to the definition of a sleep problem. If you experience it as a problem, then it is a problem worth working on.

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Anxiety may have an effect on stuttering. The right side of the body is controlled by the left side of the brain and vice versa. In the right-handed person the left side of the brain is dominant over the right, and as a result the right hand is given preference over the left. In those who are left-handed the right side of the brain is dominant over the left. It is believed that stuttering often develops when the dominance of the leading side of the brain is incomplete, or when a potentially left-handed child is trained to function as a right-hander. We see then that stuttering results when the messages from the brain to the organ of speech are indecisive. This indecision may be further increased by the presence of anxiety. This is shown very clearly by the fact that many quite normal people show a hesitancy in their speaking or even a mild stutter when confronted with the task of speaking in some formal situation which produces anxiety.

On the other hand, some people stutter without showing or feeling much tension or anxiety at all. As a general rule these people who stutter in the absence of anxiety do not gain much help in their speech difficulty by practising relaxing mental exercises. However, the majority of stutterers experience considerable tension when they are speaking, and with them the reduction of the general level of anxiety by relaxing mental exercises is a great help toward establishing a pattern of easy normal speech.

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