Real life experience of stress

For today’s post I thought I’d break things up a little. We’ve been pretty focused on the more technical aspects of stress and it’s probably a good idea to give you a general picture of how all this looks in the real world. So I’m sharing a personal story of one woman’s experience of stress. Julia is a wife and a mother of two boys, one of whom has special needs. She shares one of the biggest stressors she faces in providing the extra care her son’s needs demand, and some of the strategies she has discovered that work for her. Julia is about to launch her own brand new blog at the end of this week and would love to connect with some new readers. Below her article you’ll find a short bio and the link to her blog, which you can access this Saturday, November 15!

As you read, see if you can apply some of the theory we have been discussing over the past 11 days by identifying how Julia’s limbic system reacts to the stressful experience. If you can identify some of Julia’s stress responses, we’d love to hear your comments!

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What better time to write about stress than when I’m right in the middle of a stressful situation.

Every Saturday night it happens. My husband goes to work at 4.30pm and comes home around 1am… This means I have to get my son to bed and asleep on my own. Let me just say IT IS NOT A FUN EXPERIENCE. Remy who is 8 in 2 weeks has Autism, ADHD and a moderate global developmental delay and he is a classic Autism/ADHD kid when it comes to sleep time. His brother, Xavier is 10 in a month and is quite good with the whole bed time thing although does like to try it on when I have to deal with it all by myself.

I myself have issues with stress and anxiety anyway and this situation really doesn’t help the matter. I’m not very good at handling stress although I am trying to learn some ways to cope better. If I don’t I think my head will explode.

So anyway, back to bed time. Remy is a night owl at the best of times but he can play quietly most nights until he falls asleep on his own or we just switch everything off and he has no choice but to close his eyes. Then there are other nights, and it always happens on a Saturday night, where he is absolutely beside himself with hyperactivity. He’s non-stop talking, walking around the house, kicking, moving things, you name it, if it’s annoying and keeping people awake he’ll be doing it. I try everything to get him to listen and get to bed or to be calm and try to get him to understand that its quiet time now but he carries on regardless.

It’s partly bad behaviour and partly having no control over his body once he’s gone past a certain point, and partly not fully understanding how to or why he needs to calm down and sleep. No matter what it is, by the end of the night I’m usually in tears, heart beating rapidly, yelling, and calling my husband begging him to come home early from work.

What do I do to cope? Well, not much at the moment. When I’m in the heat of a stress attack I can’t even think of anything else. However, here are some things I’ve tried to implement into my life to help me be a calmer person in general

1. Stretch and core exercises each morning for about 10 minutes. It’s like my version of meditation. I’m not good at sitting still for long but stretching relaxes me and I love doing it. I feel energised afterwards as well which helps.
2. Box breathing, the problem with this one is that my concentration span is quite short so I get over it pretty quickly. I am trying to train myself to be relaxed and just be still for about five minutes at a time.
3. When I’m in the heat of a stressful situation I try to take deep breaths and really think about whether or not this is something to get so worked up about. If he’s sitting at the computer at 10pm is it really a bother if he’s occupied and quiet. I am learning to pick my battles. It helps.
4. I am learning that if I am calm then he responds differently. It’s very hard to do but I’m practicing.
5. I have been reading a little bit about being ‘present’, in the moment. It’s difficult in this very busy life we all have and my ADHD brain but it’s definitely worth practicing.

Things we’ve tried in the past to get him to go to sleep

1. Melatonin, a natural medication that mimics the natural hormone the body produces to signal that it’s tired and needs rest. This worked but only sometimes. It wasn’t consistent enough.
2. Bedtime routine: This has been hard because Remy is set in his ways and if we try to introduce something he doesn’t like then he gets very worked up and makes things worse anyway.
3. Classical music. Remy loves music but when I tried to introduce classical music for bed time he would sob uncontrollably. I found out pretty quickly that he has a very emotional response to music. He said to me one day “no music bed time, so sad song mummy”
4. Magnesium and herbal tea in juice. This one is still in experiment mode. I have to make sure the tea is cold then mix it into the juice with the magnesium powder. He has to drink it out of a drink bottle because he won’t drink it if he can smell it. It does relax him a little bit but we haven’t been using it long enough to know if it will be consistent or not.
5. Tranquiliser gun…. Just kidding, put down the phone, but don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind once or twice.

It is very hard to stay angry and upset when, once he starts to calm down, he looks up at me with his big brown eyes and says “mum, I sowwy I be naughty for you” awwww, melts my heart! NOT GOOD, have to stay strong and not cave in.  Sometimes calmness doesn’t kick in until 2 in the morning.

Bed time isn’t our only stressful situation when it comes to caring for Remy but it has to be the one that affects me the most.

Those big brown eyes I can’t say no to. “I sowwy I be naughty for you”

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 I am a Mum of 2 boys. Remy who is 8 has ADHD, Autism and a moderate global developmental delay (thats what they call it when they don’t know what else to call it). He’s amazing and sees the world in a different way, we learn from him all the time. My oldest is 10, Xavier, my little sports star and all round good kid. My husband of 8 years and myself are doing life together trying to figure this whole thing out.

One day I was sitting with a group of Mums from Remy’s support class and we laughed and cried and told stories for hours. We needed it, needed someone else to say, yes I feel like that too, yes my kid does that too, and then it hit me… other families need to hear this stuff too. Not everyone has other people around them to talk to or make them feel like their thoughts and feelings are valid and valued.

So that’s why I’ve decided to start this blog and put together a book for families just like ours. So check out my site and if you would like to share your story then let me know via the site and send me your email address. You can find me at http://www.detourahead.info/