Where to get support for a burned out 8 year old?

She is alternately clingy, anxious, and furiously angry

She is probably on a spiral into survival mode. 

First, I'd let go of the word Clingy - language is important. Small ducklings literally follow their parents around. All small animals hang all over their parents. It's normal in the wild. In an ideal world we'd get more than enough time with mum and dad to exit as soon as possible and maybe call on a Sunday, but that's not how the human world is designed currently. Parents work, life has exhausting demands, parents feel guilty but also depleted, kids experience separation anxiety and deal with it according to their genetics and personality. But sometimes the only person in the world who you genuinely feel connected to is a child/parent. Even in the best of situations no one seems to cope at 40 and beyond when their parents pass. It never ends. If she wants to be near you it means you're a good parent! Cruel, irresponsible parents don't have younglings swinging off them, so unfortunately, it's part and parcel :)

On her being anxious and furious - this is also a modern trend. Sensory overwhelm and Monotropism are the main things to understand.

We feel intensely - everything. And everything can seem 'too real' according to the Bayesian Model. I was startled by a squirrel today. So silly - but it has something to do with a difference in ability to predict, apparently. However, I am always calculating possibilities - which include all the ways I could die in a given moment. All the great things that could happen too. It's a normal state, but it can keep me awake at night if I don't make an effort to engage in something enjoyable like fiction or sudoku. We can't dull our senses like our peers, and we sense-perceive with a potential to become proficient, not just external but also internal emotions with a greater intensity. One thing I like to suggest with kids is maybe learn safe ways to indulge the senses and like any potential or skill, begin to use them to calculate better - and protect them as well. A fun thing here would be once a month chocolate tastings or apple tastings. Maybe an evening making shades of colour. Each degree of difference can be fascinating and it can help her recognise the enjoyable aspect of having heightened attenuation.

Monotropism is a great explanation of how we think and perceive, but the most important thing to note is interruptions are a kryptonite and this won't ever change. Help her learn to set and stick to boundaries. I describe this like waking a sleepwalker. Most likely this can be the issue with a sibling. If she's continually interrupted, it will feel like sleep deprivation torture. It will interfere with everything including the ability to grow. It seems that it has something to do with a different relationship with time and the ability to just switch into a flow-state. This has a potential as well. Getting lost in a microscope, in making music, in any observation or production: we can thrive if left to it with only occasional alarms to remind us a loo break and to eat!

Minding these few things and helping her thrive with them can lead to a much better 'flow'. 

I will say, there is a good deal of research out about the issue of GABA in Autistic individuals. I have found that Nootropics help (just a mushroom compound). Perhaps we are a 'model of human' that in a tribal setting needed less GABA so to be that alert system when danger was about. GABA is responsible for shutting down thought loops and to keep the brain from spilling from excitement into anxiety. I have found that being continually bothered until I resolve an issue has driven a creativity and a desire to learn. But, when young it's dreadful, we can't yet access physics and biology or sociology and ethics to understand how we're impacted by the world around us. 

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

I am always calculating possibilities - which include all the ways I could die in a given moment. All the great things that could happen too. It's a normal state, but it can keep me awake at night if I don't make an effort to engage in something enjoyable like fiction or sudoku. We can't dull our senses like our peers, and we sense-perceive with a potential to become proficient, not just external but also internal emotions with a greater intensity.

Have you tried mindfulness? It seems a very practical solution in your case and I found it returns a great deal of capacity to me when my mind is racing:

https://www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/

Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.

Mindfulness is a quality that every human being already possesses, it’s not something you have to conjure up, you just have to learn how to access it.

I've just seen this! I think we may not be talking about the same thing. Being IN the present also involves taking not of everything our mind is calculating or problem-resolutioning. Being in the present at night can mean paying attention to the irritating bug and the LEDs and every car/out side noise and the weight of the duvet and actively relaxing every muscle like yoga teaches us. Mindfulness as a NT practice is helpful so that the more Left-brained thinking becomes just a little more Autistic: the world around is in motion I can be still. 

Now, I prefer Mind-Full-ness as a daily practice for disciplines or for consciously going through steps which aid healthy being. Being aware that something I say can be hurtful and making the effort to consider the other. Vigilance in doing a thing I'd rather be lazy about because I will benefit. Or being mind-full and in the moment with the Mantra of One Thing At A Time: focus on the stairs while you walk up or down them because gravity exists and we have proven to be accident prone doing too much at once. 

What I was discussing here is completely different to a self-awareness / environment awareness practice, which I agree is useful. 

There is now hard science proving the brain can spiral out of control with all kinds of amazing thought if the body doesn't send up this wee 'charge' who are a bit like a resistance squad: the GABA 'unit'. They're responsible for shutting down raging all-nighters in our brain. They break it up, send everyone home to bed. And now, we've got a clever amount of papers showing Autistic and ADHD'rs have less of these 'units', less of these forces to curtail these networks lighting up like fireworks and accelerating out of control in our heads.

From a positive standpoint, being driven to think all the way through a thing can be beneficial for all of humankind. That bridge that we're building? I was up all night - it will crumble if we don't do X. The Symphony is done. The mushroom is poisonous. The argument is invalid. It's bothering me that everyone keeps jumping off a cliff. And so on. When we can't let a thing go, it can prove useful in the right environment. Now, when you don't have the grounded understanding of physics or mycology, geometry, psychology and so on, you're missing pieces of the puzzle and this stuff WILL keep you awake because of a design to potentially explore and solve which cannot be swayed by NT virtue-signalling and isn't just going along with the crowd. An analogy here would be having freedom without too many rules or suits to experiment in a lab and being the sort who cares about justice. 

When a child cannot sleep due to their design, it isn't always a moment for mindfulness according to the link you sent, though there is something to learning to problem-solve one thing a day and becoming OK with that, but that is a growth / wisdom strategy. 

Anti-anxiety medication was specifically designed to promote and improve GABA function. Because someone at Pfizer realised this was a biological factor. 

My guess is the Composer "Curse of the Ninth" could potentially be due to this kind of stress on the body. Curious if anti-anxiety medication would've helped them toward many future symphonies. Because the mind can be superior to what our biology often affords us. We need to nurture it, help educate it, and in fact - learning to write everything down we can, get it all out and then DIVERT attention before bed so we can be present with thoughts that will promote sleep is key. 

:) 

I've just seen this! I think we may not be talking about the same thing. Being IN the present also involves taking not of everything our mind is calculating or problem-resolutioning. Being in the present at night can mean paying attention to the irritating bug and the LEDs and every car/out side noise and the weight of the duvet and actively relaxing every muscle like yoga teaches us. Mindfulness as a NT practice is helpful so that the more Left-brained thinking becomes just a little more Autistic: the world around is in motion I can be still. 

Now, I prefer Mind-Full-ness as a daily practice for disciplines or for consciously going through steps which aid healthy being. Being aware that something I say can be hurtful and making the effort to consider the other. Vigilance in doing a thing I'd rather be lazy about because I will benefit. Or being mind-full and in the moment with the Mantra of One Thing At A Time: focus on the stairs while you walk up or down them because gravity exists and we have proven to be accident prone doing too much at once. 

What I was discussing here is completely different to a self-awareness / environment awareness practice, which I agree is useful. 

There is now hard science proving the brain can spiral out of control with all kinds of amazing thought if the body doesn't send up this wee 'charge' who are a bit like a resistance squad: the GABA 'unit'. They're responsible for shutting down raging all-nighters in our brain. They break it up, send everyone home to bed. And now, we've got a clever amount of papers showing Autistic and ADHD'rs have less of these 'units', less of these forces to curtail these networks lighting up like fireworks and accelerating out of control in our heads.

From a positive standpoint, being driven to think all the way through a thing can be beneficial for all of humankind. That bridge that we're building? I was up all night - it will crumble if we don't do X. The Symphony is done. The mushroom is poisonous. The argument is invalid. It's bothering me that everyone keeps jumping off a cliff. And so on. When we can't let a thing go, it can prove useful in the right environment. Now, when you don't have the grounded understanding of physics or mycology, geometry, psychology and so on, you're missing pieces of the puzzle and this stuff WILL keep you awake because of a design to potentially explore and solve which cannot be swayed by NT virtue-signalling and isn't just going along with the crowd. An analogy here would be having freedom without too many rules or suits to experiment in a lab and being the sort who cares about justice. 

When a child cannot sleep due to their design, it isn't always a moment for mindfulness according to the link you sent, though there is something to learning to problem-solve one thing a day and becoming OK with that, but that is a growth / wisdom strategy. 

Anti-anxiety medication was specifically designed to promote and improve GABA function. Because someone at Pfizer realised this was a biological factor. 

My guess is the Composer "Curse of the Ninth" could potentially be due to this kind of stress on the body. Curious if anti-anxiety medication would've helped them toward many future symphonies. Because the mind can be superior to what our biology often affords us. We need to nurture it, help educate it, and in fact - learning to write everything down we can, get it all out and then DIVERT attention before bed so we can be present with thoughts that will promote sleep is key. 

:)