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Panic?

Lau

Hi all,

Looking for a bit of advice again in a recent change in my 5 year old.

It’s been going on since June.

He’s not able to be in a room alone. He initially starts to shouts where are you over and over when he can’t see me, I may be In the kitchen bathroom etc I will respond back to him Mummy’s in…. He will say he’s scared and run to where ever I am and not leave my side. If I was to have a shower he waits sitting on floor for me to finish. If I’m cooking meals he will sit on the kitchen floor.

At night time when he wakes up the panic is so much more heightened. When he wakes His body is shaking, he is soaked through his clothes with sweat and he’s is totally panicked. He can’t even move off of the bed to come for me. It’s takes around 10-15mins to settle him and sometimes up to an hour before he’s completely calm again, 

If I wake to use the bathroom or go drink water etc he panics and comes with me. 


Each night it seems to get worse and im lost at what to do.

We have a night light projector and I’ve had to leave the bed room light on and leave the door open and the hall light on. I’ve resorted to Buying a new baby monitor that way I can hear him as soon as he starts to cry as it’s difficult to hear with him being upstairs. He also take melatonin it it’s never fully worked.

  • If the melatonin isn't working, I would stop giving it to him - it will interfere with heart rate. Waking up sweating can be a sign of the body detoxing. This will happen with alcoholism or other substances when the body is trying to re-balance. 

    Most likely, the reason he's not sleeping isn't because his body isn't producing melatonin, but for autistics, it can be because the hyper-active Monotropic brain isn't being shut down by GABA properly or the brain isn't being properly exhausted. just like physical exercise, we need mental exercise - concepts beyond our capacity. It can be especially hard for highly intellectual young children who've yet to gain the fundamentals of physics, maths, biology and so on. But most of us have a natural ability to calculate all probable outcomes. You may want to start to just listen to his if he can communicate them with vocabulary. If not, maybe he can draw all the outcomes. 

    This is coupled with the Bayesian Theory that life is a bit 'too real' - nothing is controllable and happening in the moment. The autistic and right-brain thinking defaults to Time as momentary and eternal. Not linear. So learning to plan can be excruciatingly difficult for us. This default to time can be incredibly useful, as linear Left brained individuals are always trying to learn to be in the moment, we need to learn how to work with linear time. And then recognise the strength of each. 

    However, in your situation, and given the world is not something we can control, anything can be anything at any given moment, It might be important to affirm this and then find something he can use or engage with as a stabilising element. Autistics tend to be more in-tune with our physical environment while Non-Autistics with social. And social can be more predictable than physical. 

    My son just slept in the same room until he decided to stop. I just let him grow at his pace. Now he's 26 and loves sleeping on his own, his own space and so on. He has some autistic traits, but is dyslexic. His girl friend is ADHD and they've had to work out that a king size bed will work for them as he now would prefer to a whole space to himself! 

    If it's interfering enough, I'd get a blow up bed and pop it into your room until he is passed this phase as it may suit everyone. It actually isn't natural for humans to be so segregated. Sleeping is an actual vulnerable engagement. Most mammals do not do this alone.  In many countries, the family sleeps together and kids are potentially healthier for it. As it is proven isolation will damage us, and any animal will naturally sleep with their parents until they were ready to head off into the wild on their own :) 

  • *Prior to June, he slept with the door closed & light off and when he would wake he would get off the bed and open the door then shout for me.