Meet Jake Anthony: Separation Anxiety, Reaction to Medicine or a Little of Both???

For some reason, I've always thought of "separation anxiety" as something that only happens during the infant and toddler ages. Ironically, Jake never really suffered from it and instead, has always been really good at transitions, especially between people who were very close to him (for example, staying with his Aunt Bear while I go to see a Broadway Show with my mom for her birthday). As a matter of fact, I often thought "wow, I don't think he even misses me when I leave" because I would typically get a "running away kiss" (the kind where you have to grab what you can get because they're already running to the other person) and barely a "bye momma" as I was leaving. I always took comfort in the fact that he felt that secure and safe and that he never worried that I wouldn't return or that he wouldn't be safe with whoever I left him with.

Well, that was then and this is now and now he's 5 (about to be 6 in 2 months) and now, is a whole different story... Over the past six weeks or so, Jake has had some really difficult times at school. He's been in varying degrees of "trouble" ranging from the not so atypical (for his age) not listening days to actually hitting/kicking/pinching other children. The worst incident resulted in him being sent home from school. (YES, sent home!! His mommy definitely lost countless nights sleep over that one.)

This happened to coincide with a span of time when I was traveling a little more than usual for work, but since this has not been an issue in the past, I wasn't really thinking this had much to do with it. That is, until I left for a course at Harvard where I had to be gone almost 6 days...definitely the longest I've ever been gone. During that week, Jake was literally in trouble at school EVERY SINGLE day. By Thursday, things were so bad that after having absolutely no luck trying to reason with him (AKA... me talking, him not listening) where he was basically inconsolable on the phone, I called my assistant and had her book me an immediate flight home that same night.

I didn't arrive from Boston until almost midnight and he was, of course, fast asleep already. As I stood there by his bed and rubbed his hair, he opened up his eyes groggily, closed them, then opened them quickly again and reached out to touch my face...almost as if to see if I was really there. When he realized I was indeed there, he jumped up and into my arms and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed while wrapping himself tightly around me. I held him all night long and he finally fell back to sleep while I lay there struggling to figure out what was going on???

My mom suggested I talk to my cousin Michael's wife, Mahsa, who works professionally with adults and children (as a psychologist or psychiatrist out in CA) and during the conversation we started to piece the whole thing together. During the prior weeks, there had been some unusual things that had happened that I hadn't really put together. First, Jake had a very bad nightmare that Nanny had died. He cried the next day as he told me that he didn't want Nanny to die and although I tried to reassure him that Nanny wasn't sick, you could see that he was still very scared about it.

A few days later, we were leaving his piano lesson and out of the blue he said to me "momma, I don't want you to get married". I actually had to laugh at first because I would imagine that I'd have to even have some time to date and then someONE to actually date for that to even be a remote possibility, so I wasn't sure where this had come from! LOL But then I realized he was very serious, so I asked him why he didn't want me to get married? He said that he just didn't and that he didn't want to share me. Then, while we were riding down in the elevator, he said, "Momma, if you do get married, can Nanny and I come with you?" At first I thought he was asking about the honeymoon or something, but then quickly realized he was asking if he could come and live with me or if I would leave him behind???? Needless to say, this came as quite a shock to me!!! Once again, I tried to reassure him that we are a "package deal", but he still seemed worried.

Next, he progressed to a very bad nightmare where he refused to talk about what happened in the dream and all he would tell me was that I had died, but nothing else. Then, while driving home after finding out about yet another incident at school he had a complete and total meltdown...he started crying, yelling, kicking the seat and all of these things started pouring out of his mouth..."you wish you didn't have a child, you wish you had another child, a good child, you want to send me away, you want to give me away, you think I'm "bad", you're sorry you have me, you're disappointed in me, you're mad at me, you don't love me, you're going to make me live with someone else..." and on, and on, and on. No matter what I said, he wouldn't listen to me. Needless to say, it SCARED THE CRAP out of me!!!!!!!!!!!

When Mahsa and I discussed all of this, she felt as thought he was definitely experiencing some sort of extreme separation anxiety and that he didn't feel safe/secure. She asked if I spend time with him "one on one" and I had to laugh because anyone who knows me knows that I literally have NO life without Jake!! I have work and Jake and that's it. Anything I do outside of work, whether with family or friends or both ALWAYS includes Jake. I have no personal hobbies, nothing I do just for me, nothing other than my time at work that keep me from Jake. And most of our time IS spent one on one or involved in one of his many activities...gymnastics (where I stand and watch), piano (where I sit in on the lesson and watch), t-ball (where I'm there cheering), etc.

However, I did have to admit that I often times find myself trying to "multi-task" while with Jake. Let's be honest, Nanny takes care of all of us the 2-3 days she's at our house, but the other days, I do have things that I have to get done...pay bills, wash dishes, cook, clean up, get stuff ready for school/work, etc. And I know that at times, he can tell/feel that I'm not 100% with him, even when I am with him, especially when my work bubbles over into early mornings and late nights. So, I've made a commitment to be more "in the moment" when I'm with him and that seems to be making a big difference (so far).

This week and last week, Jake basically had a GREAT day EVERY day at school. As I was thinking about the possible reasons for this remarkable improvement, I realized that the trouble began exactly when his allergies had flared up (badly) and I started to give him allergy medication both in the morning and at night. Now, Jake has had issues with certain cold medications in the past where they made him edgy and aggressive and so we avoid those (like the plague). That was a long time ago (I know, how long ago could it have been since he's only 5 right?), and considering how BAD (and I mean BAD) his allergies were I didn't really think about it before giving him the medicine. Coincidentally, the trouble stopped exactly when we stopped giving him the medicine. And (a BIG, HUGE knock on wood happening here) we haven't seen any signs of that kind of behavior since.

So, question is, could this truly be a coincidence or could it have been a reaction to the allergy meds??? I can tell you this...we won't be running any controlled experiments to find out!!!!! For a while there, I was wondering if we were both going to require a lifetime of therapy. LOL (OK, I can almost laugh about it now, but was truly on the verge of a nervous breakdown a few weeks ago)

Here are a couple of pics from our recent trip to Punta Cana and some from t-ball, which he LOVES this year and is actually doing really, really well!! (And of course, looks so cute in his blue uniform!!)