Since she attended high school, my daughter has been in the throes of performance anxiety. I feel hostage to this situation which consequently creates anxiety for me too.
The girl has excellent grades, but for months in the afternoon she has been staging real crises with crying and screaming for fear of not having enough time to prepare for a written or oral test. He dedicates many hours to studying even until late in the evening (even until 2 or 3 in the morning) and then in the morning when the alarm goes off at 6.00 he struggles to get up. It’s an unsustainable pace and my worry is that he’ll get sick.
During anxiety attacks, in addition to screaming in desperation, she bites her arms and just last night she said she couldn’t breathe.
My daughter started a journey with a psychologist a few months ago (about one meeting per month), but I didn’t notice any particular improvements after 10 meetings, despite being aware of the fact that it’s a long process and no one has a magic wand.
FLORENCE
Answer by Alberto Pellai
– Dear Fiorenza,
THE’performance anxiety It is a common symptom among many teenagers today. Faced with tests that the school offers and which will be evaluated, it happens that boys and girls with great competence feel overwhelmed by the fear of not making it and of not succeeding. A fear that turns into chronic anxiety: he never abandons them. And then it has explosive manifestations, such as those based on screaming and crying fits, which your daughter sometimes stages, for fear of not having enough time.
A vicious circle is then established in which anxiety makes one stay awake until late at night, loss of sleep worsens stress and prevents effective learning with a progressive worsening of the adolescent’s condition. You were right to turn to a specialist, because many behavioral aspects that you report in relation to your daughter (for example, biting her arms and screaming, losing self-control) confirm that there is a need for clinical and serious approach to his problem.
I don’t agree with the choice to have one session a month. It seems to me that given the suffering of your daughter in her daily life there is a need for one more frequent intensity sessions with the specialist. And I also recommend that the approach be natural cognitive-behavioral.
I would advise you not to become part of the problem: as you write in your letter, you are anxious when your daughter is anxious. This effect of “emotional contagion” transforms anxiety into a “cage” that traps the entire family system and therefore makes it even more difficult to overcome the problem.
Read The Teddy Bear Method. How to overcome anxiety and live happily by E. Zanelli (Ultra ed.) and try to put into practice the many tips it contains.
