Relaxation and Anxiety

We think we have found a connecting link between many of the issues Cpc deals with. Warning, what follows is probably TMI for most. But for our sakes I want to record it!

In the past two weeks we have finally been able to get him back to mostly dry underwear. We are so proud of how diligently he is trying. We're pretty sure he's dealing with a combination of bladder spasms (overactive bladder) and failure to completely empty his bladder. The latter being the only thing we can really do much about, it's been what we've been working on.

The thing is, the typical recommendation on this is to have him sit on the toilet for a while. Well, for months we thought this wasn't the issue, because even when we'd have him sit there for an hour he could pee his pants ten minutes later. However, I recently tried having him go potty, go do ten jumping jacks, and come back to go again. Ta-da! Then I discovered I can have him do this 6-7 times in a row and he can still get more out each time. Furthermore I discovered when he goes pee, he tightens his entire body, not just his bladder.

Back when he was having serious sleep issues we would get so frustrated because as soon as that "sleepy" feeling hit, he would tense up and wiggle his whole body. From a few months old he literally couldn't relax his body to go to sleep, even after hours of screaming, even when he was clearly exhausted. It wasn't until we gave him Melatonin for the first time that we saw his body relax before falling asleep.

His entire life, when he has gotten hurt and needs comfort, he won't let me cuddle him. At those times he just can't relax into a cuddle.

After playing hard for hours, he didn't ever just lay down with exhaustion to let his body recover.

When dealing with emotional struggles, he cannot relax his brain enough to work through them, with or without my help. Timeouts and laying in bed do not seem to help him remove himself from the situation enough to calm down. An emotionally turbulent situation can keep him upset for above an hour.

These are all things that have led us at times to wonder if he has Aspberger's. However, there are so many clear signals that this isn't the case. He LOVES cuddling at other times, he has lots of inflexion in his voice, he doesn't have some obsession with some topic, and he doesn't do any lining up toys or repetitious activities.

I am grateful to have found this connective link. With sleep and potty training, it has already helped us to identify ways to help him. We still have work to do on the potty training. He Stays dry most days if we don't count quiet time, and he stays dry from the time we put him to bed until we take him and Cdc potty before we go to bed. He's also stopped waking up soaked in the morning (which was happening no matter what diapering product we tried). Laundry has finally significantly decreased!

He clearly deals with quite a bit of anxiety. He has a hard time staying dry when we are getting ready for a trip, or while we are on them in certain situations. There are a lot of puzzle pieces there we are trying to put together. He also tells us he doesn't want to go to horse-riding even though he LOVES it. He seems to get pretty nervous about new people, or people he's not quite used to yet. He'll even act somewhat shy. At least this isn't too abnormal for his age!

We are proud of the progress he is making on this as we talk about it, and how he continues to push through his struggles!