We don't have the diagnosis, but DD9 has has missed five days of school lately due to anxiety. She also is refusing to eat a lot of food, imagining it has e coli on it, etc.
Since 2nd grade she has taken things she overhears from adults and turned them into huge worry monsters. She has some gift of eavesdropping. The problem is she won't always tell us what she's thinking, so we rarely know what's bothering her.
Apparently in 2nd grade she heard that pitch/sap on some trees can catch fire, so she'd spend entire recesses alone waiting for the trees to catch fire.
This e-coli thing got so out of hand that she refused to eat a potroast she cooked for Girl Scouts, despite it being well-done and despite my most rigorous assurances.
We've long shielded her from ugly facts because of her tendency to explode them into fear monsters and then not tell us. I wonder if maybe the opposite approach might be better, like finding a good website that fully discusses e coli, or even having her ask her pediatrician about it. Or would that backfire with her mind picking up on more ways things could hurt her?
