My child is very intense, sensitive, internal.... always thinking, processing. She can become anxious. She tends to need a good stream of protein to keep her in check. She is very asynchronous, where she may think deep questions, but not be able to handle the answer. When she is tired, the philosophical questions can get to an extreme. (She is 7).

The question of "Who am I?" started about 6 months back. One day, she stated that multiple times, and one could just see the gears in her head turning.

The question comes up when she is tired. "I just don't know who I am?" "Why am I here?" "What is my purpose".
We hit the, "I feel like a piece of trash." WHen trying to get her to expand, all I got was that since the character in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was trash, I feel that way too. When I tried to pull in religious philosophy to explain that she wasn't trash, about 20 minutes later she came back with, if there are millions of people in the world, then why was I made... what makes me special.

Last night, she was freaked out at bedtime, stating that she felt if she swallowed, that her soul was going to leave her body. I then got bombarded with a multitude of life/death questions from being concerned she won't be able to find me when she dies to her wanting to be reincarnated (in her words, when she dies, she wants it to be that it is like moving, and that she just starts life over again).

This morphed into
I don't want our planet to be consumed by a black hole. How close does one need to be to one before one is pulled in. Is there such thing as a forest of black holes, where there a number of them into one spot? Can a black hole dissappear? If it consumed too much can it reach a point where it can't consume anymore and then explode/break?


Has anyone been here?? Is there any advice you have to help me parent her through this? I'm trying my best to answer questions and give her some foundation to stand upon. I've been rereading everything I can from emotional OE's/postitive disintegration to existential depression. While she doesn't come across as depressed, she is obviously grappling with some big questions.

It doesn't help me that her teacher informed me during conference that she feels my child is very socially-emotionally immature. *GROWL* It's obviously a weak point of hers, but not that atypical of a gifted child, especially such an emotionally intense gifted child.

Thanks,
Tammy