My son has some anxiety issues but he has never had any therapy for it.
I had anxiety issues as a child and didn't have half the stuff to deal with that he has. I had a normal, happy childhood but was extremely shy and was very close to my parents. My mother was my best friend. I was very sensitive and only gifted at coming up with scenarios that could happen but probably wouldn't.
I really don't see how my son could avoid having anxiety issues. Having perfectionism along with a motor learning disability and sensory issues can cause anxiety. Having a mother with anxiety can cause anxiety--he tells me that this causes him more anxiety than anything else. Being told by your public school friends that you would have to have protection from bullies if you ever went back to school can cause anxiety. Helping take care of a grandmother with dementia who pinches hard enough that she sometimes draws blood can cause anxiety--he knows not to get too close and she hasn't pinched him yet. Being told that you will probably need to wear a brace until you have stopped growing can cause anxiety. Knowing that you have to dumb down your speech so kids your age don't think you are a geek but not really knowing what vocabulary they know and don't know because you don't go to school with them can cause anxiety. Hearing your grandfather say that it is bad now but it is going to get a lot worse can cause anxiety. I don't know how a therapist could say anything or do anything to make any of this better for him or me. My son deals with a lot of it by using humor and trying to look at bad situations from a different perspective and finding some good in it.
One positive thing was that he developed an interest in neuroscience and psychology. He watches his grandmother and gets to see misfiring neurons in action. He wonders how she can remember something one minute and the next she can't--like my name--but she can still spell and still knows her multiplication tables. He knows about different parts of the brain being responsible for different things and how strokes can damage one part and not another leading to some interesting results. His great uncle, my mother's brother had a stroke that affected his speech for a while but he was able to sing words without any difficulty. He saw that my uncle regained his speech ability because of "plasticity of the brain" which my son is very interested in because he saw that his grandmother didn't seem to have this same plasticity and he wonders why. When my son was in kindergarten he had a dog that was hit in the head by a motorcycle and the brain damage caused one eye to look one way and the other eye to look in a different direction. He is sensitive but he can look past the sadness and see the science. I think all of these experiences might help him if he goes into the medical research.
We have read books about dealing with anxiety but taking deep breaths and trying to prepare for the worst case scenario just is not enough sometimes. One of the books I read said you won't die from anxiety attacks. Maybe not, but my blood pressure went so high and I don't want to take a chance of having a stroke so I have to rely on medication.
