Hi, this is the first time I visited this site and once I saw this post just had to reply. It all sounds very very familiar.
I have a gifted Daughter age 8. She has never slept through the night and has extreme fears. When the nights got really bad she would have night terrors or choking episodes. For example, she wouldn't go to bed the other night and eventually "melted down" because she was afraid teenagers were going to shoot guns through her windows. (We live in a very quiet suburban neighborhood) She recently had a panic attack while we were at the movies because she thought she was choking on the popcorn. When she was 4 she was stung by a bee and after that refused to go outside for fear she would get stung again. We took her for therapy and while she is still nervous around bees she is ok outside now.
A few months ago we took her to a psychologist because the nights were getting so bad and we were just exhausted. She has been diagnosed with OCD and anxiety. Her form of OCD is obsessions without outward compulsions. Her current obsessions include fears of being ill or of something hurting her or her family.
I am not going to tell you your child has OCD. What I will recommend is that you look into taking him to a therapist. We tried everything ourselves and it only got worse. Now that we know what is going on we have an idea how to treat it. We just want her to have a happy childhood. We have a friend with a child that has OCD and we have seen them progress to a point they don't need regularly scheduled therapy anymore. No drugs involved.
Oh and one more thing...While she still wakes up at night..there are more and more nights that she sleeps through
