It looks like it's been a while since I've posted.

We took our 6 1/2 year old son to see a Mental Health Specialist. He has been officially diagnosed with Separation Anxiety Disorder. I know his anxiety and panic attacks are a reality, but some how hearing the actual diagnosis is affecting me. I feel sad. I'm a stay at home mom and I feel like I have somehow failed him. This is my job, my desire, my life's dream, and I love my children more than anything in this world. I can't stop feeling like I've done something wrong.

We've raised both kids in the same house, in the same town. I've done the same early childhood classes with both. They've both had the same upbringing. I know every child is different, but Emily and Aiden are so different. Emily is a social flower, a dare devil. She loves roller coasters and can have a new friend within minutes of being somewhere new. Aiden suffers from extreme anxiety and panic attacks, to the point of affecting his life and ours. He then cries because he can't do things that his friends are doing. He understands why we are seeing his new doctor. He even said he wants to keep seeing her so that she can help him. At 6 1/2 he wants help and has asked for it. It breaks my heart to see him so upset and frustrated and angry with others and himself.

I have guilt and feel like I did something wrong. Did I do too much warning about stranger danger? Did I scare them too much by telling them how to fight and scream if someone tried to grab them or kidnap them? I know the realities of the real world. I was chased by two men in a brown van with a gun while walking home from school one day. I squeezed through a hole in a fence and ran into a liquor store. My worst fear is that someone would take my child and hurt them.

I know I do too much for my children and "over parent". I know they need more responsibility and need to do more things on their own. I just do things myself because it's easier than the fight and battle. I always cave when they refuse to do something and there are no consequences to them for not helping me.

I also wonder too if my Moyamoya caused this in him. He was 3 when I had my strokes and spent so much time in ICU and then had my 2 brain surgeries. He came to California with our family while I was in the hospital for my surgeries. Bruce was with him some of the time, but the majority of that 2 1/2 weeks he was with my sister-in-law, and was away from me. He saw me a few times through the hospital window, while hooked up to everything. Did I scare him? Is he afraid to leave me for fear that I won't return, or worse yet, die?

I just don't know, but I wish I could take away all of his pain, anger and frustration. It just breaks my heart.