So, yesterday we went in for an assessment for our daughter. The verdict - based on the paperwork from us and the school, and personal experience with her (by our pediatrician) - she's COMPLICATED! It needs to be further looked into and she needs to be looked at by a child psychologist or psychiatrist that deals with diagnosis.

My daughter is beautiful, strong-headed, spirited and unique (much like most children). The difference with her is the level she takes it all to. She has an incredible imagination and she uses it - sometimes with incredibly brilliant results and sometimes to the point of debilitating fear. She appears at first glance to be fearless, but she is riddled with the most absurd and infuriating fears. She has no fear of public bathrooms, but ask her to go into the bathroom in our house and she is in a puddle of tears because of the squids that she believes live in the pipes of our house.

The girl wont sleep. We try putting her to bed at 8:00 and after multiple trips to place her back in her bed, we usually have her asleep between eleven o'clock and midnight. She loves her room during the day, but at night it frightens her. We thought it was a control issue, but she is in cold sweats and really freaked out.

We worry for her because she doesn't have a lot of friends. As such, she is very lonely and is easily swayed to do inappropriate things just so people will play with her. Luckily, she is not good at keeping secrets and we do watch her closely, so nothing too bad has occurred. I just know that it is a lot easier to keep your eye on a seven year old than a teenager, so I really hope we can get this figured out and learn some strategies to help her.

As of this point, I can not find any providers that are covered by our health insurance. So, I will be calling them on Monday to see if there are any that were not listed on the website.

I am feeling a little bit overwhelmed when I combine this with a few other things that are going on in our lives, but I am hopeful that all will be improving and okay. I know that so many others have things so much worse, and I feel very blessed for what I do have.