Another sleepless night

Nothing gets Monster Man's anxiety acting up like knowing there is the possibility of severe weather heading our way.  Yesterday, we were told to expect severe storms overnight.  Our county was amongst the many included in a tornado watch effective until 3am today.  Usually, I try to keep Monster Man from finding out about these watches, not wanting to scare him.  Last night, though, he heard me talking to my hubby as I went through the process of setting our weather alert radio (which my hubby had previously packed away when trying to help clean up our room).

The process of setting the radio only took a few short minutes, and we didn't even think Monster Man had heard the conversation.  About five minutes after the radio was set, though, Monster Man started 'hearing' the storms (they hadn't even reached Georgia yet when he was already sure he heard the storms).  While my hubby was watching television, Monster Man was sure he heard the weather radio alerting us of a tornado.  He kept jumping out of bed, telling us that the bad weather was hear.

Oddly enough, it never even stormed at our house.  In fact, it barely even rained.  Either way, just knowing it could've happened was enough to keep Monster Man awake most of the night.

Anxiety strikes again

As storms made their way through Georgia on Monday night, we found ourselves under a severe thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch.  Some areas around us got hit really hard by nasty storms that caused damage to cars, homes, etc.  Some areas were pummeled by golf ball sized hail.  Just knowing that there were storms nearby was enough to get Monster Man's anxiety working in overdrive.

Monster Man was in his room, drawing cartoons, when the first few flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder reached our area.  Evidently, even with the storm still in the distance, it was enough to make him look out his window 'just to check' because he heard a noise.  That was when he became certain that he had seen a funnel cloud swirling around in the sky across the street.  The poor boy came running down the stairs to warn me, afraid that we needed to find shelter.  I opened the front door to look outside, hoping to calm him down by showing him that there was no funnel cloud.  He was so worried about me opening the door that I had to reassure him that it was safe before he'd even let me unlock the deadbolt to open the door.

Of course, the storm was in the distance as I'd mentioned before.  We had no hail.  The wind had only picked up a very little bit, to the point that you had to really look to notice the difference.  The storm never got any closer to our house than that, either.  It was probably a few miles from us at it's closest point.  Still, just knowing that the storm was out there somewhere was enough to have Monster Man in panic mode.  Even after the storms died down, it was another hour before he was finally calm enough to be able to get ready for bed.

It must be hard on Monster Man, having to fight off so many fears like that.  He told me that he thinks his anxiety has him seeing and hearing things that aren't really there.  I love that he has a very active imagination the rest of the time, but I feel so bad for him knowing that the active imagination gets in the way of his happiness at times like this.