The monster in the mind

There are many scary things in this world - from wide-impact big things like terrorism and war, to personal big things like losing loved ones and daily stability, and to small things like lizards and cockroaches. 

The scariest of all is probably the monster in the mind. Mental illness is one such monster. And then there are those kiddy monsters.

As a kid, I was scared of the "woman with long white hair outside the kitchen window", whom my sister claimed to have seen. I did not but it was difficult for me to go to the toilet via a dark kitchen at night for many years. Watching those HK vampire movies on TV scared me, though I would still watch behind a blanket. But I could sleep.

So while I understand Yu's fear of white faceless masks he saw on TV, I cannot understand why he couldn't sleep.

We started watching 奔跑吧 on the last two days of last year, I think. It was a random episode I picked from YouTube. It was all fine until it got to the "mask room". Yu climbed onto me and held my hands on his eyes. Other parts, he was fine. We finished this episode over two days.

Then, on new year's eve, he woke past 11 pm to tell us he was scared. We let him sleep with us.

On 1 Jan, he came over once Yang was asleep. He couldn't sleep. We let him lie down while we watched drama, thinking we could carry him over later. But in the end, we just let him sleep the whole night there coz really 舍不得他长大...

Soon, I could smell French fries - he was one huge French fry coz he was so sweaty! We don't turn on the aircon in our room much these days, thanks to the cool weather. Later in the night, he kicked Sito and woke me to get water *.*

My sweet baby

The next day, he couldn't sleep again. But we couldn't have him in our bed again as there was school the next day - all of us needed good rest.

It took an hour and some tears before we convinced him to let us push his bed right next to Yang's. Then, he found that Yang was still far away. So we got him to sleep in Yang's bed. Yang was asleep by then and moved a little during the changeover. The next morning, Yang said he wouldn't let Yu sleep with him again.

Very sweet, my boys

We needed a solution.

Since it's a monster in his mind ("it's in my mind, I cannot close my eyes"), I decided to try a mind method.

When Yu came home from his first day of P2, I had him write a note to be brave, read it out and tore up another piece of paper with a drawing of a mask on one side and the word MASK on the other.

He said he was still scared. But he slept in his own bed that night! So proud of him! So proud of myself too haha!

Tearing up the "mask"

Now I wonder if I could do something similar about drinking soup coz he drinks soup by both grandmothers but pukes when he drinks mine! We think it's some psychological barrier as he was coughing once when he had soup and puked after that. 

I couldn't think of a suitable mind method for soup yet though so I may have to change the seasoning first to make it more like the gramps'? Ytd, I made soup again but skipped the dried scallops this time. He tried but he still couldn't take it - had to standby at toilet bowl for a while :( Sighs, hope to sort this out soon so he could enjoy the goodness of a warm bowl of soup!