The Unique Anxieties of the Nine-year Change
Do you remember when you were nine? Many people have vivid memories about particularly events or experiences at that age. Some people reflect back and become aware of how their connection with the world changed, how they began to notice new things, ask different questions. If you dig a little, a whole set of people report that this was the age when they actually got a first glimmer of their later life’s work.
What is most consistent, however, is that people remember feeling anxious. This age stands as a developmental eye of the needle, a passage, through which we first become aware of ourselves as true individuals and which naturally brings some anxiety with it.
It is vitally important to know about this threshold time of nine-years because it is now being misinterpreted. Children are too often now being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at age nine, when we should actually view this period as an essential time of developmental transformation. We can do this if we know the context. There are good ways to help a child move successfully through this transition.
Biographical Rhythm and Crisis: Getting Unstuck: Part 4
Change catches us off guard all the time, but it doesn't always sneak up on us from the outside. Some of the biggest impulses for change surprise us by coming from the inside. That can be hard to make sense of because we are so used to constantly needing to respond to the events, expectations and relationships of our lives—but it is true! External events, outer changes make sense in a certain way because they adhere to the laws of cause and effect. If we suffer a loss or are experiencing a lot of anxiety related to an upcoming event we could place our feelings into that context and gain some consolation. In other words we learn to say: I feel this way because that happened. We know that significant loss brings grief and disorientation. We also know that the anxiety of anticipation can easily exhaust us as we try to make sure that everything has been properly considered and prepared. Those are painful experiences but they can be rationally understood. What happens when a life change starts inside of us and therefore doesn't necessarily match any of the outer circumstances around us? It can leave us frightened and confused because there is no immediate reason for feelings of grief or anxiety that seemingly well up out of nowhere. But those experiences are much less random than we might think.