I am a busy mother of an amazing, gifted, volatile eight year old. My life is stressful, and I work hard to balance it all out. I work 60 hours a week, go to college online full time, and manage my household, am a wife and mother. It's been a rough few weeks in my life, I was the victim of a hit and run car accident, and some other problems. I also have post traumatic stress disorder and am in therapy to improve my parenting and work through it.

I've been having difficulty with my daughter not sleeping much or well all her life. She's 8 now. I have consulted with doctors, read books from sleep and parenting experts, tried many strategies (consistently for at least a couple weeks each time), and tried to work on the issue some with my therapist. We do all the basics, a soothing bedtime routine, safe, secure, cheerful room, consistent bedtime and expectations, etc. However, this summer, this last few weeks, my daughter is so anxious and afraid after I tuck her in, I'm having a terrible time coping and helping her much. She's up maybe a couple hours late most nights. She screams when she's upset, it is very very hard for both of us.

Last night was a very bad one again. She said she was scared of mosquitoes, which I understand, then upset because her toe was tingling, etc. There's always something lately, she just gets worked up, anxious, hysterical.

Last night, I was doing the calm, quiet, return her to bed without much fuss thing. We'd been trying to reassure her more, but she kept demanding more and more, so, I felt I had to be more firm to keep things under control. Sometimes, as a mother, I find it SO hard to know if I'm doing the right thing. It kills me, kills me for her to be upset. My PTSD symptoms exacerbate it, I have to work through my panic and upset more. She fought me, didn't want to go back to bed.

Three times, I pushed her shoulders into a lying down position. I think I should not have done that. I feel awful, to be so upset. I did not hurt her, but I hate to use force. It was a mistake maybe. I feel awful. Wretched.

As returning her to bed was not working, I escalated to something I tried the day before that really got her attention. I told her I would need to close her door if she kept screaming, until she laid down quietly. I did end up closing her door, on and off for quite a while. She'd quiet down, I'd open the door, she'd start screaming again. At one point, for a while, she was beating on the door, sticking her fingers underneath it. I felt like a child abuser then. So cruel. I love her more than life. It rips through my heart when she's upset like that. All I want is to gather her up, take care of her, do anything she wants. I don't want to make her so unhappy, but it seems like she needs firm limits, to stay in bed at bedtime, to learn that just because she may feel afraid, she is still safe. We are keeping her safe, sigh

I don't know if it's fair for me to ask you all to be kind. I feel like a complete failure, a monster. I am trying my best. I have struggled with this for years. It was getting much better lately, but summer, we've had a lot of routine upsets, and I don't know, it's just very bad again lately, and I feel completely defeated, like a terrible mother.