The Cracking Noise

Janey has been having a long string of great days. I had a feeling tonight might be rough, though, as she was doing her manic thing in the car on the way home from school---laughing hysterically for most of the way home. Tonight she was fairly happy, with some manic times, until out of the blue, she started screaming. She had been playing with her iPad, happily, and I was watching her, and nothing seemed to happen, but it was a sudden, huge wave of screaming. She screamed for about an hour. I tried talking to her, and most of the time, just wasn't getting through, but at one point I asked if she heard a scary noise (as that is the only thing she's ever really given as a reason for the screaming) and she said "I heard the cracking noise!" I don't know if at this point she's echoing herself from past times she's told me that, or if she really hears some noise, either internally or externally, that scares her. Sometimes it's the cracking noise, sometimes the banging noise, sometimes the clicking noise---but whatever it is, or originally was, it scares the heck out of her. We live near a major road, and it could be cars banging over bumps, or far-away sirens, or who knows what, but I think more it's something inside, or just a way she has of describing what upsets her, when she doesn't understand herself. She's back to happy now, but not sleepy, at almost 9pm. She sleeps less well when she's manic or sad.

I truly think if she learned to talk more, the crying would be less. That's partly just because it's hard to scream and talk at the same time, and partly because then we could try very hard to eliminate whatever it is that sets her off. I know sometimes there's no saying, even for those of us who CAN say, but I'm going to keep working hard on talking about feelings, to the extent she can understand. Let's hope I can keep saying "You feel happy today!" more days than not.