Matteo, 11, lives with his mother and older brother in St. Gallen.
It's been a while since I used to dress up as a ghost and haunt the house to scare Matteo. But this wasn't just a family joke, it was part of therapy. My son had to get used to scary things again.
For a long time, we parents had no idea that he had a problem with this. But one night I woke up to find Matteo sitting in bed, trembling and sweating. He didn't have a fever, though. Then it dawned on me: he was afraid. For three days, he didn't eat anything, clung to his teddy bear all day long and wouldn't leave my side. Then it went away again.
We thought everything was fine again, but there were still nights when he slept poorly or couldn't fall asleep. He also avoided anything that was in any way scary – for example, his brother had a T-shirt with a skull on it, which he couldn't stand.
What triggered the fear
Finally, we discovered what had triggered Matteo's fear: a scary Halloween decoration at the after-school care centre. Matteo hadn't expected to come face to face with a glowing skeleton in a dark corner and was terribly frightened.
His reaction when Halloween came around again was predictable: he didn't want to go to after-school care and avoided anything that was even remotely scary. It was never so bad that he didn't want to go outside or meet friends, but it was a recurring problem that weighed heavily on him and on us as a family. Matteo had become afraid of fear; he didn't want to feel it anymore.
Matteo has realised that he can control his fear.
Verena, Matteo's mum
When he was nine years old, I enrolled him in therapy. It took five sessions for Matteo to overcome his fear. During this time, he read scary books and watched scary films at home. Gradually, he got used to the fact that his mummy was hiding under the ghost costume. He realised that he could control his fear – and that it would diminish if he confronted it.
That's what we did as a family: everyone has to be on board, understand what's happening and actively work together to overcome the fear – then it works.
* Name known to the editorial team
