12 y/o Daughter Out of Control

[Bunny]

You have received alot of good advice here. I agree with everyone else who has said that there is way more than ADHD going on with her. She needs to be evaluated further to figure out what is really going on with her.

 

[mazdamama]

Weird how I was telling a friend of mine that is raising two grands and bios mom just had another last night that they signed over for adoption bascially the same thing. My sister had put her daughter in foster care at age 1...at age 3 she had to sign adoption papers. No one in the family was able to take on the child at that time. I was in my teens. We met the girl about 20 yrs ago when she was 23. She looked like my sister's twin at her age and sat there twirling her hair constantly...something my sister did all her life. She also had the mental health problems that plagued my sister all her life.

 

[ABS]

Buddy, no, I agree with you.
TO poster, if your HUSBAND was there consistently for his daughter, that is enough. However, if birthmother was a substance abuser, did she drink alcohol or abuse other drugs while pregnant? If she did, that can cause organic brain damage in any child and it would explain a lot of her behavior. Have you ever had a talk with husband about that? Did birthmother take care of herself during the pregnancy? I was told even smoking cigarettes can cause a smaller child and a higher percentage of learning disabilities. There is a fetal alcohol spectrum...and this is NOT behavioral, it is organic. But it presents as behavioral.

Also, as an adoptive mom I know so many grown adopted kids who have met their birthparents and this is unofficial, but the parents swear that their children are more like their birthparent than them, even if they never met them. Heredity is a big deal! Most in our adoptive support group (which does NOT mean anybody outside of this group) feels that nature always trumps nurture, although the nurture is certainly helpful to the child. Again, though, these are just the parents in my particular support group and does not reflect the opinions of any other parents.

We don't really know the full extent of what her birth mother did while pregnant. Shortly after getting pregnant she went "wild" as my husband puts it. She began disappearing for days at a time, staying at strange houses and lying quite a bit. My husband knows for certain she did smoke cigarettes off and on and highly suspects alcohol and marijuana but wasn't able to prove it. There's a high possibility for prescription abuse as well because shortly after she disappeared when my daughter was just a small toddler, she was arrested from attempting to steal prescription drugs from an elderly woman at knife point. She received 6 years in prison for that crime and after she was released our information became sketchy as to what route she went with her life.

As far as behaviors, my husband tells me she acts a lot like her biological mother. She even looks almost identical to her. I think that's what scares me so much because I don't want the same life for my daughter. Her mother was very sexually active at a young age, has/had substance abuse issues, was very impulsive and violent and thats just what I know about her from 10 or so years ago.

Part of me has always wanted to believe that environment(nurture) can trump nature because my mother is a raging alcoholic with men issues and I turned out the complete opposite. My husband's parents also suffered with substance abuse issues and he doesn't drink nor has he done illegal drugs. Part of me always thought that we used the bad example our parents gave us and learned from it to become better people. That being said, nature has to have more of a play in things than I'd like to believe. How else could you explain a 12 y/o who hasn't seen her mother in 10-11 years acting like her twin?

In more positive news, we as a family went to the park, dinner and shopping tonight. My daughter had a few times of defiance/anger/impulse control issues but overall we had a great time. We go out every Saturday as a family and haven't had a night that hasn't resulted in a meltdown in three weeks. Small victories

 

[BusynMember]

Hi and thanks for answering.

in my opinion you should probably assume she drank while pregnant, if not been exposed to other drugs as well. My eighteen year old son was a product of a drug abusing birthmother and, although nobody can prove the alcohol, he had crack in his system when he was born, but normally they don't test for drugs. In his birthmother's case, she was high when she came to the hospital so they did. That early exposure to alcohol and drugs causes behavioral and learning problems, although in different degrees. It actually can cause organic brain damage. Solme children on the fetal alcohol spectrum are unable to learn right from wrong and are so impulsive they repeat mistakes over and over again, a nd do not "get it."

Birthmother may also have been exposed to drugs/alcohol while in utero, which would explain her behavior too. We were "lucky" (cough). Our son knows right from wrong, but he has autistic spectrum disorder, which everyone thinks probably was kicked off the his birthmother's alcohol/drug use.

I would take her to a neuropsychologist for an intensive evaluation and tell him/her that your daughter may have (or probably was) exposed to chemicals in utero. Neuropsychs test every level of function in every way and can probably give you answers. At the very least, if she has alcohol exposure, you can stop beating your head against the wall and expecting her to change much...you can go to an expert and find out how best to live with her or whether she belongs in an Residential Treatment Center (RTC). Her behavior is dangerous. And I know this news is not good, but I always liked to know every possibility and to explore it.

 

[pajamas]

ABS - Please send me a PM with a little more detail about what part of town you are in and I may have specific recommendations for you. As someone noted in another thread, I do have an outstanding psychiatrist who has given insight into many services available. Meanwhile, here's a good place to find resources: Parent to Parent of Georgia

 

[ABS]

Just wanted to give a quick update. I wish it was good news but I'm afraid not. In 3 weeks time my step-daughter has been written up four times with the most recent one today. In the morning she went on a screaming rant at the bus driver causing her to be removed from the bus for the third time this year. When she got to school she went on another screaming rant at another student and tried to hit her with her shoe causing 3 days OSS and 3 days ISS. She also has been a pure nightmare at home stealing from us (from small things like my gummy prenatal vitamins to big things like jewelry), lying, breaking every rule in the book and refusing to do her chores.

In the past two weeks she has met with both her private counselor and psychiatrist. Her counselor went over more anger control techniques and her paxil was doubled. We have an appointment for her medical doctor to start the process for the neur but to be honest, I'm not sure if Im going to make it that far. As horrible as this sounds, I almost wish she wouldn't come home today because I know the mood she'll be in. There are many times I find myself fighting to control my own temper and have lost it a few times this week. It's caused a lot of turmoil in my marriage as well and we've fought more in the past two weeks than we have in the past year. I feel like my step-daughter is quickly sinking and bringing this family down with her.

She's only 12 - I cannot even imagine how much worse this could get.

 

[InsaneCdn]

I didn't re-read the entire thread... so this may have already been stated, but...
She's 12. Which means, whatever other problems she may have (and there will be "something"), she is also into puberty. Which even for a totally neuro-typical kid - even for the ones we call easy child around here - means raging hormones, huge mood swings, and so on. In other words... puberty tends to make whatever else is happening, worse.

Yes, it is really hard to work the process it takes to get answers - because, it seems like no matter where you live in this world, the process is far to complex and takes way too long. And yet, without answers... you don't even know whether there are solutions.

 

[buddy]

gosh so sorry things are escalating. No fun for sure. If you notice she gets worse on the paxil increase tell them right away... a few of us have had kids who explode on ssri's .... my son's psychiatrist said it happens a lot for kids.

I am glad she is going to the neuro... I hope you find a neuropsychologist to test her with all of her birth and genetic history. You sure she is not using drugs herself? Has she had a drug test (she is young she might not know to be able to beat them yet...but I am sure there are many here who can tell you how she could and even that their young kids did!)

HUGS

 

[ABS]

I didn't even consider drugs, to be honest. It would have to be at school, if she were, because she doesn't go anywhere outside of it unless she's with us. She has only one friend because she's been labeled as "the angry girl" and that one friend is pulling away.

I guess I just wish there were a way to bandage her issues to stop the hemorrhaging. Obviously I don't think her problems will be resolved in a week, a month or even a year but if we could just get to the point where we're not constantly playing damage control. I don't even know how to punish her anymore. She's been grounded for three weeks now (starting from the first write up and it just continued after each one). We don't believe in spanking (we did at one point but stopped many years ago when we realized it wasn't for us). So aside from giving her a long list of chores (which she'll refuse to do) and writing sentences, I'm not sure what else to do.

Her bus gets here in 10 minutes. I'm not the religious type but pray for us if you are. I see a night filled with melt downs by her and me trying to keep my toddler safe and away from it.

 

[susiestar]

Given all that is going on, please please please at least consider calling 911 for transport to a psychiatric hospital if she gets violent. Safety must be the first priority. She could end up really hurting someone and you don't want her to have to live with the knowledge that she caused harm to someone.

Have you read "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene and "What Your Explosive Child is Trying to Tell You" by Dr. Doug Riley? The things you are doing are not effective. These books are amazing. their methods may seem counter-intuitive, but they WORK and they have worked regardless of what the diagnosis is. Kids do well when they are ABLE. Most of us operate on the idea that kids do well when they WANT to, but it just isn't true. These books can help a LOT.

It is so hard to not blow up at our difficult children. I used to be really really bad about this. I read a book called "She's Gonna Blow! Real Help for Moms Dealing with Anger" by Julie Ann Barnhill. Women are not generally taught much about anger as we grow up. I sure wasn't, and it is a very common thing in our society. This book did more than tell me it was okay and natural and show me how to deal with it. It helped me figure out when it was happening long before I blew up. I learned to recognize the physical signs of anger early enough to deal with them and prevent the blowup. it does have a religious slant, but didn't get "in your face" about it - at least I didn't think so. A friend who is Muslim also found the book helpful - she just ignored the religious part of it. Amazon and other sites sell the book used, which is a great $ saver, of course.

 

[TeDo]

Just wanted to chime in on the medication thing. I have a difficult child who went explosive and pulled a knife when on an SSRI. If things have gotten worse since Paxil was started, I would seriously consider that as a cause. Our psychiatrist didn't believe me because it was "an atypical reaction" but it was proven to be the case when we stopped the medication completely. Just a thought.

Does she have an IEP at school? If not, get the process going NOW. It can stop the suspensions and get her help as well. For most of our kids, suspensions did nothing but make things sooooo much worse.

 

[ABS]

Susiestar, your advice was very helpful. I hadnt read either of those books as the majority of the books I have been reading were about ADHD and not very helpful to be honest. I just ordered them both tonight .

I don't believe she would ever harm our youngest as she is the only thing in this world that seems to make her happy. She's very protective of her. I do, however, worry that she could get caught in the crossfire of objects being thrown. If I ever did feel that I couldn't control her then I would call 911 in a heartbeat. I can defend myself from my step-daughter but my toddler cannot and if it ever got close to that then my priority becomes my youngest.

Tedo, the paxil seemed to be helping so I'm not sure that's it. She was on vyvanse before which made her unbelievable violent but we haven't seen the same reaction with the paxil. As far as the IEP is concerned, we just finished our testing/evaluations in Jan. and her eligibility meeting is this Tuesday which can't come soon enough to be honest. And you're right, the ISS/OSS makes her much worse. Most punishments do actually.

I have her settled for this evening. She had some nasty outbursts early in the evening but she's seems to have calmed down now. It was much better than I predicted. Small victories

 

[TeDo]

ABS, difficult child 1 did well for the first 2 months on the SSRI but then went downhill over a period of another 3 months. That's why the psychiatrist said it couldn't be the medication....BUT, it stopped within a week of the medication being stopped. difficult child 1 also had a strong violent reaction to Risperdal. It only took a couple months for his violence to reach the same point the SSRI did in 5 months. It is still worth considering. EVERYONE reacts to different medications in different medications on different timelines. Don't rule it out as a possibility at least. Keep track now that there has been an increase in the dosage.

 

[ABS]

Update #2.

Finally some relief!

This past week our daughter's behaviors have amplified to unimaginable levels. Stealing, lying, screaming - you name it, she's done it. On Saturday night she actually ran away. Within minutes my husband was chasing after her (on foot and then in the vehicle) but she went into the woods and he lost her. We called the police immediately and thankfully she was recovered two hours later. The scary part is she got in a stranger's vehicle in the progress but fortunately the stranger was a nice man and drove her to my brother's house. The police spoke with her that evening but she was completely out of touch with what was happening. That following day she was on a manic high like none over. It was very strange to watch and left us completely confused as to what was going on.

We scheduled a meeting with her therapist that Monday but not much came out of it because she refused to talk to her. That entire day she kept threatening to runaway again and with no apparent reason. That evening she came downstairs completely dressed and looking for her hat. I asked her what was going on and she told me she was running away again. I had her sit down and attempted to talk to her. I asked her why she was running away and she didn't know. I asked her if she was upset and she said no. I asked her what her plan was and it was completely far fetched about getting a job at the mall, renting an apartment and buying a car (mind you she's 12). When I tried explaining to her that she wouldnt be able to get a job, she ran out the door. Once again my husband followed and quickly lost her. The police were once again called and she was found an hour and a half later. When she got back she was speaking of things that made absolutely no sense and you could tell she had no idea or control over what she was doing. The officers charged her with being a runaway and had us contact her psychiatrist who had us hospitalize her last evening in a mental health facility.

Today the psychiatrist there that evaluated her diagnosed her with being bipolar (which is what we suspected all along) and started her on trileptal 150 twice a day. She will also be participating in group therapy sessions for the remainder of the week. After this week she'll start an outpatient program with the facility.

On a side note, her IEP was also approved today and all disciplinary actions (the threaten expulsion) stops immediately.

My husband and I are both physically and mentally exhausted right now but also overjoyed. Hospitalizing her was a very difficult choice to make but we're happy we did so because we finally feel like we're being heard. We feel like a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders. I know we have a lot ahead of us but this was a huge step for us.

Thank you all for the advice you've given us and allowing me to vent to people that understand. Very few people can relate to the difficulties we've been having.

 

[InsaneCdn]

{{hugs}}

Way to go, Warrior Mom.

No, none of us likes getting these kinds of labels on our kids. But... it is worse for the condition to exist, and not get the label, and the accommodations, interventions and medications that go with the label.

Sounds like you have the psychiatrist (and team), school, AND police all on-side... at least there is hope.

 

[TeDo]

Good For You!!! It's ALWAYS a relief to finally get the help we've been seeking for way too long. BREATHE while you can and know that she is safe and getting the help she needs.

{{{{HUGS}}}} to all of you.

 

[keista]

Hi. I just read Update #1 today and went back and read your whole thread. Of course, ended up with Update #2 so I'll start there.

Yay! So glad you got your daughter into a hospital to get the help she really needs! It's a very surreal thing to be "happy" about such horrible situations, but we as Warrior Moms get used to it - it's a normal part of our lives.

Anyway, I hope they took her off the Paxil. Reading both of your updates I started 'twitching'. My DD1 had a bad reaction to Paxil, and like TeDo said, it doesn't always show up instantly. For DD1 Paxil was a godsend for about 3 months, and then slowly, things started going down hill. I had some very similar episodes with DD1 that you described in your updates. It was only while she was on Paxil that psychiatrist started considering bipolar as a diagnosis.

Having said that, I would be cautious with the bipolar diagnosis given at the hospital. It most definitely possible that she really has bipolar, BUT I would still go looking for more comprehensive evaluations. This was an evaluation made by a strange psychiatrist, who doesn't have a good understanding of her whole history, in what? An hour, max? And based on the recent symptoms, yes it does look like bipolar, including psychosis, BUT it's possible (going on my personal experience) that those symptoms were caused by the Paxil. For DD1 bipolar only became a possible diagnosis while she was on the Paxil.

Yes, her previous symptoms may qualify her for the bipolar diagnosis, I'm just saying to make sure her entire history is taken into account. The good new is, that the bipolar diagnosis, given her previous symptoms/behavior is a much more workable diagnosis than ADHD as far as finding the right medication goes.

 

[pajamas]

You didn't mention the IEP disability category that your daughter qualified in, but with the bipolar diagnosis you may want to consider asking to have OHI (Other Health Impaired) added. While technically any diagnosis should be able to get her the individual services she needs, in practice it doesn't always work that way. Our middle school (in the county next to yours per our earlier off-line discussion), considered that they had to have a medical disability category and physician-completed medical impairment form before they could/would request hospital homebound services - which they thought necessary for extended PHP (half-day hospital program). In our state, the forms can be filled out for "intermittent" services, which you might want to do just in case. Speeds things up later to have the forms in place, and you can only really apply while she's in the hospital.