Really rough night

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bigbear11

Guest
This is so frustrating... putting it mildly. I am writing this after a 2 hr rage with TRex. I don't understand what happened.

Her big sister was in town over the weekend and we expected an issue when she left, which we got. Got ugly Sunday night. A big part of the responsibility for that lays at husband and mine feet. We were tired and after 30 minutes we lost it as well. Not good I know and not proud of myself.

But Monday and today, things were great. She was super excited to show me a finished project from school which she had done a great job on. She had been going 90 mph (almost manic like). When we were finishing supper, she went in to see the cat (we were adopted by a pregnant stray about a month ago). I could here the cat making weird noises telling TRex to stop. So I went in to se what was happening.
She wasn't hurting the cat but definately doing things the cat didn't like and not being particularly gentle. Asked her nicely to stop that the cat didn't like that and we had to be careful of the kittens... NO! Shutup! I hate you! WTH did that come from. From then she started to be rough with the cat and when it went to hide (smart cat) spent the next 30 minutes screaming and trying to find her. she was slamming things in the house and hitting, pinching, kicking me. She wasn't trying to take breaths or anything to calm down. We were afread she would hurt the cat or break somethin in the house plus when she starts the violence toward us we ended up restraining her on the floor just by putting me leg or legs over her middle. Found that still allows movement but she can't hurt herself or us. She hates that but sometimes it is the only choice as she will follow kicking etc. When it gets to that point she is totally irrational and almost like an animal. I would love it if she would be enough in control or have the want to... sometimes I am unsure which it is... to feel it coming and go to her room on outside to calm. Anyway after about an hour, she seemed to calm down so went for a walk with her dad. Seemed OK when got back, petting Kitty gently. Then wanted to go for walk with me... she rides her bike. Normally she is great about staying to the side of the road in our subdivision. Not today... she purposefully was riding down the middle with the whole "you can't catch me or make me" thing going. Needless to say she made it back to the house before me and started being rough with the cat... and it started all over again. I did really well for an hour or so not engaging her and talking softly not rising to any bait she threw out but after an hour (of round #2) I tend to get snarky back which i KNOW is not the way to go.

So now she is upstairs... had to use threats to get her there but to be honest we didn't want to be around her after all that. Sometimes she gets really silly after a rage... like it was all funny... NOT. This is hard for me to deal with because all the horrible words and I hate you, your both stupid, etc. coming from a 9 yr old is not funny to me... especially giving all the S**T we put up with. So she has lost TV for tonight and all day tomorrow plus her favorite new toy is put up for at least 2 days. Don't know if this is the right thing to do or not. But when she starts the laughing "yes it is funny" routine... what patience I have leaves soon after. I tend to get the attitude of we'll see if it is still funny over the next few days.

Just so don't understand how it comes out of nowhere. Suppose there was a trigger somewhere but we didn't see this coming. Plus me husband has pretty much disengaged from any discipline as he has less patience than I and thinks that she is doing this on purpose and that she could control it if she wante. Sometimes I am not sure that I disagree with him. We went thru 4 months late last year with a easy child... when she started to get frustrated she would go to a place to calm down. It was heaven. With no medication change, things hit the fan again around December and has been on the same path since with at least 1 or 2 rages a week. Hard to see how she could go that long using breathing and really trying to control herself to not even making the effort.

Sorry for the rambling... just a really rough night.
 

SmallTownMom

New Member
I feel for you, my son has not reached that level of anger, I pray that he never does. He does throw things when things don't go his way, and he yells a lot, but he seems to leave the room and calm down. He has ADHD and ODD, we have just started medications for some ODD symptoms. Vent any time you want to ... I just started this site and it feels good to know that I am not alone in this.
 

helpangel

Active Member
It sounds to me like TRex is very ill and until that illness is brought under control punishment isn't going to stop these behaviors from happening.

2 hour rages are hard to handle - any way one of you could restrain her in back seat while other drives to the ER while she was raging? If not a brief inpatient stay, she needs a full evaluation.

The behaviors you described and looking at medications in signature - need to re evaluate need for each one of those medications something isn't right. hope you get some answers soon
 
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Bunny

Guest
I have had nights like that with difficult child, so I know how exhausting it can be. It make me crazy when the tantrum comes out of no where and I'm left standing there saying, "What triggered it this time?", because there are days when I truly do not understand what happened or where it came from. I'm sorry that it was such a bad night.

I know that this is a hard thing to do, but if she is raging like that where she is a danger to herself or others in the house, I would call an ambulance and have her transported to the local ER. When they are in the rage they have no concept of right and wrong as we know it. I have seen that with my son. Until he comes down from the rage, and he fully comprehends what he said or did while he was raging, there is just no getting through to him. No way. It's like trying to whisper to him during something really loud. He can't hear me. I can't get through to him in that moment.

by the way, I tend to get snarky with him after a while, too, and I do agree with you that does not help at all, but after an hour of dealing with a screaming tantrum he's lucky that "snarky" is all that I am!

(((Hugs)))
 

buddy

New Member
This is a complete page from our book. I can relate to every second of it. Now that he is older no way to restrain anymore for sure. Q can be happy one minute then I can say, that is a really nice shirt, and he will scream, DONT give me compliments I hate them and you a XXXXX and away we go. Other days I will say nothing and he will say why dont you give me a compliment? And it is HARD not to eventually rise to the bait. For us we do know seizures set him off.... but other times????
 

Tiapet

Old Hand
Just going to throw this out here, while rages can be rages with or without a trigger (I've had both with mine), I'm wondering if you have looked at any possibly food allergies? For example, my young difficult child has a corn allergy so anything that is a corn or corn derivitive (which is virtually anything) will cause a behavioral effect and he will rage, violently and usually can be triggered by a simple no or even nothing at all. He can get all wild child like, be mean, nasty, cruel and ugly to people and even animals at times.

Look at your child's ears. Are they red (before as once raging it will be anyway)? Do they have black circles under eyes? Are the pupils dilated? Are they rubbing or scratching at their nose? There are some other indications as well.

Just a thought for you besides the "normal" things to look at and think about.
 
I can totally relate to everything you wrote. If you want to double check that...read my post from 5 minutes ago...lol. I will say that I no longer think hospitalization is the answer. difficult child has gone to the hospital as IP at least 4 times. No evaluation is done. They play around with his medications and then send him home. It's no longer worth the ER wait with him to me. Right now, I'm not sure there is an answer. Sorry for what you're going through. I'm right there with you...:(
 
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bigbear11

Guest
Bunny,

I have thought about calling the police but haven't. I have no doubt that she would calm right down and just be crying by the time they got there... sometimes I believe she can control this to a certain extent. For example, if she is in the middle of something and you turn on a show she likes sometimes she will stop, sniffle for a while, but be calm and watching. Not always the case but sometimes. She is normally a sweet, funny loving little girl and can go for long times without raging... we leave her with family (sister, GParents) so my husband and I can get away a few times a year and she is an absolute ANGEL... the **** may hit the fan in the car on the way home buy she can hold it together fine around others especially if she is alittle uncomfortable. So going the inpatient route... I just really doubt that she would act out there. It would be traumatic for her (she was adopted) and I don't think it would answer anything.

At least that is where I am now... if someone has had a different experience let me know. Plus, who knows after last night and now, this morning, I may be more willing to call.
 
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bigbear11

Guest
Tiapet, I have read others post about food allergies and have wondered. Thanks for bringing that up. I have a hard time thinking that this is part of the problem but certainly may be wrong. Trex eats pretty much the same thing every day... cherrios, milk, lots of fruit, yogurt, goldfish or cheezits, ham, cheese, with generally either Chef Boyardee or mac'n cheese. May not sound the greatest in the world but is actually pretty healthy with the amount of fruit, yougurt, lean ham, etc. Anyway, given so little variation in diet, if allergies were a part of the issue wouldn't we have rages most every day? We average probably 1 bad one per week with a few brief frustrated, snarkies thrown in for good measure... but have gone months with her being angel child! I have tried to see if we can tie it back to something she ate or didn't but am having a hard time making that link.

Is it possible to have food allergy and have that much variation in rages? Would be willing to try if it might work.
 

buddy

New Member
It gets confusing when it turns off when they get something else... and then can be called manipulative (which it can be of course)...but I have more than once had people with me who are more on the outside remind me that, at least for Q, he gets very stuck and single minded....when you can shift his thinking to a tv show or an activity he likes then his mind is on another track. So naturally the original thought calms and he is not so worked up.
 

helpangel

Active Member
Wow I got so many lightbulbs going off right now the inside of my head must look like ... ok I'll try to focus LOL

First I know what you mean about it seems she has control - I agree they do have control to a point. Yesterday when Angel got suspended and I got to the school she was right on that fine line - face red, wild eyes, yelling- I knew with one look she was a whisper away from a full blown rage (which is going to require ambulance and half dozen cops to get her into it) I lucked out that when I got nose to nose with her and said "UNLESS YOU WANT TO DO THE PERP WALK OUT OF HERE IN HANDCUFFS BACK IT DOWN NOW!" that she did turn it off; she was so close could have easily gotten me hurt. I figured if she is gonna attack someone it was going to be me or wouldn't have made eye contact or gotten that close.

Self control was once explained to me that the child uses all the control they have to hold it together with school or Gma etc. that once they get home where its safe they let all that pent up rage fly. If only raging around you its because she trusts you enough to dump the act.

Food - my cousin's son his milk allergy didn't show up until he was 5yo and wasn't discovered until he was almost 7yo luckily it was discovered because they were running out of options where he was going to go to school. What threw them so much was kid never drank milk, ice cream coated his tongue etc. the only milk he got was the tiny amount that wet his cereal. The aggresive outbursts from the milk were off the charts.

Angel's whole problem isn't from food sensitivities but there is some chemical in any of that orange cheese powder that acts like you just threw gas on a candle flame. box mac-n-cheese, cheetos, cheez-its all that stuff banned from my house unless it is the white cheddar she is fine with those.

Charting - the internet has lots of programs for charting my problem is couldn't fit computer in my purse so if have a charting app on phone skip this paragraph if not read on. I used month at a glance calendar with big boxes, along with many pens red/anger, blue/sad, purple/sexual stuff, orange/stealing, green/food suspects. At 6yo Angel was admitted to psychiatric hospital (3 years of calendars went with her) they noticed a trend a couple weeks with a few notes then color explosion over and over 3 years of it, it also let them see specific dates to look at my journals (several books at that point) for more information. Figure out what ever color code works for you apparently the fact I had purple ink talking about a 3-6yo was a big red flag for psychiatrists.

OK no I'm not writing a book but gonna end with I was at the crisis center with Angel probably a dozen times before got any real help for her. Yes first trip the CC psychiatrist started Depakote but had such an heavy accent the only thing I comprehended out of everything she said was "severe psychological problems" - it wasn't until 3 months later when she went manic at school, was still manic when pediatrician saw her said go to ER, ER saw her manic / medically cleared her said go to crisis center, crisis center psychiatrist said "in 10 minutes I've been trying to get info on what's going on that little girl has run my whole staff ragged" and admitted her to a psychiatric hospital. school called a little after 9am didn't get her to psychiatric hospital till around 10 that night.

I guess the point I'm making is in the beginning regardless of what you are reporting the professionals need to see the kid raging and not able to be brought under control before they are going to fully believe it. Also don't forget to look for medical causes as there are countless ones that could be causing these behaviors

I know broken record - full neuro psychiatric evaluation (wish someone had said those words to me when Angel was 3yo)
As with anything you read on the internet if any of my rambling is useful use it and disregard the rest.
 
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