unmedicated difficult child is losing it.

ready2run

New Member
some might remember last weeks thread about weaning difficult child off his medication due to a newly developed heart problem. we are still waiting to hear from someone about that and i will call around tomorrow and see if i can find out who is supposed to be helping with that.
anyways.....things are not going so well with him. Friday he got sent home from school for being violent and for repetitively running away from his class/EA. Monday was a holiday here and yesterday i could not send him to school because he did not sleep the night before. i did have to take him to run errands with me, which took about an hour. it could have been much faster but he kept stopping and protesting every step because he wanted a treat. he started yelling about a treat and saying i promised to buy him a treat, which i did not. in fact i told him i wanted to run errands alone and he insisted on coming with me and promised to hold the stroller nice and be good. well, we all know that's not going to happen but we can hope right? i ended up telling him that i couldn't even buy him something if i wanted to because of the way he was acting out. so instead of quieting down he went all ballistic and knocked over an entire shelf of jewellery/little things and is still insisting that the sleeping brother in the stroller did it. today he was horrible at school and the teacher phoned because apparently difficult child told the class he had a real gun and he was going to get it at recess and kill them all. when i asked him about it he lied of course but i know that he must have said that because he told a couple days ago that if i didn't get his birth mother to come get him(uh, yeah she hasn't visited in 4 years so i doubt that's going to happen) that he was going to get a gun and shoot me then 'bam' his brains out. yes, i know this sounds scary and probably sounds worse to outsiders as i am somehow used to these types of threats and can only hope he doesn't mean it as he is 6 and we are in canada so it's not like guns are readily available to anyone around here. so, should i be calling someone about this? like the doctor or the police? i was going to tell the school to phone 911 on him next time he makes these threats so they can take him in for a psychiatric evaluation. i expected bad behaviour with taking him off his medications but he has changed his ways since last year when he went on the medications. last year he was angry and sad but he took it out by banging his head on the floor or punching himself in the face, not threatening to massacre his classmates and teachers. i don't know what i'm supposed to do about it, i know what is going on, and i know why but how do i deal with it when i can't medicate him at the moment but i also can't have him doing things like this.
 

keista

New Member
Weaning off some medications can have horrible effects. I would just imagine that it could be worse for kids. I would definitely call the psychiatrist about this. With any luck, it will be temporary, and nothing bad happens in the meantime, but do be prepared if he makes more threats. (just last week, I was being told the same thing)

I'm shocked the school didn't call 911. If that happened at my kids' school, they would have called the police, and the police would have shown up with an entire SWAT team - yes, just for a threat.
 

ready2run

New Member
Weaning off some medications can have horrible effects. I would just imagine that it could be worse for kids. I would definitely call the psychiatrist about this. With any luck, it will be temporary, and nothing bad happens in the meantime, but do be prepared if he makes more threats. (just last week, I was being told the same thing)

I'm shocked the school didn't call 911. If that happened at my kids' school, they would have called the police, and the police would have shown up with an entire SWAT team - yes, just for a threat.

i want to be prepared but i don't know what to do. any suggestions? preferably not calling 911.

i was also surprised the school did not call 911. i was actually going to tell them that they should because although he has no gun he does have a history of violence and has tried on more than one occasion to cause serious injury to people.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Going off medications messes with your brain chemistry. Give him some time to get it all out of his system. Trust me, it does take time! I've had it done to me.
 

keista

New Member
For starters, do exactly what I did - lock up or hide ALL the knives scissors, power tools etc. I don't know from you description if his behavior is "all the time" or episodic (mine was) Do NOT leave him alone, especially with any other kids. If other adults are helping watch him, make sure they are fully in the loop. Do not be afraid to call 911. If you are comfortable with the school calling, you should be comfortable with you calling. You can explain the situation, and figure out options once they are there - better safe than sorry.

My DD1 was having "episodes" None lasting more than 2 hours, most were much shorter. I also knew they were mostly in the evenings, but remained vigilant and cautious during the day. I was REALLY going to call 911 the last time, but I didn't have my phone with me (I was following her as she was "running away"). The episode ended before I found a neighbor outside or home active looking enough to risk knocking and taking my eyes off her.

It can be scary and tiring, and it could take some time, but if your gut tells you that it's a withdrawal reaction, then you know it will end "sometime" Now remebering the best advice I got about labor and giving birth - yes, it is painful, but you know it will come to an end. Think of it like that to help find the strength to see it through.

I also found it therapeutic posting about DD1s episodes. I talk to my closest friends about it, but when you write it down, it becomes clearer somehow. It also doesn't hurt to keep a log of behavior, times, details etc. I had started keeping a log before I joined this site, but added the very detailed posts to my log - killing two birds with one stone. This is (hopefully) creating a clearer picture for the psychiatrist and therapist - will find out at next appointment.

Keep us posted.

((((HUGS))))
 

ready2run

New Member
his episodes are off and on although sometimes it seems like they are all the time because he gets set off so easily that he spends most of his time in that mode. i don't know if it's really the withdrawls or if this is just him unmedicated because frankly he has problems with destroying things and hitting people on a regular basis even when he is medicated. he is just so argumentative nothing anyone can do or say is right to him. even when he is between episodes he still argues with everything and does his best to manipulate people into doing his bidding, especially the littler kids. honesty is not exactly his strong point so it's hard to determine sometimes what is going on but i am at the point now that i am just assuming that he is either lieing or in the wrong in most situations unless i have reason to beleive otherwise.
i have called around trying to find out his test results today. so far i called the lab they said they sent out the pics and the doctors should have them by now and i should call the doctor that ordered the tests. that doctors nurse said they don't have them and didn't know what i was talking about. so i called the psychiatric. that asked for the results to be forwarded to her and she said she has a copy but she can't do anything with it because she doesn't know how to read them as she's not that kind of doctor which is what i figured, she just wanted a copy for her file. so i called his pediatritian who was not in. the nurse gave me ****(again) for not bringing him in for over a year and i had to explain(again) that the doctor has been seeing my step-son regularely, he comes to the psychiatric appointments with us. then i had to explain why he had the tests done in the first place because he is having trouble breathing and as soon as i said that she said(again) that they don't deal with trouble breathing and take him to the clinic. which is what i did in the first place and if she would just close her mouth and listen she would know that he is having trouble breathing because his medications that they gave him have caused him heart problems and so i didn't even finish talking to her. i am going to call back in the morning and hopefully be able to get her have the doctor phone or get him fit in there. it seems like no one wants to take responsibility to help with this when it is a big problem. i would like to take him there and leave him with them for an hour or two so they can see what i'm dealing with and stop brushing it off. anyways, time to get difficult child off the bus. thank you for the advice and the chance to let me vent. oh, and we already have everything dangerous locked up as we had an incident (well 2) last summer with him and had to babyproof everything even the high up stuff.
 

keista

New Member
A few more "strategies" that came to mind

"try" to avoid trigger situations. No, you normally wouldn't have given him the treat, but if you KNOW that he is not stable, and you KNOW that he may explode, it might be worth just giving in and heading off an incident. At 6 it might not make much sense to him, but it's worth trying to put in the explanation. "I know you're having a difficult time right now, and if I could fix it instantly, I would, but I can't, so I'm letting you have this treat only because of this difficult time" If you've been more specific with him before about his illness, then definitely use whatever terminology you use with him instead of "difficult time". I don't find this much different that feeding a kid with a sore throat ice pops ALL day to alleviate symptoms. When they are healthy ice pops are an occasional treat.

minimize punishments and discipline and keep it to natural consequences. Helping pick up the display is not punishment, but a natural reaction to knocking it over. Of course, if he won't do it, you must, but again with explanation - that accidents happen sometimes, but we must do everything we can to fix what we've done wrong. This is the very tricky part of mental illness and accountability. Is it REALLY his fault that he knocked it over? No, not really, because his brain and body are reacting to the medications, and even if it was just his illness, it's his illness - not him - BUT in the real world, someone has to fix it, someone has to pay for it. A friend of mine loves using the "stomach bug" as an analogy to explain to "normals" the lack of control a person has for their illness. It can be used for accountability as well. If you are shopping, and the stomach bug hits, and you try to get to the rest room, but don't make it, and make a mess all over the floor, are you just going to walk away from it? No, you will get assistance and help clean it up.

Your child, like mine, like many others here need to learn that they have to be accountable, not just for their actions, but for managing their illness as well.

I hope this makes sense and helps. In a crisis situation, "regular" parenting can wait. Hopefully it won't last too much longer for you.
 

ready2run

New Member
HE WRECKED HIS BED AGAIN!!!!!!! i should have known. this is the fourth matress he's destroyed. i am so not pleased right now. i have no idea how he does it. i changed his sheets today, as he has been asking me everynight for the last three nights to put the new sheets i bought on his bed so i finally did and he started freaking out, yelling and screaming and smashing things because i changed his sheets, and doing his 'i want them' 'i hate them' 'i like them' 'i don't want them' thing about it and took the sheets off and threw them in the laundry. so i left him in his room to calm down and when i went up to figure out if i should fix the sheets or put the old dirty ones back on he had his matress ripped apart again. what the heck? he is now sleeping on a daycare nap cot which he barely fits on. stuff like this makes me so angry. i am trying to scrape enough money together right now to pay for the closing costs and moving to a new house and he is adding another expense i can't afford right now!! i told him last time if he did it again i was not going to get him a new one...........................................i am pulling my hair out over here. and then he wonders why his brothers got new bunkbeds @x-mas and he doesn't....gee i wonder.
 
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