So, in the last post I mentioned Sissy crashing this afternoon after the culmination of her insane and impossible behavior issues that lead to hurting Wonder Girl in her anger, a deescalation from the IFI team and a possible replacement to RTC looming in the future.
After I wrote the crashing post, some of you responded that your RADishes crash after their RAD storms/manic rages. But what about THIS little twist?
Remember I said that Sissy walked into the wall, right? So after she comes out of her daze-like stupor, she complains of her head hurting. "Mom, when I touch it, it hurts. Bad" i look and she's slightly bruised and swollen above her eyebrow where she smacked into the wall. "Yes, that would be from when you walked into the wall yesterday."
"HUH?" was her reply.
I shrugged it off because I get "HUH?" replies from Sissy all the time and so many of those times she says, "HUH?" it's just to egg me on. But my momma's intuition is telling me she really didn't remember deliberately smacking her head into the wall.
But here's another puzzling thing. She was not just dazed, she was different. Like her doppleganger had been with us for the last two weeks, not Sissy. And that Sissy had returned. Her countenance had changed. She was giddy. Her eyes were sparkly. She was striving to please at all cost, happy to be doing it, no glares of death, no grunting and growling, complete compliance to the point of knowing what do to without being asked, using coping skills, saying she was proud of herself for trying so hard, did all her hygeine and showering without a single issue, stopped herself mid lie several times (literally, was about to complete her sentence and stopped. "oh. sorry. never mind. that's a lie")
O.o
Ok, mine turn.
"WHAT?! HUH!?!"
She took her meds, combed her hair (OMG!), wrote in her journal (OMG!x2) turned out he light and went straight to sleep.
So...
who the heck is sleeping in there?!?!?!? Sissy? Sissy's double?!?!?
Let me tell you, the thought of personality disorder has crossed my mind tonight. And schizophrenia. Did I mention she was talking and singing to herself and using the language "we"?
yeah.
i told GB's Mom in a comment that before RTC, Sissy's manic rages were 15 days of escalation that pinnacled on the 14th or 15th day and then she'd be calm and placid for three days with escalation toward full-on rage directly after the three days. I charted her for months. This was an unmistakable pattern. (the P-doc has the charts)
It begs several questions.
1. if Sissy's still rapid cycling, what on earth are all the meds for? They're clearly not helping. can this even be medicated? She's ON an anti-psychotic so ... how can she still be psychotic? And how the heck did the RTC miss this?!?
2. is Sissy borderline personality disorder or schizophrenic?
3. is it even worth the effort to apply RAD therapy at this point? Her needs seem to far supercede just that issue, so that her RADs is diminutive to the more pressing mental health crises in her mind.
4. unless of course, ya'll tell me that you get this insanity with your RADishes all the time and that this is typical clinical RAD crap (but I'll only buy into that if your RAD doesn't have multiple mental health diagnoses or a dual diagnosis for developmental delay and mental health issues like Sissy does.)
5. in which case, does she need a brief hospital stay as opposed to a long term treatment facility?
I'm officially freaked out. This has been some crazy-scary crap with her this week! I'm betting she has a stellar day at school tomorrow and her teachers email me and say, "WOW! Sissy was amazing today!!!!" (which, for the record, will make me want to hurl because OMG. as if!)
8 comments:
If you're concerned about dissociative identity disorder, maybe you should try to connect with Lindsey Peterson. She has a kid who has it. (See the category "dissociative identity disorder" in the drop-down box to the right to read some of her posts on the subject.)
I can see you freaking out! GB and J both have Bipolar I with psychotic features, and psychosis can happen while on anti-psychotics. She definitely needs her meds evaluated and soon. She could also have a personality disorder, but they do not like to diagnose them before 18. Maybe she needs to be hospitalized before RTC.
Sorry you are going through this. You are in my thoughts and prayers. Please let us know how you make out.
Last night after Calvin's reage he was sweet as pie, he did what he needed to do and was pleasent to be with. Sometimes he a bear after... mybe it is the cycle of the moon. I can never predict which way the behaviour is going to go.
Perhaps some of this is from the meds?
My kid does stuff like this, too. She'll explode, then be a totally different, NICE kid. She'll walk into walls, doors, and bang her head on things. They are all accidents on purpose, of course. She'll claim she "doesn't remember" or "didn't hear" things that just happened.
It's crazy-making. Maybe Sissy realizes she's bought the golden ticket back to RTC, and she's trying to manipulate her way out of it.
Not a mom, but a mental health professional!
Have you had a neurological workup done? I had a kid that we thought was mentally ill, it turns out that a lot of her behaviors were the result of neurological problems. Could she be having some kind of seizure type episode? You should have had a neuro workup at some point, but it never ceases to amaze me how much medicaid will cut corners when it comes to mentally ill kids.
As far as personality disorder, I don't know any legitimate doctor that will diagnose that until she's 18. And DID (formerly multiple personality disorder) is EXTREMELY RARE. Like, I could work with the mentally ill for the next 50 years and never get a case of it rare. She could be dissociative though. It's pretty common for kids who have suffered trauma (like the type of trauma that would cause RAD) to dissociate when they're under stress.
Or, she could be playing you. But if they haven't run a neurological workup (full panel of tests) then I would be pushing for it.
Some thoughts...(1) antipsychotics can cause psychosis in some kids. (2) If she experienced deep trauma as a child before you got her she may be dissociating as a part of PTSD. (3) She may be having seizures. Seizures can often look like mental illness and can include psychosis and memory loss (I wrote a post on this a few months back because I have this same issue with my son). (4) it may be just RAD stuff mixed with bipolar or PTSD or whatever
hey Ashleigh, oh yeah, we have run the gambit of neuro workups. Her brain has no injury, no seizure activity (save but some weird events due to Welbutrin) good vascular flow, a sound organ. She does have some high beta and theta banding in the hippocampal region but wiht neurofeedback, it settles down and she is able to access the frontal lobe/cognitive region
I don't pop over as often as I would like, but I will tell you - as a help and an encouragement - that I have yet to read anything in your daughter that I have not seen in my own. All of it. Like ALL OF IT.
My daughter came to me with multiple diagnoses and many more that were possibly suspected (plenty in the mental illness and neuro categories). Yup. Yup. Yup. I was even scoping out treatment for sensory disorder at first.
But again with the - yup - NO sensory disorder. Not even a smidgen.
No mental illness (although, I know RAD is considered a disorder, I also prefer to see it as a MONSTER illness ... but that's just me).
No ADHD.
A good case in point would be Lisa's daughter (http://lisajordanpuddin.blogspot.com). At age three the experts determined she was a psychopath (no exaggeration) and would never, ever be able to function in an actual family/home. They had her doped out the ying-yang, etc., etc., etc. She had every diagnosis in the book.
And now look at that kid. AMAZING.
That's where I focus my energies - on the families who are bearing fruit, even if that means they are simply finding a "new normal" in the stuff that does exist in their kids. Well, that, and I also keep them on speed dial, because I still have days/weeks/months/years of moaning when I JUST DON'T WANT TO DO THE WORK! Ya' know ... cause it's the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my 37 years on this planet.
*insert insane depression and moaning here*
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