Believe it or not, this is progress.....

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bran155

Guest
While my difficult child is driving me nuts, I do see a lot of progress. Living with her is like living in a storm as she is so all over the place and very overwhelming. However, our lives are much improved (for now, anyway). She is noisy, intrusive, and in and out all day. However, there hasn't been any rages or violence and only minimal cursing. I hope it lasts!!!

I am almost able to actually parent her. I can nag at her to pick up after herself without her freaking out on me. I wish I didn't have to nag at her at all, but I can't expect miracles right? If she does get angry with me she is able to control it a lot better now. She doesn't let it go too far. For instance: this morning she did not want to wake up for her partial program, the more I told her to get up the angrier she got. She flung her covers off and said "Shut the F@#k up, I f@#$%^g hate you". Sounds bad, but really that is as far as it went. When she came downstairs the first thing she did was apologize to me. She said she was just tired. I told her that I was tired too and that is not an excuse to speak to me that way. On the way out the door she apologized again!!! Not like her. She would normally curse me out and keep on cursing me out, bang a few things, slam doors and leave with no remorse whatsoever. Good job difficult child!!! The average parent would not recognize this as a good thing, but I'm sure some of you can.

She is slowly coming out of denial. That is monumental for her. Yesterday we had an intake appointment with a Boce program. Long story short, it just wasn't for her. Too much freedom and not enough structure. I thought she was going to be very upset when the principle told us that this program was not right for her. She handled it beautifully!!! When we got to the car, she turned to me and said: "Mom, I couldn't go here, I would only end up in trouble". I was floored when I heard this. I am so proud of her for recognizing that she couldn't handle it. That is a huge for her. Does this mean soon she will finally admit to being "mentally ill"?? Okay, I'm reaching for the stars, baby steps - right?

I'm a little nervous about today. She wants so much to be off most of her medications. She thinks that we are going to take her off the Lithium. That was the original plan, however she is doing so well that I feel she should stay on it. So I spoke to her therapist and the doctor at partial today on speaker phone with her in the room. She heard me say that I don't want to take her off the Lithium, so she will probably come home and give me hell for it. Let's see if she is able to control herself, I am keeping my fingers crossed that this will not escalate into a rage. We'll see....

Thanks for listening. :)
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Oooh, that is progress! That is so exciting.
I know how you must feel about the lithium. She does sound like she's doing very well. I'd consider keeping her on it until she's made a little more progress though. She's still putting a lot of effort into her reactions and needs to be more "automatic," as in automatically not swearing at you, etc.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
That's WONDERFUL to hear! She really IS making progress -- no doubt the medications are helping, and as much as she wants to come off everything, she needs to also understand that it's just not realistic to expect that. That would be like an asthmatic deciding they didn't need their medications anymore. It won't take long for reality to make things very clear. And does she really want to risk going backwards after having worked SO hard to get to where she is today?

Hope things go well at the partial for her today and that she's accepted things a little better by the time she gets home.
 

Andy

Active Member
This is great news. Maybe the staff picked up on her disappointment about the lithium and will have talked to her about it today. You are doing great in recognizing how the medications are helping. I hope she can start to understand that it takes time and if need be to accept a lifetime of medications.

My difficult child got very nervous one day when he forgot to take his morning medications, "But mom, I'm not suppose to go off cold turkey. What's going to happen?" It was only 5 hours and for him it was o.k.

You may want to call back and ask if staff have or could talk to her about the lithium and how she feels before she comes home today?
 

Steely

Active Member
Your post made me cry. God, I so get how huge this is for difficult child, and you - as I see it daily in mine. The "i'm sorrys", the ability to finally nag without explosions, those are things we could not do or get most of their lives.

Baby steps. Baby steps. My difficult child told me the other day that if I made him do something a certain way he would fight it - but if I allowed him to do it his way, he wouldn't - bottom line we reached the same goal (doing school work) but I thought it was amazingly insightful that he knew he would fight my rules - but he knew he would not fight his own rules and inner motivation.

I talked to my difficult children psychiatrist yesterday about his new bloodwork, and once again everything on his whole screen came back normal, including liver, thyroid, cbcs, etc. It has been 6 years now that he has been on Lithium.

I pray that difficult child continues her small steps, which for her, are monumental.
Hugs
 

Sara PA

New Member
The improvement may have nothing to do with the medications she is on and everything to do with the medications she is off. Simply removing the two antidepressants could have produced the improvement you are seeing. That's the problem with making multiple medication changes at one time.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Bran,
What a great post! I think she is making great progress and Im saying a prayer it continues. Hugs.
 
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bran155

Guest
Thank you all for all of your support. I love this website!! I can't tell you what it means to me to be able to connect with all of you. When something happens in my day, good or bad, I can't wait to post it.

We went to court today, my daughter was a nervous wreck, she was so afraid the judge was going to remand her. The judge is actually really sweet and empathetic. She did not get remanded. YAY!! difficult child was approved for aftercare services until her 18th birthday. (6 months) We are still trying to find her an appropriate day program for school. I have a great sw who really cares and is very pro-active in helping my daughter. We have always been very lucky that way, we have always had really good people in our lives. Believe it or not even the SD has been good to us. I guess that is the silver lining - hu?

Thanks again. I will keep you all abreast of what is happening in my crazy life. God bless. :)
 
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