difficult child 2....

[flutterby]

We get a phone call this morning to pick up difficult child 2 from school. He was asleep in class and they couldn't wake him. They had to carry him to the office and call the nurse in.

He took two 20mg Adderall yesterday; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. He's not prescribed Adderall.

easy child picks him up and he tells easy child that he took one of my muscle relaxers, too. easy child left him in the car asleep until I told him to get him. It's only 23 degrees out. I confronted him about the muscle relaxer and he denied it. I told him he was either lying to easy child or to me, but that he was lying either way. Then he admitted it. Caught in a lie. What other choice did he have? Oh, yeah, to try to weasel out of it by saying he needed it because his back has been hurting so bad (he does have a lot of back pain). Too bad, so sad. No sympathy here.

I had refilled my klonopin yesterday. Yesterday was a really bad health day for me and I forgot to put them away. I counted them. I'm short 5 pills. I woke difficult child 2 and confronted him and he said he took 1. Do I have IDIOT stamped on my forehead??? First of all, it doesn't matter if he only took 1 because it's not prescribed to him. He stole from me. Second, I counted them. DUH!!!!!

He stole from me. He's abusing drugs. And this after the therapist appointment where he went on about how bad he felt about taking my medications on Thanksgiving.

He's going home today. I don't even want to look at him.

 

[DammitJanet]

Im sorry he is doing this but it was only a matter of time before he started stealing your pills. Temptation was just too strong. I dont blame you for kicking him out. It isnt your responsibility to deal with this.

 

[flutterby]

The Adderall he got from a kid in school.

You know, he's just going to do this stuff no matter where he is. I think it's just who he is. His mom and I were talking and she thinks he's going to ultimately end up homeless.

I don't know that I'm kicking him out for good. At least for a little while then I'll go from there. I'm too po'd to make any kind of rational decision at the moment.

 

[flutterby]

He's gone. Mom picked him up.

He claimed he didn't know why he was going home, but he wouldn't look at me. He tried to play stupid on the klonopin, but it didn't fly.

I told him last time, if he does it again he's out. He's out. I am no longer saving him from himself.

He's lied, he's manipulated, and he's stolen. I don't play that game. We'll be taking the rest of his things to him this weekend.

 

[smallworld]

It sounds as if difficult child 2 needs to be in a treatment program.

In general, treatment programs focus either on the psychiatric issue (in this case, bipolar disorder) or on the medical issue (in this case, drug abuse), but difficult child 2's mother will want to focus on finding one that treats both simultaneously. The drug treatment programs typically emphasize total abstinence and will not work with someone who isn't ready to give up drugs completely. The psychiatric programs are better at understanding the concept of self-medication and will usually work with the patient on finding better coping skills so that self-medication is not necessary. When inquiring about programs, difficult child 2's mother should ask whether it is a dual-diagnosis program.

There is an article in a recent issue of BiPolar (BP) magazine that addresses dual-diagnosis concerns. The link can be found here:
http://www.bphope.com/

Hang in there.

 

[flutterby]

I know the statistics regarding drug abuse and BiPolar (BP).

He's been in two inpatient, dual diagnosis treatment facilities, and one outpatient. Within 2 weeks of getting out, he was back to the same behavior. He "works" the program. He's really good at telling you what you want to hear knowing full well he has no intention of following through. He did this literally hours after telling therapist how bad he felt about taking my medications the last time. He is extremely manipulative...to the nth degree. He'll even proudly admit that he thanks his dad for teaching him how to be like that.

He won't talk to me for a long time. He won't talk to me if I'm mad at him. Like I said, he wouldn't even look at me earlier. And he left something of difficult child's he had borrowed on the floor in front of her door instead of handing them to her.

He was also yelling (via text) at easy child because he doesn't know where his backpack is (easy child picked him up from school). easy child told him that we don't have it, that difficult child 2 didn't know where it was in school when easy child picked him up. difficult child 2 doesn't believe him. easy child is ignoring him. My guess is that there are drugs in it.

difficult child is now mad at me for kicking him out. "He's mentally ill; he can't help it." I guarantee if it was her stuff he was taking, or her he was lying to, she'd have a completely different take on it. easy child is currently searching for some missing items.

And I'm just done.

 

[flutterby]

I just went through his stuff. I found a small baggie with 3 pills in it. I used the pill identifier to identify them. They are mine: 1 phenegran and 2 amitriptyline. I wasn't worried about those medications because you can't get high off them - at least I don't think you can. Certainly not off one or two.

I don't even know why he would take those. Either he doesn't know what they are, or he planned to sell them to some unsuspecting idiot.

 

[smallworld]

Do you think he's at all suicidal? If he collected enough Amitriptyline from you over time, he could kill himself. An overdose of tricyclics has the ability to put the heart into cardiac arrest.

 

[flutterby]

I don't think he's suicidal, but I guess I can't be sure.

I don't have enough amitriptyline to OD on...and as far as I can tell, I'm only missing those 2. Just guessing because I don't count those, but it can't be much more than that.

My bet is that he didn't know what they were. He would see me take phenegran for nausea and it made me sleepy and he probably thought that meant you could get high on it. It's an antihistamine. I told him that - repeatedly.

 

[ML]

Oh man. That addiction demon is wicked. You did the right thing by making him leave. To do anything else would have been to enable. I'm sure sorry this is happening. ML