Eeewww, hypersexuality

[JJJ]

I don't think I will ever get over the eeww factor of hypersexuality.

Currently Kanga is "dating" one girl at the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) and one boy at school. She was caught naked in the showers with a different girl and is now obsessing about a different boy at school. At least 3 of the 4 are her age, her "boyfriend" at school is 12!!!! He was 11 and she was 14 when they started 'dating'. The school thinks it is cute mainly because the boy has no friends and no self-esteem and having a girlfriend made him feel better and therefore behave better. I'm worried about how the poor boy will feel when he finds out about her other antics. Hopefully the school keeps the supervision strong because for the next few months due to him being under 13 and her being 15, I think even a kiss is a felony.

Kanga and the boy she is crushing on (not the one she is dating) are arguing at school and at the end of last year there was a minor altercation that "surprised everyone" (wouldn't have if they would listen to me). I'm not even going to bother warning them this year, they don't listen.

We are taking the littles to see Kanga next weekend. We reserved the family room for 2 hours but I'd be shocked if she could hold it together that long. Just hearing that they were coming led to a verbal fit. Residential Treatment Center (RTC) approved the visit because they don't want to let Kanga continue to avoid them and they think I am great at reading Kanga and trust me to end the visit if I see her getting agitated. We are not allowed to take Kanga off campus (trust me I have no desire to do so).

And once again, I am troubled by nightmares as the visit draws closer.

 

[smallworld]

Hypersexuality is a hallmark symptom of mania. It concerns me that the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) thinks it's "cute," and not a serious symptom that needs immediate medical attention. Why aren't her medications being adjusted?

 

[JJJ]

Sorry, I should be clearer. The Residential Treatment Center (RTC) is taking it seriously, it was a factor in her recent 3 week hospitalization and medication adjustment. She was not allowed to have a roommate at the psychiatric hospital. She has to have a roommate at the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) because they are maxed on beds but they carefully selected who she is with to minimize risk and they are not allowed to close their door.

The school is a public alternate school that rents a building on the property of the Residential Treatment Center (RTC). There are about a dozen girls from the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) that go to school there along with about 40-50 day students (mostly boys) that are bused in from the surrounding communities. It is the school staff that thinks it is 'cute' because they totally miss the hypersexual aspect of it. Kanga is very invested in being the 'good child' at school and so they only see what Kanga wants them to see.

The Residential Treatment Center (RTC) staff met with the school staff prior to Kanga returning to school from the hospitalization to stress, again, the need for 100% supervision.

 

[JJJ]

There are serious discussions going on with her treatment staff that we may be dealing with a multiple personality. It is very hard because school staff describes one Kanga, and Residential Treatment Center (RTC) sees a slightly different Kanga, and we see others. She does have "features of dissociative disorder"

 

[klmno]

That sounds like a bad situation- not everything about being in the Residential Treatment Center (RTC), but the sexual activity. Is Kanga on birth control? Here, the age of consent is 13yo. It's a felony if the other party is more than a certain age but it's a misdemeanor, I think, if it's another child who just happens to be a little over 13yo and it was not forced or coerced. That varies by state of course and still, it's a concern. Obviously, the other kids are difficult child's/MI too or they wouldn't be there. It's one thing for staff to catch the actions taking place but it's another to supervise enough to prevent opportunity for them to even start those actions. It sounds like they aren't supervising to that point yet.

 

[JJJ]

K,

Many, many rules have been changed at the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) in the last two months. I doubt she'll be able to repeat her antics on site. She has been hypersexual since she was 10. We started her on birthcontrol as soon as the pediatrician would let us (age 12, about 6 months after her periods started).

Last spring she insisted that she was getting pregnant by this 12 year old (who I met and he hasn't hit puberty yet so I'm not sure he could????). Anyway, she planned on getting pg and moving in with her babydaddy. She thought that she would be declared an adult if she got pg. I gave her the cold hard facts of life (1) baby would go to foster care as they don't allow babies at this Residential Treatment Center (RTC) and there were limited spots at the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) that does allow babies (2) she'd be looking at jail time for having sex with a child under the age of 13 (3) chances were good that CPS would have her child adopted long before she finished her treatment at Residential Treatment Center (RTC)

She tried to manipulate the nurse into discontinuing her birthcontrol. She thought that if she refused to take it, she'd be dropped a level so she did keep taking it.

It is a long road with this child.

 

[totoro]

This is so disturbing. She just does not understand how these things can affect her for the rest of her life.
I was stupid enough to think it was fun to play around and play the adult at her age. I ended up pregnant at 13.
What a stinking mess. And the sad thing is, having BiPolar (BP) I didn't learn my lesson either. It took me so long and so many more bad hard lessons to finally get it.
I really hope some of this can sink into her head before she gets hurt more. Poor thing, woman's body in such an immature mind.
But there is little you can do at this point, once the mind is made up for a lot of kids like this there is no changing it.
It is probably good she is where she is right now. A tiny bit safer for her.

 

[smallworld]

The only illness where mania occurs is with bipolar disorder. Hypersexuality is a hallmark symptom of mania and therefore bipolar disorder. The only treatment for mania is rxing the right medication combo (mood stabilizers plus atypical antipsychotics) plus intensive therapy to learn to cope with manic behavior.

 

[Marguerite]

Bipolar is the most common cause of mania, but not the only one.

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania[/ame]

I also am concerned at the school's lack of ability to "get it" especially since they are set up on site with the Residential Treatment Center (RTC).

difficult child 3's correspondence school has regular study days when kids attend for classes (a single day here or there). Kids do corrspondence for wildly varying reasons: some are sporting stars or attend a private performing arts school to the financially and artictically elite; others are like difficult child 3 and work form home for various physical health and emotional health reasons; others attend a "behaviour school" for kids who have been a major behaviour problem in mainstream. Throwing these kids together can eb a recipe for disaster, even with aides and supervisors also present and sitting in. This school doesn't deal with these issues on a daily basis, unlike Kanga's school - yet THIS school (difficult child 3's school) DOES get it, and WILL closely supervise/monitor where needed. Early on in difficult child 3's attendance here there was an incident between him and some boys from the behaviour school. While difficult child 3 was not at fault, he did escalate the situation with his (autistic) reactions. Nothing physical took place other than a shove, but I had the full works of the school reaction - abject apology, the promise of ongoing supervision (which was followed trough on, for several years) to keep difficult child 3 safe in all future encounters; a ban on the specific boys from the behaviour school in attending any study day where difficult child 3 wasalso attending. What difficult child 3 wanted to attend had priority; we were told that the other boys' behaviour had meant they forgeited choice to attend (which is seen as a privilege).

My point - if difficult child 3's school can get it so quickly and put good supervision in place, when attendance (and therefore incidence) is so infrequent, WHY can't Kanga's school get it, when they're right on the spot and have the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) staff right there warning them? And you warning them?

They sound to me like people who think those "poor Residential Treatment Center (RTC) kids" are just there because their families either don't want them, or the kids have been mistrwated and all they need is a hug.

They young boy at the school - he is heading for a lot of pain. It's great that being a boyfriend makes him feel good about himself. But that isn't a cure for whatever is wrong with him; if anything, it is setting him up badly. He needs the school to be working on helping him feel good about himself, NOT in any way dependant on how someone else feels about him. We all need to feel good about ourselves intrinsically. He is at a very vulnerable age anyway. How are the other kids going to treat him when Kanga moves on to someone else? How is he going to feel about himself? Let alone if he works out what she is doing, as you said...

The school needs to work with him NOW to help him find other ways to feel good baout himself, or tey'll have very serious problems on their hands.

On the legal front - if Kanga is hypersexual because she's in a manic phase, then to what extent can she legally be held responsible for her actions? However, you have warned the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) (who seem to be doing what they can) and both they and you have warned the school (who think it's cute). So if Kanga and this boy kiss (or do more) then who SHOULD legally be responsible? The kid who is out of touch with reality? Or the school who have been warned of this (so it IS forseeable) and who also should have procedures in place to deal with this, if they expect to be permitted to have Residential Treatment Center (RTC) students enrolled with non-Residential Treatment Center (RTC) kids.

If something goes wrong and it is forseeable, then it is those who have had supervision of the kids during that time (especially when school attendance is mandatory) who have a legal responsibility to protect those kids from forseeable dangers.

Marg

 

[gcvmom]

Marg, your Wiki link didn't take. Is this what you meant to post?

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania[/ame]

 

[gcvmom]

Nuts! It didn't work for me either!

 

[Wiped Out]

JJJ,
Hugs, the hyper sexuality is so difficult to deal with.

 

[susiestar]

Hugs. I have no idea how you cope with hypersexuality. I do think the school is being irresponsible.

 

[Marguerite]

I'll try again. But if it doesn't work, it's simply Wiki encyclopedia.

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania[/ame]

I seriously do think that if the school were made to realise that they could be sued by the parents of any child who is emotionally hurt by their lack of vigilance, then perhaps they might take things more seriously. It's a shame - but sometimes money is what has to do the talking.

Marg

 

[smallworld]

Marg, the link still doesn't work.

OK, I should have said that hypersexuality is a hallmark symptom of mania, and mania is MOST COMMONLY caused by bipolar disorder (brain tumor and drug abuse are other causes, which seem unlikely in an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) setting). I will repeat myself -- if mania is treated appropriately with the right medications and augmented by therapy, the hypersexuality greatly improves.

 

[gcvmom]

...if mania is treated appropriately with the right medications and augmented by therapy, the hypersexuality greatly improves.

difficult child 2 had hypersexuality during his most manic periods -- or as much as a 10yo can have. He was touching easy child inappropriately and pulling down his bathing suit to flash the neighbor kids, laughing hysterically while he did his little dance and seeming to really revel in the show he put on. He was oblivious to the embarrassment he was causing other people. He was also preoccupied with the idea of sex and was grilling us for as much info as he could... saying things like "It sure seems like it would be fun, Mom." Actually, he was saying this to me when he was 9...

FWIW I haven't seen a hint of this kind of behavior since he's been at a therapeutic level of Depakote.

So JJJ, do you think Kanga's medications might need an adjustment?

 

[JJJ]

Kanga's medications were just adjusted. The doctor doesn't like to adjust quickly because Kanga had bad reactions to medications in the past plus she is very resistant to medication changes and she is at the age where he wants her to consent to the change (she has refused several). After the medication change she did much better for a few weeks but, based on phone conversations, she is hypomanic again, ugh.

 

[gcvmom]

She might need another tweak then. It's good that they go slow with the adjustments. It's got to be so hard for you to be dealing with this from a distance.

 

[JJJ]

It is actually easier to deal with it from a distance because I don't have to worry about protecting my younger children from her sexually-inappropriateness. I think she likes the feeling and doesn't want the medications because then she has to deal with reality more.

 

[gcvmom]

I'm sure that her refusal of the medications gives her some sense of power over things. And yeah, I could understand someone liking the hypersexuality -- my husband gets like that (although it's much better since he started the seizure medications). It's such a powerful and pleasurable thing... much like a drug. I can understand how sexual addictions can start.

The hard part will be convincing her that she needs to turn these feelings down before they ruin her life. That will be very hard to do in her current state. I hope the psychiatrist can reach her.