Hello,
My son is a 6 year old generally sweet and wonderful boy. He has been physically chronically ill since birth and has lived almost his entirely life in daily pain. Unfortunately, all the doctors visits, physical limitations and daily pain has led to psychological/behavioral issues. Two years ago things got so bad that he ended up needing an intensive psychiatric program but the inpatient side was not comfortable taking care our our sons medical needs so he did the outpatient day program.
With the aid of the program and the addition of abilify to his daily medications our son did very well. Fast forward to August and things became much harder again. It isn't to say that everything was smooth sailing before that but it was much easier. I don't know what happened during that time but the rages became more prevalent and he was having a harder time controlling his anger and how he responded. He would snap at little things.
We started more intensive therapy including normal psychologist, art therapy, and Occupational Therapist (OT) for his sensory processing disorder. Well last tuesday he completely lost it at his Occupational Therapist (OT) and ran her over with his power wheelchair. My son ended up being escorted via the BART team down to the psychiatric er in the hospital. From there he was admitted to the psychiatric unit.
In general when we weren't around he kept it together but during our visits he would get violent. The docs wanted to see him safe during visits before stepping him down to the day program. Unfortunately, they were unable to keep him stable medically and his special care doctor almost had to transfer him to the medical side of the hospital. We decided to bring him home on Tuesday. He is now going to the day program. In addition to the intensive program the psychiatrist has increased his abilify. It seems to be helping.
At this point the docs believe he has an undefined mood disorder and suffers from ptsd due to the trauma of his medical condition.
I am at such a loss. I look at my son and see two children: one the sweet amazing boy he is 95% of the time and the scary aggressive person he becomes when angry/frustrated.
We are doing everything we can to help him but I just feel so adrift at this point. We have been through so much between his behavior/psychological issues and his physical ones...
Yael
My son is a 6 year old generally sweet and wonderful boy. He has been physically chronically ill since birth and has lived almost his entirely life in daily pain. Unfortunately, all the doctors visits, physical limitations and daily pain has led to psychological/behavioral issues. Two years ago things got so bad that he ended up needing an intensive psychiatric program but the inpatient side was not comfortable taking care our our sons medical needs so he did the outpatient day program.
With the aid of the program and the addition of abilify to his daily medications our son did very well. Fast forward to August and things became much harder again. It isn't to say that everything was smooth sailing before that but it was much easier. I don't know what happened during that time but the rages became more prevalent and he was having a harder time controlling his anger and how he responded. He would snap at little things.
We started more intensive therapy including normal psychologist, art therapy, and Occupational Therapist (OT) for his sensory processing disorder. Well last tuesday he completely lost it at his Occupational Therapist (OT) and ran her over with his power wheelchair. My son ended up being escorted via the BART team down to the psychiatric er in the hospital. From there he was admitted to the psychiatric unit.
In general when we weren't around he kept it together but during our visits he would get violent. The docs wanted to see him safe during visits before stepping him down to the day program. Unfortunately, they were unable to keep him stable medically and his special care doctor almost had to transfer him to the medical side of the hospital. We decided to bring him home on Tuesday. He is now going to the day program. In addition to the intensive program the psychiatrist has increased his abilify. It seems to be helping.
At this point the docs believe he has an undefined mood disorder and suffers from ptsd due to the trauma of his medical condition.
I am at such a loss. I look at my son and see two children: one the sweet amazing boy he is 95% of the time and the scary aggressive person he becomes when angry/frustrated.
We are doing everything we can to help him but I just feel so adrift at this point. We have been through so much between his behavior/psychological issues and his physical ones...
Yael