Thanks for the welcome! We have had a couple of professionals tell us anxiety/depression are most likely the underlying root causes but I'm not 100% convinced. I'm afraid that in our quest to help our son, I have become rather cynical about the psychiatric. profession ( though I have an undergraduate degree in psychology!). I just feel that the diagnosing of mental health issues is so subjective that you can get a dozen different opinions thus it scares me to death! Anyway, our son has been oppositionally defiant and argumentative since 3 years old...he really never snapped out of an extreme version of the terrible twos. Since the onset of puberty 2 years ago though he has become almost unbearable to live with as the behaviors took on a whole new level and his attitude became disrespectful, negative, critical, sullen and full of anger..I could go on, but you get the drift. A year ago we felt we had no choice than to try medications. He has been on Abilify and Zoloft since then and we have seen some improvement but not the radical change we had hoped and prayed for.
He is the oldest of four and will turn 15 this summer. He is super bright, maintains As in his honors classes in which he is self-motivated, has a small group of great buddies who are good kids, plays in a competitive sports team, seems like a regular kid....to those outside of our family!!!!
Our other children are 12 (bio boy), 8 1/2 (bio boy) and 4 1/2(girl adopted at 21mos.) We have no issues ( other than your normal run-of-the-mill kid stuff) whatsoever with our other kids. As for family, my husband and I have been married almost 18 years and have no psychiatric. issues other than insomnia for me (brought on by my excessive stress/worry/sadness about the situation). On his side there are several siblings with past addiction issues and his father was an alcoholic but passed away in early 70s. There is a nephew with ADHD who is doing awesome on medications (he's 16). My family is small and tho' no one has been diagnosed, I would say-and my brother who is a physician agrees-that my mother has mild depression brought on by life situations more than anything else. She also has chronic insomnia of which, unlike myself, she refuses to get help with.
Are there any other families dealing with-ODD? I just read that Ritalin can help with ODD behaviors so wondering if others have treated their child with this drug.
Thanks for reading.