New one for me~difficult child hearing voices

[tammyjh]

Not sure what to make of this. difficult child is 14 and in Special Education in school. The Special Education. teacher and I use a communication notebook every day. Wednesday after school, difficult child gives me the notebook and the spec. ed. teacher had written in there that difficult child said she was hearing voices. So, I waited a day before trying to talk to difficult child about it as her moods have been very unmanageable..tried to talk to difficult child yesterday afternoon and she said that yes, she's heard voices. That she heard them when she was in her room. They were telling her to do things but that she didn't know what they were telling her to do. I called the school this morning and the teacher told me that when she was walking difficult child to another class difficult child says something like"I wish the voices would just be quiet" and that it happened again the next day(Wed.) and she questioned difficult child a bit and while difficult child wasn't specific, she told the teacher the voices were telling her to do bad things. difficult child told me yesterday that she talked to the school counselor about it and I'm bringing it up on Monday with her private therapist. The therapist and psychiatrist are in the same practice so they can communicate back and forth. We're not due back to the psychiatrist for a while but the therapist will refer us over to her if she thinks we need to. We're not sure that she is "really" hearing voices or if she's read it in a book or trying on behavior that she may have seen during some of her hospital stays. husband heard me talking to her about it yesterday afternoon and is a little creeped out right now.

She's not on medications. and hasn't been since early Jan. Her moods cycle but we've noticed no difference without medications...in fact, so far, she's less physically aggressive off medications although, its looking like she's heading back in that direction. She has no history of hearing voices or things that aren't there. Its a mystery...and I'm hoping she's not really hearing things that aren't there. We've suspected that she's been regressing in a lot of areas in the last few years so this could be part of it I guess. We'll see what all the people on the team think of it..in home support people will be here on Monday afternoon too so I'll tell them then too.

 

[sandman3]

I feel you! My difficult child 1, who just spent 10 days inpatient, says he hears voices also. The psychiatric at the hospital is the one who told me about it, I was surprised to say the least. So, I've asked him about it and he said yes and that they tell him to do bad things. Our therapist says not to push questioning him because that can lead to him "making it up". The outpatient psychiatric says it's not voices and he's just manifesting his thoughts (this after a 45 minute, first time visit!). So, I'm not sure what to make of it yet. I asked A to just let me know when he hears them and I don't bother him about it. He told me Wednesday that he heard them again calling his name and saying "hello". For now, I'm just in the watch and pay attention mode...he is on medications now which seems to be helping him.

I think you definitely need to get your difficult child into the psychiatric or Therapist immediately to address the issue....at least they can help you with what to watch for and what to document.

Have a better day!

 

[smallworld]

Tammy, you need to report this to her psychiatrist ASAP and have your difficult child assessed to see what the voices are all about. If there are voices telling her to do certain things (called command hallucinations), that is considered a psychiatric emergency. Let the professionals decide if she is in danger, not the school or you.

 

[totoro]

I agree with Smallworld!!! Do not let any one down play things your child is telling you. When my K first started hearing voices, I had to go through all of this as well.
She is OK with it and they are not command Hallucinations, but I needed to have someone see her and really listen to her, and NOT say she wanted attention... or was embellishing...
You some times have to listen to your child and then weed out the facts... help them first. DO not discount anything.
I agree about not making a big deal about it to your difficult child. We just let K know that we are here, and want her to tell us. Especially when they say bad things...
Hang in there

 

[BusynMember]

I third that. If she's not on medication and hearing voices (and typically the voices are negative speaking auditory hallucinations) she is mentally ill and I would not put it off. THe voices often get worse, demanding that the child do worse and worse things (or so we were told). There are good anti-psychotics to help her, but I wouldn't ignore this even for a day. It is not the norm that a child would say that if she didn't really hear them. And "I wish the voices would shut up" is a common thing for even adults with hallucinations to say. Hallucinations can be very compelling and the kids/adults often listen to what they say. Do you have a history of mental illness on either side of the family tree? Any substance abuse (which is a big red flag that somebody is self-medicating for a mental illness). I would call NOW. You want to stop the voices before they get worse. I have hallucinated while on bad medications, and you can certainly tell the difference between your thoughts and hallucinations that are not your thoughts, but that are threatening and seem to come from nowhere, and that nobody else hears...it's scary.

 

[janebrain]

Hi,
my dtr was hearing voices also but it turns out they were not actually hallucinations. She has a dissociative disorder and it was different parts of herself that she was hearing. The voices would tell her to do bad things or put her down, telling her she was stupid, etc. Sometimes the voices would argue with each other and she said they got frantic when she was getting help from her therapist because they were afraid of disappearing. My dtr is not mentally ill, the voices don't necessarily mean that. I agree you should let the psychiatrist know right away, don't wait, because they can be a sign of psychosis. But it may turn out that something else is wrong.
Jane

 

[JJJ]

Jane, dissociative disorder is a mental illness. DSM code 300.

Tammy - I would bring this up with the psychiatrist. There are medications that help quiet the voices (the anti-psychotics: Risperdal, Geodon, Zyprexa, etc).

Kanga's voices got increasingly more intrusive and pushed her more towards violence. If you watch your child, you might see her tip her head as if listening to someone or she might seem to respond to stimuli you can't see or hear. She may be mad at you for no reason.

I'm sorry that you have to go through this.

 

[tammyjh]

She has an appointment. on Monday morning. Thats as early as anyone will see her and it is her therapist (not the school counselor). I trust this lady more than the psychiatrist because she knows more of difficult child's history and "gets it" more than most people we've seen. difficult child has said that a girl at her last hospital stay talked about hearing voices and I'm checking through some of the books that she checked out of the library to see if there are any references to voices in them. She's very very open to suggestion. Over a year ago, she read one of the "chicken soup" books with a story about a girl who used to cut. Shortly after that, she snuck nail scissors to school and tried to cut herself...that led to the beginning of her hospital stays. As she never broke the skin, and only tried it once, she's not considered a cutter. I did call the school counselor today so I would know what she said to her so I can give the therapist as much info as possible on Monday. We're very familiar with the crisis people if we feel we need to call...unfortunately some of them know us too well by now. We don't have a good history with her being accepted to the hospital for observation. The last time, they declared her stable and "jolly" about 5 hours after being admitted and a 30 minute visit with the psychiatrist on the floor. It took 3 days to find her a bed that time and we spent the time that she was there trying to convince them that she needed to be there instead of focusing on how to help her.

As far as history of mental illness, it depends on who's definition. There are definitely quirky people on both sides but as to my knowledge no one on her dads side have ever been hospitalized for mental illness and no one on my side either. No one on my side either. No history of substance abuse either. Most in my immediate family do not drink at all and very few on her dads side either.

Thanks for all your responses. I really appreciate them

 

[susiestar]

My son is an aspie. He has had times that he heard voices. They DEFINITELY got WORSE - horribly so. It was scary when he was talking to them. He would answer them and ALL of us knew he was in danger and dangerous to others.

A psychiatrist tried to tell us he was making it up, we got another one PDQ from the hospital.

Geodon was very very helpful, with less side effects than risperdal weight wise.

Hope it gets better, and does not get worse,

Susie