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<blockquote data-quote="rlsnights" data-source="post: 309737" data-attributes="member: 7948"><p>Hi there from California, where it was temporarily legal to get married last year and so we did. Coming up on our first "official" anniversary - HALLOWEEN!!! Actually the 17th anniversary of our first date <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> </p><p></p><p>She was a cowgirl and I a fair renaissance maid...sigh.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, welcome and glad you found the board. I am fairly new here but not new to difficult child's. Our oldest one is 26 and difficult child 2, our current challenging one, is coming up on 14 at Christmas. He has a twin sister who flips in and out of easy child/gfgness - mostly it's the good twin/bad twin thing happening I think. difficult child 1 is my partners child, the twins are mine. </p><p></p><p>ODD my foot. ODD really stands for Only Doorknobs Dummy - that's about the only thing in my world that can be labeled as oppositional besides my thumbs.</p><p><img src="/community/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/thumbsup.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":thumbsup:" title="thumbsup :thumbsup:" data-shortname=":thumbsup:" /></p><p>Not to be too quick about it <img src="/community/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/peaceful.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":peaceful:" title="peaceful :peaceful:" data-shortname=":peaceful:" /> but I'll bet you dollars to donuts your kiddo is bipolar. I wouldn't be surprised if once you find a good child psychiatric, get some mood stabilizer with a dash of anti-psychotic going you may discover the child you know and love shines through. That's assuming the DEX cooperates.</p><p></p><p>We've reached the point of officially bestowing the bipolar label on difficult child 2 after the past 3 weeks of melt downs. I shudder to think how it would be if he had to move between two households. It would be hard enough if everything were exactly the same in both places. What you're describing would be enough to make a within normal limits kid wild let alone one with issues.</p><p></p><p>Hopefully you don't need to hear from us about 504 plans and IEPs. If you haven't gone that route yet, I would suggest giving the SD a letter requesting an assessment for Special Education tomorrow. It may be your best route for getting at least some basic assessment done that DEX will agree to since you can say it's to help difficult child at school. Everyone wants their kid to do well at school right? I doubt you need me to tell you this but make sure they assess him for everything - just mark all those little boxes YES. You never know when a hidden speech/language problem or other stuff is lurking unsuspected and gumming up the works.</p><p></p><p>Therapy for difficult child is nice but therapy for you and your SO and your daughter is perhaps even more important in my humble opinion. Until you get difficult child correctly dxd and stabilized it's going to be tough for him to benefit from therapy. The rest of you will benefit a lot.</p><p></p><p>Go as a family, go as a couple, go as individuals - whatever you do just go. If possible find a therapist that has lots of experience with adolescents to work with you and SO because you are going to need as much help as you can get the next few years and having a guide will save you a lot of grief.</p><p></p><p>The stimulants that originally helped Buddy may now be sabotaging him without other medications to balance them out. Stimulants often cause increased aggression in kids with mood disorders and must be used carefully in order to avoid making the mood disorder worse. Just a laymom here but you may want to consider discussing the possibility of withdrawing the stimulants with the prescribing doctor and see if that changes anything.</p><p></p><p>All of which helps explain why everyone here is singing the same song = get him evaluated to the extent DEX will cooperate and make it clear to DEX that delaying any more will cost your difficult child dearly in the long run.</p><p></p><p>If possible get a break from difficult child by farming him out to family or friends for an overnight here and there. do the same for easy child so she gets out of the house sometimes. Also this allows you to spend time alone with each one. At our house the tension goes down about 500% when only one kid is here. Hormones, puberty - ugh.</p><p></p><p>For us, what has been the most helpful is to focus on creatively avoiding triggers that lead to major melt downs. with our difficult child 2 the longer he goes without a melt down the longer he will go without a melt down. Don't know if that makes sense to you but it's a clear pattern. We don't abandon all rules in order to reduce conflict but we sometimes really lower the bar when we see that difficult child 2 is struggling or fragile.</p><p></p><p>it's a tough line to walk and most easily seen in retrospect. doing low expressed emotion is also really helpful to everyone. it is soooo hard not to feel hurt and take things that your difficult child says personally but it is vital that you and SO do your best to take that step back and detach as much as you can. Otherwise all you see is the tree trunks as they fly past or the branches when they smack you in the face. You need the wider view and can only get that if you can detach at least a little.</p><p></p><p>Do you need us to tell you to keep a diary? There are a bunch of different formats for keeping a mood record out there. If you need us to point you at some, just say so. Having a diary of mood, sleep, activity, anxiety will be very helpful when you get to the child psychiatrist. Doesn't matter that DEX won't do it - just do it for when he's home with you and maybe see if you can coordinate to get feedback from school. A notebook going back and forth on Fridays for example.</p><p></p><p>I'm trending hypomanic tonight so forgive me if I'm a little disconnected or brash. Take what you can and leave the rest.<img src="/community/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/emoticons/jumphappy.gif" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":jumphappy:" title="jump happy :jumphappy:" data-shortname=":jumphappy:" /></p><p></p><p>Best wishes from chilly (for us) California, where most of us 18,000 SSMC's (same sex married couples) are still trying to figure out how to file our income tax forms and a few dense souls are just now figuring out that they have to get a divorce if they want to break up. Cannot believe some of the whining I have heard and seen in print. It makes me want to send them snarky little notes saying "Grow up and shut up. You're making us all look bad when you take the role of village idiot."</p><p></p><p>Sorry, mini-rant over. <img src="/community/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/emoticons/bag.gif" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":bag:" title="bag :bag:" data-shortname=":bag:" /></p><p></p><p>Many hugs and strength for the journey.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rlsnights, post: 309737, member: 7948"] Hi there from California, where it was temporarily legal to get married last year and so we did. Coming up on our first "official" anniversary - HALLOWEEN!!! Actually the 17th anniversary of our first date :) She was a cowgirl and I a fair renaissance maid...sigh. Anyway, welcome and glad you found the board. I am fairly new here but not new to difficult child's. Our oldest one is 26 and difficult child 2, our current challenging one, is coming up on 14 at Christmas. He has a twin sister who flips in and out of easy child/gfgness - mostly it's the good twin/bad twin thing happening I think. difficult child 1 is my partners child, the twins are mine. ODD my foot. ODD really stands for Only Doorknobs Dummy - that's about the only thing in my world that can be labeled as oppositional besides my thumbs. :thumbsup: Not to be too quick about it :peaceful: but I'll bet you dollars to donuts your kiddo is bipolar. I wouldn't be surprised if once you find a good child psychiatric, get some mood stabilizer with a dash of anti-psychotic going you may discover the child you know and love shines through. That's assuming the DEX cooperates. We've reached the point of officially bestowing the bipolar label on difficult child 2 after the past 3 weeks of melt downs. I shudder to think how it would be if he had to move between two households. It would be hard enough if everything were exactly the same in both places. What you're describing would be enough to make a within normal limits kid wild let alone one with issues. Hopefully you don't need to hear from us about 504 plans and IEPs. If you haven't gone that route yet, I would suggest giving the SD a letter requesting an assessment for Special Education tomorrow. It may be your best route for getting at least some basic assessment done that DEX will agree to since you can say it's to help difficult child at school. Everyone wants their kid to do well at school right? I doubt you need me to tell you this but make sure they assess him for everything - just mark all those little boxes YES. You never know when a hidden speech/language problem or other stuff is lurking unsuspected and gumming up the works. Therapy for difficult child is nice but therapy for you and your SO and your daughter is perhaps even more important in my humble opinion. Until you get difficult child correctly dxd and stabilized it's going to be tough for him to benefit from therapy. The rest of you will benefit a lot. Go as a family, go as a couple, go as individuals - whatever you do just go. If possible find a therapist that has lots of experience with adolescents to work with you and SO because you are going to need as much help as you can get the next few years and having a guide will save you a lot of grief. The stimulants that originally helped Buddy may now be sabotaging him without other medications to balance them out. Stimulants often cause increased aggression in kids with mood disorders and must be used carefully in order to avoid making the mood disorder worse. Just a laymom here but you may want to consider discussing the possibility of withdrawing the stimulants with the prescribing doctor and see if that changes anything. All of which helps explain why everyone here is singing the same song = get him evaluated to the extent DEX will cooperate and make it clear to DEX that delaying any more will cost your difficult child dearly in the long run. If possible get a break from difficult child by farming him out to family or friends for an overnight here and there. do the same for easy child so she gets out of the house sometimes. Also this allows you to spend time alone with each one. At our house the tension goes down about 500% when only one kid is here. Hormones, puberty - ugh. For us, what has been the most helpful is to focus on creatively avoiding triggers that lead to major melt downs. with our difficult child 2 the longer he goes without a melt down the longer he will go without a melt down. Don't know if that makes sense to you but it's a clear pattern. We don't abandon all rules in order to reduce conflict but we sometimes really lower the bar when we see that difficult child 2 is struggling or fragile. it's a tough line to walk and most easily seen in retrospect. doing low expressed emotion is also really helpful to everyone. it is soooo hard not to feel hurt and take things that your difficult child says personally but it is vital that you and SO do your best to take that step back and detach as much as you can. Otherwise all you see is the tree trunks as they fly past or the branches when they smack you in the face. You need the wider view and can only get that if you can detach at least a little. Do you need us to tell you to keep a diary? There are a bunch of different formats for keeping a mood record out there. If you need us to point you at some, just say so. Having a diary of mood, sleep, activity, anxiety will be very helpful when you get to the child psychiatrist. Doesn't matter that DEX won't do it - just do it for when he's home with you and maybe see if you can coordinate to get feedback from school. A notebook going back and forth on Fridays for example. I'm trending hypomanic tonight so forgive me if I'm a little disconnected or brash. Take what you can and leave the rest.:jumphappy: Best wishes from chilly (for us) California, where most of us 18,000 SSMC's (same sex married couples) are still trying to figure out how to file our income tax forms and a few dense souls are just now figuring out that they have to get a divorce if they want to break up. Cannot believe some of the whining I have heard and seen in print. It makes me want to send them snarky little notes saying "Grow up and shut up. You're making us all look bad when you take the role of village idiot." Sorry, mini-rant over. :bag: Many hugs and strength for the journey. [/QUOTE]
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