BusynMember
Well-Known Member
And why?
Some know right away. Some younger kids are fine until something bad happens. Some are great until the teens and all sorts of unexpected issues kick in.How many have kids from different genepools and feel that perhaps the father's DNA is a factor in their child's atypical behavior? None of my children are genetically related.
When did you know? What do you feel is wrong? Do you think your child was ever diagnosed right? Do you feel the doctors understood your child at all or did the doctors dismiss his/her problems and/or made them worse? Did medication work? Do you think he/she is getting more capable or less or the same?
I talked to 36 today and he is so much calmer and nicer when he isn't under stress. Much nicer than he used to be ALL THE TIME. Yet I know he has done things I don't even know about that are awful. I thought maybe we could try to find a common thread with our kids, if there is one.
In my case, 36 was fine and smiley and friendly until about age 18 months when I noticed he liked to hurt other kids in the park, and he did it with a smile. He was extremely advanced intellectually for his age so I knew he was aware of what he was doing and that it was wrong, but this made him happy. It continued. He was very hard to deal with within our famly and abused his sister when I was working, although she isn't the type to tell me. I wish she had. Now she hates him. I don't blame her. At 19 he got Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) so badly that he had to drop out of college, stop working, and briefly collected SSI. Briefly, he could not stop counting the words others said, including his professors, to the point where he couldn't comprehend what anyone said. It freaked him out and he was on all sorts of medications at the time, a constant ER visitor, and very suicidal. Yet he did get counseling and started running, snapped out of it, went to work and the rest is history. This Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) nightmare never happened again. But he has never been entirely stable.
Doctors REALLY did not know the whole of what was wrong with him. Much more is going on than Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), but that's all any of them ever caught, even after he was hospitalized then evaluated. He remains a mystery to this day, but I think he is narcissistic like my father, who is classic. But this has never been diagnosed.
But he still has high anxiety. So many issues dogged him, yet he was so mean to those who wanted to help him. I think he is getting better, save for when he is under stress. Then I can barely speak to him.
As for Julie, she was a happy little infant when we got her. In her first year of preschool, she would not speak. Nobody heard her talk. They liked her and wanted to sit next to her, but she didn't talk. The second year of pre-school, she did talk and the other kids were delighted. "Hey, Julie's talking!" I have no idea why she didn't speak the first year at school.She is basically very shy.
At age 12 she started telling the kids at school that her father worked for a candy company and started shoplifting candy to give to the kids in order to make friends. This was after she was sexually assaulted. Her fake father story worked. Nobody knew she was stealing and she never got caught. She did not do this to be "bad." She always wanted to be loved and accepted by all. Later, sh e got into drugs because the drug crowd is more excepting of others than any other group (so she says). She was still very shy. Drugs allowed her to not feel shy and she suddenly exploded in popularity, at least with the bad and marginal kids. I think that's sad. At the crux of it, she was always a loving, caring daughter who wanted us to love her just like she wanted all of her peers to love her. Fortunately, she did grow up and quit the drugs and trying to make everyone like her and now lives a quiet life with her baby and SO. By her own admission she is not very social. She thinks of SO as her best friend and isn't all that interested in making lots of new friends. She is a lot like me that way.
Julie did not talk to her therapists and conned them well. After she was put into the hospital for trying to kill herself, the psychiatrist told me she did not use drugs and that she was even drug tested and came out clean. I believed him and was very relieved. This was very bad for our family. We stopped worrying about her just when her drug use was amping up. To this day she shakes her head and talks about how dumb the doctors were at that hospital. So I guess they failed her.
Both of them were obviously problematic before the trouble kicked in. And Julie was able to overcome her difficulties where as 36 still has them.
Sonic was hard early on due to his autism, but once the meltdowns stopped, he was easy peasy. Jumper is the easiest, most pleasant, most seemingly kind and well-adjusted of the group. She has been a breeze to raise and also a pleasure all the way.
Jumper displayed no abnormal or strange behaviors from infancy on and has always been very true to herself and very socially adept. Even now, at college, she knows everybody and is friends with her entire dorm. Is it how you start out? Can we tell even before they are five years old if they will struggle or not?
I'm sorry if nobody wants to chime in. I have just been doing some deep thinking (again) and wonder if others sort of saw that their kids would struggle in certain areas...or in all of life for a long time.
Some know right away. Some younger kids are fine until something bad happens. Some are great until the teens and all sorts of unexpected issues kick in.How many have kids from different genepools and feel that perhaps the father's DNA is a factor in their child's atypical behavior? None of my children are genetically related.
When did you know? What do you feel is wrong? Do you think your child was ever diagnosed right? Do you feel the doctors understood your child at all or did the doctors dismiss his/her problems and/or made them worse? Did medication work? Do you think he/she is getting more capable or less or the same?
I talked to 36 today and he is so much calmer and nicer when he isn't under stress. Much nicer than he used to be ALL THE TIME. Yet I know he has done things I don't even know about that are awful. I thought maybe we could try to find a common thread with our kids, if there is one.
In my case, 36 was fine and smiley and friendly until about age 18 months when I noticed he liked to hurt other kids in the park, and he did it with a smile. He was extremely advanced intellectually for his age so I knew he was aware of what he was doing and that it was wrong, but this made him happy. It continued. He was very hard to deal with within our famly and abused his sister when I was working, although she isn't the type to tell me. I wish she had. Now she hates him. I don't blame her. At 19 he got Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) so badly that he had to drop out of college, stop working, and briefly collected SSI. Briefly, he could not stop counting the words others said, including his professors, to the point where he couldn't comprehend what anyone said. It freaked him out and he was on all sorts of medications at the time, a constant ER visitor, and very suicidal. Yet he did get counseling and started running, snapped out of it, went to work and the rest is history. This Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) nightmare never happened again. But he has never been entirely stable.
Doctors REALLY did not know the whole of what was wrong with him. Much more is going on than Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), but that's all any of them ever caught, even after he was hospitalized then evaluated. He remains a mystery to this day, but I think he is narcissistic like my father, who is classic. But this has never been diagnosed.
But he still has high anxiety. So many issues dogged him, yet he was so mean to those who wanted to help him. I think he is getting better, save for when he is under stress. Then I can barely speak to him.
As for Julie, she was a happy little infant when we got her. In her first year of preschool, she would not speak. Nobody heard her talk. They liked her and wanted to sit next to her, but she didn't talk. The second year of pre-school, she did talk and the other kids were delighted. "Hey, Julie's talking!" I have no idea why she didn't speak the first year at school.She is basically very shy.
At age 12 she started telling the kids at school that her father worked for a candy company and started shoplifting candy to give to the kids in order to make friends. This was after she was sexually assaulted. Her fake father story worked. Nobody knew she was stealing and she never got caught. She did not do this to be "bad." She always wanted to be loved and accepted by all. Later, sh e got into drugs because the drug crowd is more excepting of others than any other group (so she says). She was still very shy. Drugs allowed her to not feel shy and she suddenly exploded in popularity, at least with the bad and marginal kids. I think that's sad. At the crux of it, she was always a loving, caring daughter who wanted us to love her just like she wanted all of her peers to love her. Fortunately, she did grow up and quit the drugs and trying to make everyone like her and now lives a quiet life with her baby and SO. By her own admission she is not very social. She thinks of SO as her best friend and isn't all that interested in making lots of new friends. She is a lot like me that way.
Julie did not talk to her therapists and conned them well. After she was put into the hospital for trying to kill herself, the psychiatrist told me she did not use drugs and that she was even drug tested and came out clean. I believed him and was very relieved. This was very bad for our family. We stopped worrying about her just when her drug use was amping up. To this day she shakes her head and talks about how dumb the doctors were at that hospital. So I guess they failed her.
Both of them were obviously problematic before the trouble kicked in. And Julie was able to overcome her difficulties where as 36 still has them.
Sonic was hard early on due to his autism, but once the meltdowns stopped, he was easy peasy. Jumper is the easiest, most pleasant, most seemingly kind and well-adjusted of the group. She has been a breeze to raise and also a pleasure all the way.
Jumper displayed no abnormal or strange behaviors from infancy on and has always been very true to herself and very socially adept. Even now, at college, she knows everybody and is friends with her entire dorm. Is it how you start out? Can we tell even before they are five years old if they will struggle or not?
I'm sorry if nobody wants to chime in. I have just been doing some deep thinking (again) and wonder if others sort of saw that their kids would struggle in certain areas...or in all of life for a long time.
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