Welcome!! Others have given you awesome info. You are at the start of a truly amazing journey. You will learn more about your child, your husband and yourself than you ever knew it was possible to know. One MAJOR, very important, incredibly serious piece of advice is to start seeing a therapist now to strengthen your marriage. A huge number of marriages does not survive having a difficult child. You and husband are going to have to work, and work HARD, to stay together in a healthy way. A divorce will pile even more problems onto difficult child and onto both of you. Right now you can probably agree that your plate is already overfull of problems.
Make a pact with husband that you will set up a list of behaviors and consequences. Post it on the walls in a few places. Make these consequences set in stone until you and husband TOGETHER decide to change them. Agree that neither you nor husband will put ANY stock in ANYTHING that comes out of difficult child's mouth that would make you upset or angry with each other. Save that reaction until you can speak calmly about it with each other. You will be astounded by the ways your difficult child will try to triangulate you. You MUST stick together and present a united front to him. You are all each other has in this battle. If he can get you upset with each other, he wins.
Almost all difficult children lie. There are some notable exceptions like Totoro's daughter and Marg's son, but even they can misinterpret a situation so what they say isn't the truth or the whole truth. In their case it is a mistake in perception. In most cases though, difficult children lie more than rugs. Many of us have meant the old joke - How do you know when my difficult child is lying? His mouth is moving. In my case there were several years where we could not catch my difficult child telling the truth and neither could his teachers and therapist!! We worked hard to "catch" him telling the truth so that we could reward him for it. He would still lie over the biggest stuff, the stupidest stuff and everything in between.
I have a link in my signature to a Parent Report. Years ago some of the warrior moms here put together an outline for a report about our kids. It is immensely helpful because it keeps ALL of the info about difficult child in ONE binder. Copies of all or part of it can be given to people you are working with, filling out those endless forms for doctor visits is much easier because you have all the answers in your report. I strongly encourage you to start one ASAP. do not expect to finish it in one session, it seems to be more complete if you work on it in several chunks of time.
The Explosive Child by Ross Greene is a truly amazing, life changing book. Most of us have gotten great results by using the methods from the book. I also suggest you check out the various books on the Love and Logic website (
www.loveandlogic.com). The methods in it are wonderful. L&L stresses logical consequences administered in a way that nurtures a loving parent-child bond. It truly is amazing. Not to mention that it tends to lead to a vastly calmer home, at least on the parents' part.
I looked at the list of behaviors you posted. One of my mom's friends has a daughter with severe adult onset bipolar. At one time or another she has exhibited every single one of the things on that list. ALL of them. Usually only when she is on the wrong medications or more likely goes off her medications do these things appear, but she has done ALL of them. She does NOT have CD. When she is off her medications she tends to sink into psychosis fairly quickly. At that point she has done many of the listed things she is unable to control much of what is going on because of the delusions and hallucinations.
Medications can make a huge difference for a child, esp with problems like bipolar which cannot be helped with therapy and accommodations alone. Some problems, esp bipolar, are made worse (MUCH worse) by certain medications. If bipolar is suspected it is best to start with medications that would help bipolar. If trials of several different medications are not helpful then you can move on to other medications. If you start with medications for depression or adhd it is possible that the patient will never achieve mood stability until those medications are out of the system and mood stabilizers and antipsychotics are at therapeutic doses. To know if the medications are going to work the patient may need to titrate up to a therapeutic level and be at that level for 6-7 weeks. medications are not easy but they CAN make a huge difference.
I am not saying your son is bipolar, or that he isn't. He could have a combination of several problems. I know at one point I truly thought my son was going to grow up to be a predator. One social worker who evaluated him called and told me she was afraid to go back to the psychiatric hospital he was in because he was going to be the "next Hannibal Lector". He was in the psychiatric hospital for trying to kill his sister in her sleep. Now he is a normal, healthy 19yo who is working and going to college while living across town with my parents. He has changed dramatically and has a wonderful relationship with his little sister, brother, and us. He is on medication for depression, adhd (a component of his Aspergers), and a sleep disorder. The medications did not cause the change in him, they allowed him to work to make the changes. with-o the medications he is so depressed that he wants to kill himself and everyone else, he gets less than 3 hours of sleep a night for weeks on end, and he is so hyper he cannot follow anything for more than 15 seconds unless it is a video game.
There CAN be hope, but it takes a lot of work and advocacy and sheer stubbornness on your part. You are going to have to push your difficult child, his therapists, and a whole group of doctors to figure out what is going on and why and how best to get him to change.
You are NOT alone anymore. We are here with you, anytime you need us!
