easy child and her cave

[mrscatinthehat]

easy child only comes out of her room once in a while these days. I realize a lot of that is typical teen. She glues to her computer (which we have monitored to know what sites she is on and who she talks to..not what she is saying just who).

She has a lot of anxiety. I have tried to discuss medications for this with her and she has adimately said she will not do this (I do understand her fears of this as for some reason I had them too not that she knew that). I have a feeling she would relax so much more. I think she is afraid of these things because of the sports she does for school. That and what she knows about all the medications the difficult children are on.

I have ativan for when my anxiety gets too high. As needed.

She does go to therapy (she is not happy about this).

I think that because of all of the drama with difficult children she doesn't want to be classified with them. That is the read I get from her anyway.

Has anyone else been down a remotely similiar path.

Beth

 

[busywend]

Is it Cognitive Behavior Therapy?

 

[mrscatinthehat]

Sounds right. But as she resists going it doesn't do a lot for her. She goes but she makes it clear she is not happy about it. She goes for multiple reasons.

Beth

 

[Hound dog]

Beth

15 seems to be a really tough age for girls, and in my opinion their mothers. Not an age I look back fondly of for either of my girls, easy child and difficult child alike. I'm not sure why this is, just that in talking with other mothers of girls that age and older I learned they felt pretty much the same way.

Staying in her cave is pretty much typical teen behavior, and the anxiety might be too to some extent.

At 15 my easy child did as much as possible to distance herself from the difficult children. And this was also the beginning of Travis' worst time frame, and when I discovered much more profound symptoms in Nichole. Which meant about the time I took both difficult children to be evaled by the psychiatrist for the first time.

easy child has told me that her biggest fear back then was that she might have something wrong with her too, since two out of the three kids did. She struggled to find her own identity among the gfgdom. By the time 17 rolled around she had her issues with the difficult children and living with them resolved for herself. Maturity and learning about the difficult children disorders helped her realize they were born the way they are, it isn't catching, and she wasn't going to suddenly become a difficult child herself.

 

[susiestar]

The cave thing is pretty typical, though the extreme to which she carries it may indicate otherwise. Follow your instincts. Does she have allergies? Atarax is an older allergy medication. We used it with Jess for anxiety, and for allergies. It might take some private consulting with her doctor, but a scrip for this might help. And it would get you around the no medication hurdle.

Is it possible to suggest, gently, that by continuing to face up to a problem she just might be acquiring some difficult child behaviors? Not sur ethis is appropriate, but it might be possible.

Around here, until age 18 medications are not something any of htem have the choice to refuse. They have a say. Their questions, concerns and input are listened to very closely and weighed appropriately for the child, the situation, and the reason to consider the medication. But medication refusal isn't happening in this household.

I will pill them like I pill hte cat. It only takes one session of me with an angry cat and the needle-nose pliers to stick the pill back as far as possible into the cat's mouth to make the point. But this has been our line in the sand for as long as I have had kids. (I watched a cousin go into convulsions from a fever because his parents couldn't talk him into taking his medications for the fever. Cousin of mine was 2, I was 20. It became a personal line in the sand. husband agrees with me.)

I hope she can get some help. Will turning off her internet until she agrees to talk openly with the psychiatrist or whomever about anxiety medications? Is she afraid of addiction? IF she won't talk, you can't help her.

Would she consider taking the medications on a trial basis, then if they work she could take a break from therapy if she stayed on them as prescribed?

Not all anxiety medications are addictive, or like valium, or even SSRI's like prozac and paxil. As I mentioned, some of the older antihistamines will act like this also. Would benadryl help? I have no clue whether it would have this "side effect" but your pharmacist might (esp if she has a doctorate in pharmacology).

Hugs to both of you!

Susie

 

[mrscatinthehat]

She has some mild allergies that she complains about. Might go that route. As with all things we parents make the final decision but at this point she gets a good deal of input. She tends to make reasonable decisions.

She sees therapy as something she has to do while she is under 18. She was in therapy when much younger and the therapist told me at the time she had evened out and didn't really need much more from her and I agreed as her moodiness at the time balanced out. Flash forward to difficult child stuff and going to family therapy (she was less than thrilled). Then when we found out what difficult child 2 had done to her therapy began for her to be mandatory I tried very hard to let he rknow that it was not a punishment. That she could use the time not just about the victimazation but about her bio dad issues (she has many and he doesn't help the anxiety). Or about trouble with me. Or to work on the social anxiety. ( She wanted to go out for softball the one year and I had to almost shove her out of the car when we got to tryouts the first day she was so wound up).

We use the removal of internet occaisionally but then we have a sullen moody teenager. Nothing extreme but ugh.

I even went so far as to tell her I was going to get a bunch of bats and decorate her cave to make it the bat cave (she said cool). Not the response I was looking for.

We tend to deal so much with the difficult child behaviors it the life out of me to the point that since she really isn't doing anything wrong I have a hard time getting on her about it. That is not to say she gets away with everything. We just went through the chore battle and we made a switch in chores to see if we will have a different situation. Again nothing major just more annoying than anything.

Guess the armour needs to go on so I can attack the situation before it gets bad.

Beth