I really don't know how to handle this, not handling it well actually....

[Tiapet]

So today I took Ms Queen to her monthly psychiatrist appointment. Her MH worker does the reporting to this doctor weekly in a meeting so she is well aware of the issues (which is really nice) that we've been dealing with. Let me tell you the've been some doozies. It seems that difficult child has some really magical thinking/powers that she feels she has. More and more each week actually.

She's also added on to her seeing things. It's also been that her stuffed animals were real and could talk. That has been for years but now she sees a cat at different times all over the place and it "talks" to her. Never tells her to do bad things. Just offers opinions and such. She also sees a 17 year old girl that she presented to us that it's a "ghost" that adopted her because she understands her! She supposedly sees other ghosts too. We've added to this that she can "read through people's minds and thoughts" and at times she's freaked people out, some she's brought to tears at school (apparently she really did upset a "friend" of hers). The synethesia has gotten far worse. The seeing of the colors and numbers. She now she's colors around people, not just when she is touched. Oh and in the last 3 weeks, she has an "alter". This alter is the reason for her "mean, nasty, violent" outbursts..and she has a name (won't state it here). She thinks she can sing really great and because there are some kids in school telling her this, she believes it even more (she can sing but not really great sadly). She can "sooth" people just in talking to them like no one else can. I'm probably leaving out more I'm sure.

psychiatrist was of course very concerned with all this grandiose thinking, hallucinating, powers and such. She is trying to figure out if she actually believes this or if it's exaggeration or attention seeking. It doesn't appear to be attention seeking unfortately (normally difficult child is an attention seeker but she's not been doing any of this for attention). She does actually believe all this and feels she can prove it and attempts to do so, says she has even done so.

Soooooo.....looks like we may possibly be looking at adding in potentially a DID diagnosis because she does have some specific things that are occuring with this "alter". Like her head consistently is in pain those timings. She does change as well. It's just going to be observing her for other things now. She shouldn't be actually able to "name" her alter as she did if this is to be but even more puzzling to us is that she, to the best of my knowledge, has not had anything traumatic enough to cause DID to occur (based on criteria). Then again, this kid has never fit any mold to anything in all these years so nothing surprises me at all anymore.

I'm just having a hard time handling it as in acceptance but also sadness, fear, etc... The doctor just added in Haldol since it seems difficult child fails on any of the newer medications due to bad side effect or allergic responses. She tells me it should help squash the hallucinations, help her sleep (since difficult child has now gone to not really wanting to sleep).

I'm telling you never a dull moment in the household! I have my post over in Special Education about Mr. Busy but I also now have oldest difficult child who seems to be in a downward spiral too.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Of course. If one has challenges, they both do, at the same time.
Even if you only have one difficult child (my other one is somewhere between typical teen and easy child...).

But it still stinks.

I can only imagine how you feel... these are scary symptoms and scarier dxes.

 

[buddy]

TIA, I have no experience with kids going thru this. The closest was Q feeling that things looked fake when having seizures. He was really bothered by it and knew it wasn't real. I was so scared for him.

What you guys are going through is so much more involved and I can see why you'd be concerned. Bless her heart. I hope the psychiatrist will have ideas. medications maybe will help. I hope for her sake.

You have so much all at once. I'm truly sorry and with you all the way.

 

[DammitJanet]

Tia I knew an adult with multiple personality disorder back when Jamie was 15 months old. In fact we lived with his wife and him and their 2 year old little boy for about 3 months while we were waiting for an apartment to open up.

He was the nicest guy when he was his normal self but he had 3 alters inside him. His real name was Jim and he was the main guy. One alter was a female named Shawna and she was a real problem. She was a lesbian who was constantly attempting to go to gay bars and pick up women. She was always trying to pick up whenever she went out. Then there was Bobby who was loud mouthed drunk who got into confrontations with everyone around him.

The alters came out at various times. We couldnt quite predict when or why. It was heck on his wife and their child was pretty much left to fend for himself. They were amazed that we had Jamie off the bottle, had him sleeping in a regular bed and could get him to go to bed at a normal bedtime. Their kid was 2 years old, still taking a bottle, slept in a crib, went to bed when he decided to go to bed and ate out of the dog food bowl...lol.

 

[buddy]

Has she ever seen a neurologist or had a recent eeg? I re-read your post and the headache thing made me wonder. Do the headaches happen after or sometime around other symptoms like the colors/sounds etc?

 

[BusynMember]

Why would psychiatrist think she's making this up for attention? It sounds pretty scary to me. And why does he feel it's DID? Does she lose time? I'd wonder why he isn't thinking schizophrenia or another type of thought disorder. From what I've read (again, not an expert), DID isn't a psychotic disorder. Do you notice she seems like more than one person? Sorry...after being in the mental health system myself for thirty years and having been misdiagnosed repeatedly (which is maddening if you are self-aware and know they are wrong), I am pretty cynical. You may want to get a second opinion on the DID.

At any rate, I know I wouldn't be handling it that well either, but she's getting the medications she needs. Hopefully they will quiet her hallucinations and allow her to live a normal life. Gentle hugs.

 

[buddy]

I know little to nothing either but thought the same, mwm. My son seems like a totally different person when he becomes demanding, pushy, aggressive ....his eyes and voice changes. He remembers everything. It does seem like a different person.

His situation is very different I realize. Her symptoms seem so much more involved than multiple personality disorder but maybe there's different kinds and levels of dissociation these days.

I hope they are thorough in their assessment. I'd still insist on neuro exam and eeg to ease my mind. I've had q treated for psychological issues (depersonalization/derealization) dissociation when it was actually neurological (seizures). I feel terrible about those four years.

 

[Tiapet]

Buddy, yes, she's with a nuerologist now. In fact just recently we "thought" that maybe the hallucinations were seizures (which was new news to us, good news actually since we thought we were headed down this path instead). But, after finally getting her the MRI and EEG (she's actually had 2 EEG's at different times now), everything is showing normal. The neuro wants to do a "long term" study for seizures over the summer when school let's out. Not sure what she means by that? As for the head pain, hard to say. Sometimes I suppose it could be when there is noise but it could just be a coincidence. Lights don't bother her.

Midwest, she can very much be like a jekyll and hyde at any moment and unexpectedly. Back in 6th grade a sped teacher asked me if I had ever considered multiple personality disorder but you know, she never really expanded much on it other then the jekyll and hyde we see. I can tell you that she doesn't often like to be called by her nickname and I'm usually the only one that can get away with it very consisitently. Thought, this too is now starting to fade somewhat. Her hair used to certain ways when she refused to go by her nick name, again, not anymore. Thought there was no "name" for what she wanted to be called and she was asked by her workers too. So they just went by her given name. I don't know that I want to delve too much into this and analyze or I may start to "see" a pattern that is really not there but.........overtly......yeah....maybe this has been slow coming on and just "unmasked" as the psychiatrist and I discussed yesterday (all these new things) because she's suddenly way more talkative and willing to talk to her worker (in past traditionally she has refused to open up and talk about anything at all and over the last year has only minorly and in small amounts slowly started talking to me). In fact she WANTS everyone to ask her anything now. She's PROUD of opening up! When I say unmasked I also mean that a bunch of other hidden symptoms were repressed and the prozac seemed to release them while stopping all her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)/control of EVERYTHING and everyone in this house...it's like basically.....gone!

Weird? Her overall behavior is really good too. She has brief moments of foul language but that's not directed to me it's usually a sibling or my SO. It's like SHE has become almost easy child like with this medication. So .......

 

[buddy]

That's important because unless she's having a seizure right whenn or just after a seizure, if the eeg is negative, then you still don't know.

They usually do a three to five day inpatient evaluation where leads and video monitor them 24 hours per day.

You stay usually too so when she has a symptom you are wondering about you mark it on a chart and hit a button. Later they look at the brain waves during the episode you marked.

They can also do a traveling portable eeg where same thing ....they wear the leads everywhere ( embarrassing to some) and you press the button and keep a journal.

Oh, and I meant a headache when she has those perceptions of colors etc....

 

[DDD]

Tiapet I just want you to know that I am following your posts AND I do care. I just don't have any experience in the issues you are facing so all I can do is send hugs and prayers. Just want you to know that I do care even if I am "unnaturally silent". Hugs DDD

 

[Tiapet]

Buddy, she complains of head pain. I think sometimes it goes into a headache but not always. She also suddenly intolerant to noise almost anything that is extra or above a normal level. Overall, she seems "hypersensitive" to her whole environment now in general. I'm getting the random complaints of this or that bugging her (pains or something wrong) but no where near the level she was which was such hypochondria it was unreal. This is so minimal.

Oh and MWM, I forgot to answer you, no she doesn't loose track of time that I can tell. That doesn't mean she doesn't though. She just hasn't reported such or demonstrate it.

She herself started saying she felt like she had another person inside of her a few months ago, I think. I'm really bad on timing on this because so much goes on with her at times it's hard to keep track of specific timing but I DO know it was BEFORE the medication and before all this drastic changes or all this "new" stuff she's revealing.

When she first revealed this it came out as " (insert alter name) introduced herself to a friend of mine at school" and then she proceeded to tell us all about this alter. Now it's a couple of weeks later and I asked her something about it and she tells me "SHE" gave alter the name. When I told the psychiatrist this and her worker, she denied she said that. She said "No, i told you that (insert alter name) told my friend her name". ~puzzled look on my face~ I know clearly what she told me about "giving" her the name and I can even tell you that she was sitting right here on our loveseat when she told me this.

Not that this next piece has anything to do with the above but....the above but she went from stealing and hoarding food desperately for years to, when getting on prozac (again I state this) in a matter of a couple of weeks being on it to suddenly basically starving herself and literally NOT eating! I mean it got so serious that at the 3rd months appointment psychiatrist and I discussed that if it kept up we may have to pull her off the medication (even though it was helping her with the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)). I said I'd watch her carefully and see what goes on since she was not in jeapordy at that point of serious risks (she started out severely overweight at 172 when this came up she had lost 14 lbs). In the time it took to get to the next months appointment she was still continuing not to eat and I started getting on her slowly and told her while it was ok she cut back, she could simply just NOT eat. She MUST eat a little and it needed to be balanced. Very slowly after awhile with getting things she wanted, she ate tiny bites of this and that. I didn't discontinue the medication but kept careful eye on her. She is now eating less but very reasonable amounts of food. Over all, she's lost 25 lbs and is stabilized in weight we think since she is eating and...not throwing up. Yes, for a while there she was pulling that too. Though I have no idea what she was throwing up at that time because she wasn't taking anything in. What also helped and we did unfortunately have to talk to her about gently is that if she did keep it up the alternative was hospitalization with tube feeding (my sister was anorexic). Apparently she has a friend suffering (so she says) from cancer who is also being tube fed. No how did she want that. Like I said, probably not related to any of the above but just another thing the prozac did.

Thank you DDD!

 

[Wiped Out]

Just sending gentle, caring hugs your way along with prayers that things start to improve soon.

 

[Liahona]

Does all this scare her? difficult child 1 went years having hallucinations and only a small part of them scared him. Now that he is older and realizes what they are it really scares him. How much does she understand?

Is there medication that can help? Was the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) her minds way of keeping the alter in check? Sorry I just don't know about this.

I wish you and she didn't have to go through this.

 

[susiestar]

I am sorry. I wish I had help or advice to offer. (((((hugs))))) it is so scary when your child has symptoms like this.

 

[TerryJ2]

Oh, dear. I'm so sorry.
Well, it does sound like the Prozac is giving you a window into parts of her mind that you were unaware of, and it is giving her a "voice."
If the seizure idea is a dead-end, and she ends up having schizophrenia or something, naming the "alters" is a good idea, because she's going to have to learn to put them in their place. So-and-so has to shut up because your difficult child is the one in charge. That's pretty typical therapy for those types of things. I met an older man in my NAMI family-to-family class who is on medications for it, and he does quite well keeping all of the personalities in check.
In the meantime, it really doesn't sound like she's trying to get attention ... I would keep looking for more info.
{{hugs}}

 

[Tiapet]

Thank you wiped, Liahona she is absolutely not afraid of any of the hallucinations and is embracing them as she thinks she can speak to ghosts (as that is what she thinks the 17 year old girl and cat is and every other thing she see is). Now, could she really be seeing ghosts for real? I don't know. I know some people do not believe in paranormal things and others do. For those that do, people with mental illness are highly susceptible to it and are supposedly like a lightening rod to these things meaning they are vulnerable to be able to actually see them or channel into such things. No, I'm not making this up. My son's worker happens to also have knowledge in this realm and his mother has a degree in MH with the addition in the fringe psychology of this (that's what it's called in case you did not know that mh crossed into such things) so we are able to discuss some of this openly and we are open minded. Sounds really strange I know. Head spinning actually!

Terry, the reality is we were more considering schizophrenia with her because my exh has it in his family. His mother was diagnosed with it and he lived with that growing up. She was hospitalized quite often with it. Her actual diagnosis was BiPolar (BP) with paranoid schizophrenia. My difficult child is not paranoid at all. She's somewhere else with it.

Unfortunately, if I had known what I found out AFTER the fact of having children about my ex and his family ties (and my own family history which got uncovered years later), I might have really thought twice about having children. Our 2 bloodlines have serious MH issues that I did not know when having children. I feel badly that now my children suffer for that which I did not know at the time and all I can do is fight for and with them to get through this all.

 

[Rabbit]

Sending Hugs

 

[BusynMember]

Tia, OMG, you really connected with me in your last post!! Our family tree, on both sides, was so full of undiagnosed but obvious mental illness and I had the worst of it. While I was pregnant I ended up in the hospital for ten weeks for suicidal depression (back then you could actually stay in the hospital until you were better). As I sat in there, looking around at people who were psychotic, I thought, "I hope this baby is ok and I will never give birth to another one." As it is, my son is now 35 and has all the mental illnesses I had, and I adopted the rest of my kids. None of the adopted kids have the mental illness issues he has had all his life. I so very strongly hear you...but we can't go back in time and we can't really blame ourselves. When I got pregnant, I was doing well...it was a good period for me and before I was diagnosed with anything. Then I got sick again while pregnant.

For your dear daughter, I would not entirely rule out schizophrenia because it is so incredibly hereditary (I am reading a great book on that right now...about the genetic factor of schizophrenia). It is also highly treatable these days and many sx. do very well as long as they stay on their medications. And if she has DID or both, hey, they can treat those disorders as well these days. The point of the book that I'm reading is that no mental health issue is a death sentence (so to speak) anymore.

I actually do strongly believe in the paranormal, life after death, etc. I believe too, makes sense to me, that ghosts would be attracted to the mentally ill as sort of a kinship. But that's whole other thread.

 

[Liahona]

I guess the silver lining is that she isn't afraid. Believe me having her open and embracing it is much better than having her scared and you can't do much to help. It might make her not realize the problem though.

 

[Tiapet]

Years ago her psychiatrist from another well respect facility had given me a handout on executive functioning from one of her medical journals and in it (it was highly technical) it connected those deficit in skills to those who often have schizophrenia too. Makes sense now but at the time we weren't looking for that as she didn't display any symptoms really blatant of it. Now shes of the age of potential onset and.....well it all makes sense as she suffers from close to severe executive functioning skills. That "could" be said of those with ADHD too but there was more to it and she has the "more". 2+2=4 but who knows. We shall see right?

Yes liahona, I'm glad she is not frightened but on the other hand, she "doesn't want them to go away" so was resistant to the medication at first. I hope she will continue taking it. I like this happy and better side of her but not all this magical thinking stuff. It truly makes her more of a target for harassment and bullying at school then she used to be when she acted her other way. Double edged sword I guess. ~sigh~