Over the past couple of weeks our daughter has begun to report various psychotic like symptoms. First she was "mis-hearing" people who spoke to her - sort of like hearing voices but only while there were there... then her last day at the phospital, she had a nightmarish hallucination of a little girl with dark hair (and more gory details of which I'll spare you). Her therapist there felt she was genuinely shaken and fearful after that although other staff saw it as attention seeking as she was being ignored by one "friend" that day.
Now at her new hospital, this hallucination persists and she has named her "Isabel". She has started to refuse to shower because Isabel will be in there. The staff note that her behavior surrounding the hallucinations is "different" than other patients as she usually doesn't disclose them as they happen, but tells the staff about them hours later. Also while on one-one precautions (getting lots of attention) there were no appearances of Isabel.
Is this typical? How can one ever differentiate between actual hallucinations and the attention seeking behavior of a child who does have a history of making up trauma (grief over the passing of friends who don't exist).
It is terrifying to go from diagnoses of depressive disorder to bipolar to Borderline (BPD)... and now surely they must be thinking of schizophrenia.....
J
Now at her new hospital, this hallucination persists and she has named her "Isabel". She has started to refuse to shower because Isabel will be in there. The staff note that her behavior surrounding the hallucinations is "different" than other patients as she usually doesn't disclose them as they happen, but tells the staff about them hours later. Also while on one-one precautions (getting lots of attention) there were no appearances of Isabel.
Is this typical? How can one ever differentiate between actual hallucinations and the attention seeking behavior of a child who does have a history of making up trauma (grief over the passing of friends who don't exist).
It is terrifying to go from diagnoses of depressive disorder to bipolar to Borderline (BPD)... and now surely they must be thinking of schizophrenia.....
J