meltdown over a chip

Jena

New Member
unreal, almost anything triggers her now.

So, I gave her an option for snack today. she chose oreos and milk. I chose a few chips and salsa. (by the way i never ever have snack or dare eat anything in front of her, except at meal time) She gets the apple snack before bed.

So, I sit down with-her and she starts hysterical crying because i am eating a chip. this lasts about 40 minutes ( it's still going on)hysterical sad crying you name it. angry, breathing through it looks like she wants to clock me.

i bring her to the new therapist today, she yelled at me about that as well.

last week she was depressed clearly this week she's on a high. it's so evident it's insane. pyschdoc's out on vacation, can't get in for 2 weeks.

so, for now just dealing. getting tired of it but dealing

i have to say i'm tired of not being able to ever eat anything infront of her due to the constant breakdown, crying begging for food, (she eats plenty yet scheduled), and also i'm not allowed to talk to anyone on the phone when home with-her. not my mother, no one i've tried believe me it's just too much work.
 

CrazyinVA

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I'm so sorry Jena, I know this is VERY frustrating. We didn't have food issues, but I could never talk on the phone much, either, unless my difficult children were in bed asleep. I used to say theree was a "kid magent" in the phone because the second I got on, they just appeared and wanted things, whining constantly.

Hugs.
 

Andy

Active Member
Oh Jena - You are feeling trapped. Sounds like you will have to eat whatever she is eating and bring out the good stuff after she is asleep.

I had the same with the telephone. Since I am talking to someone, they think I should talk to them. I love how CrazyinVA explained it as phones having "Kid Magnets" - so true! Very frustrating indeed.
 

MyHrt31

New Member
I know exactly what you mean about not being able to talk on the phone. My difficult child listens to EVERYTHING and asks me questions about whatever topic I'm on as if I am talking to him, lol. Then he makes more noise in the background which drives me nuts! If only he paid this much attention in class.... ;)

I agree with Andy about eating whatever she is eating and saving the other foods for later when she's not around. Its not really convenient but if it avoids a confrontation, then it may be worth it. :sad-very:
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Jena--

All I can say is those must have been SOME chips if she was disappointed at being stuck with Oreos. Personally, I would take cookies any day...

Sounds like she is still stressed out from your move and so is especially cranky and irritated. Moving is a very being deal--even if it is a move for the better.

Hopefully...she will settle in soon. In the meantime, though, there probably isn't a lot you can do to stave off some of these meltdowns....

(((Hugs))) and support,

--DaisyF
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Personally we did kids treats and parents treats. Kids treats stayed in the kitchen and mommy and daddy treats went in the bedroom. It works that way to this day. My treats have just gotten better...lol.

Oh and about the phone...Cory still comes and bugs me when I am on the phone! Just ask anyone who has called me from the board. He has to at least say HI!
 

Janna

New Member
Jena,

Did you ask her WHY she was tantruming? What was she saying while she was throwing her fit? Anything?

You know, I'm in the pick apart mode right now with my own, so here's what I'd be thinking. WHY did she throw the tantrum? Seriously, over the chip?

So, here's my thoughts:

No, you do not have to starve yourself because difficult child is going to have a fit over you eating something. I mean, sorry - that's just crazy. The next time you're going to sit with her, maybe do it this way:

"difficult child, mommy is going to have chips and salsa for a snack. Would you like to have chips and salsa too, or would you like Oreo's and milk?".

I know this sounds simple and you may have even tried that way - but it just baffles me, if you would have gone this route, and she STILL would have tantrumed, I'd assume then it's not the chips. There's something else going on.

As far as the phone, I think that just goes with difficult child's. Maybe even just kids. All 3 of mine have no etiquette when it comes to me being on the phone. It's ridiculous.

Sorry. :(
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Jena,
I'm sorry she that everything is a trigger for her. I so know that feeling, my difficult child can definitely get that way. I like Janna's suggestion about telling her what you are having for snack so she can choose her own. Of course, my difficult child would most likely want both!

Hugs to you. It's hard when everything is a trigger. Hugs.
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
Bleeech. Sorry she is not doing so well.
Or still not doing so well.
With K, because most of her food issues are due to medications, I do not eat something I will not let her have in front of her.
But then again we all eat the same things in this house. I try to model what I want the kids to eat.
I go by the rule of If I ask that you eat something or are not allowed something then it should be a house rule for all of us.
This is only for food.
Obviously alcohol does not apply.
I look at it as, I eat healthy, I want my girls to eat healthy. I eat snacks at times, so should they.
I don't gorge on junk food, so neither should they.

I bake almost all of our snacks. Chips etc. are ones that we all get a few of. Period!
Some nights, I say no to dessert for the girls. Mostly due to K's weight gain, so if husband and I were going to have a bowl of ice cream or something, we would have it after they went to bed.
We also would have the same ice cream, a light vanilla.

I know some do not agree with this. But this seems to work for us and we all respect food and have never had a problem yet and never had a fight over food.

K may want more, but we explain that we all need to eat less and we are all working on it. The whole family.

I agree she may also have some anxiety still over the move.
Plus time change. Longer days.
So many possibilities...
I am so sorry you have to struggle with all of this.
I wish you could have break.
 
M

ML

Guest
I had to laugh at myhrt. Manster also does the spanish inquisition after I've been on the phone. Often not till the next day and he starts asking questions about my friends and I'm thinking "how does he know to ask that" and then realize the phone converation from a previous day.

Jena, I do feel your pain. I'm living it too.

No advice just hugs xoxo ML
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Jena,
I almost didn't read this because it sounded just like what I used to go through with-our difficult child. Oh, how I hated those days.

If difficult child wouldn't leave the rm while having a meltdown, I would leave. Sometimes I'd go to another rm and lock the door (which he would try to kick in) and sometimes I'd go outside and he'd follow me. Always, it was about something minor.
Sigh.

Do you think the Seroquel is working? It sounds like something is still off.

Wish I could help more.
 

Jena

New Member
hi guys and thanks, some of your responses made me laugh. laughing is good i'm not doing enough of that lately. :)

I talked her through the meltdown (she's 10 by the way, how scary is that) yet BiPolar (BP) doesnt' know an age I guess.

I said to her after she dried her eyes, it's ok for others to do things around you that have nothing to do with-you. HUGE problem here. She doesnt' like anyone to do anything unless it concerns her or gravitates around her. whether it be food, or talking, or anything. She actually gets her feelings hurt, and due to her loss of social ability she loses alot of what ppl are saying to her even though they don't mean it bad.

So, I tried to teach her it's ok that i ate what I did. You chose what you did. It's ok we both had something different and by the way it's my fault for not doing this before infront ofher. I've conditioned her and allowed her to control my environment to an extent in this regard or at least whatit is I do.

It may sound silly yet I should be allowed to eat something if I know she's eaten and is fine. It's one thing if I said no you can't have that and pulled out same and ate it infront of her lol, can you imagine? OMG. that would be torture.

I try to hide the grown up snacks, yes janet i have to put them back in my drawer again in my rm. I hid them in the closet and the kids found them the other day.

Terry no the medication isn't working anymore i'm sad to say. It's due to be increased and I wont' increase it at this point. The weight gain has been more severe than I thought and it keeps piling on. I was hoping for it to level off yet that hasn't happened.

She's been having huge issues in school socially as well as academically. Yet get this on her report card it did not reflect any of it, these ppl are all smoking something i'm sorry. they know the cse is coming up so they purposely made the report card glow. sick, right?

they make my head spinnith round and round i go...............

hey, she liked the new therapist which was soo great.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
How bout a weeks snacks put in baggies...in the fridge that she helps pick out. Her special snacks. Can be a mix of good and not so good. Hey...help her mix up a big bunch of trail mix by hand. Or that monkey munch. Or even hand dipped apples, bananas and pretzels. We did a snack with milky way bars and rice crispies that was really good. Just divide all her snacks up into baggies and let her decide on the two or three she is having that day. The rest go in the freezer for another day. Then tell her Mommy is going to pick from mommy's stash of snacks the same way...you will pick out 2 or 3 snacks too. Older sis can do it too. Everyone gets to pick their own snacks.

Now the phone thing...you may have to get more creative. If you cant escape into the bathroom with a cellphone or a long cord or cordless....try implementing the RULE. No one interrupts mommy while on the phone unless there is blood gushing or broken bones or fire. Any violation of this rule means automatic loss of screen time or early bed time or loss of tokens if you have a token economy going on. If they do leave you alone, then reward them with something good like extra good stuff...more screen time, more time outside, a movie, , something.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I think I know what her problems was. To illustrate, I will quote from "Wee Free men" by Terry Pratchett (one of my favourite authors). It's one of his books for children although I find ALL his books eminently readable by anyone of any age with a good brain.

Setting the scene - Wentworth is a small boy who has been kidnapped by the Queen of the Fairies, who thinks she is good with children but isn't really. To keep Wentworth happy, the Queen has given him all the sweets he wants. And Tiffany, Wentworth's 9 year old sister who has gone into Fairyland to rescue her brother, knows why this is the wrong thing to do.

"Wentworth was sitting on a large flat stone surrounded by sweets. many of them were bigger than he was. Smaller ones were in piles, large ones lay like logs. And they were in every colour sweets can be, such as Not-Really-Raspberry Red, Fake-Lemon Yellow, Curiously-Chemical Orange, Some-Kind-Of-Acidy Green and Who-Knows-What Blue.
Tears were falling off his chin in blobs. Since they were landing amongst the sweets, serious stickiness was already taking place.
Wentworth howled... He only stopped crying when it was time to breathe in or die, and even then it was only for one huge sucking moment before the howl came back again.
Tiffany knew what the problem was immediately. She'd seen it before at birthday parties. her brother was suffering from tragic sweet deprivation. Yes, he was surrounded by sweets. But the moment he took any sweet at all, said his sugar-addled brain, that meant he was not taking all the rest. And there were so many sweets he'd never be able to eat them all. It was too much to cope with. The only solution was to burst into tears.
The only solution at home was to put a bucket over his head until he calmed down, and take almost all the sweets away. He could deal with a few handfuls at a time."

I do think she may have a version of this problem, coupled with extreme anxiety and the intense egocentricity that we usually only associate with very young children. You eating something different, isa reminder tat her decision to choose something else is locked in and irrevocable.
One way that MIGHT work, is for you to swap tastes. It needs to be mutually agreed on. It's something that a lot of married couples do when eatingout. husband & I do it often - we've each ordered what we want but it all looks delicious, choosing was hard. So he orders the veal, I order the lobster, and he gives me a taste of the veal while I give him a taste of the lobster. And again with dessert - I order the chocolate mousse, he orders the sticky date pudding. My mousse is served cold with cream, his is served hot with custard. We each have a small taste of the other's. Sometimes we feel that we made a bad choice, I might like his pudding better than my mousse. But generally, it confirms that we're happy with the choice we made. And if we're not - we now have had tastes of both, so we haven't completely missed out.

easy child was a problem like this. She had to have what she considered a fair share of everything we served. even if she wasn't home for that meal - if I cooked a roast dinner and made a special pudding for dessert on a night when she was staying overnight at a friend's place (and probably eating out somewhere fancy) she would be very upset to get home and find that we had nothing left, we'd "eaten her share".
If we were eating out of a communal supply (such as one giant pizza, or one huge pile of hot chips (fries) then she would be wolfing them down so fast to make sure she got at least her share, that the rest of us would struggle to keep up.

Maybe what she needs, is to have a chance to at least taste all options, then make her choice. Once she knows what it tastes like, she can't whine about missing out because choosing an alternative is HER choice.

What I had to get easy child away from, was the thinking that she had to make sure she wasn't being left short in any way. Because she linked her neediness to food, she now has a huge weight problem.

I've seen something similar in another young girl I know, a bit younger than difficult child 3 - I had to take this girl with others in my after-school class, on excursions where afternoon tea was provided. She would HAVE to take a sample of everything, often to the point of seeming a glutton of being rude, bargaining with other kids if they took the last biscuit or whatever. Since the variety was always greater than the number of serves, this made our entire group look bad. I would have to almost literally drag this girl away from the food and sit on her to stop her from sneaking back and getting more. This in an otherwise easy child kid. I could never make this kid understand, that providing ten different kinds of biscuits did NOT entitle her or anyone to take one of each kind (ie 10 biscuits). The variety was there because some people preferred one kind of bisucits, other people preferred different ones. NOT to allow ANYONE to binge and taste everything. The allowance was TWO biscuits, not ten.

Finding out why the child has this mindset, and how to resolve it, is somethingh I should have done with easy child and now wish I had addressed with my student, by talking to her mother. The girl still is a problem, desperately wanting attention and friends even though if she just relaxed a bit she would realise she is a really great person in her own right. But she's now mixing with a bad crowd because she is so vulnerable and so desperate to be liked, that the bad crowd can get her to do some really bad things.

Very sad.

I hope you can find some way around this for your daughter - you might need to get creative.

Marg
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Marguerite always has such good insight!

I would not have thought of this myself...but it makes perfect sense.

--DaisyF
 

Jena

New Member
Janet good idea. I have done the trail mix, you wanna laugh i put m&m's in it and the kids picked all those out and left the healthy stuff lol ofcourse.

i run into issues, here they are i have 3 kids here 2 days a week that aren't mine. that's where my routine gets messed up and all havoc breaks lose so to speak. there is no effort made by wonderful boyfriend to routine them at all. ok great he does hw with them, and he helps yes that is good. yet when i walk in that door he has no clue where hte kids even are. he said oh i think difficult child and his difficult child are in backyard meanwhile their up in difficult child's room!!! omg. now clearly difficult child is too anxiety ridden to disappear yet i like to kinda of keep things organized to an extent. difficult child has "break time" after hw. yet not to reek havoc in the house.

i give a set "snack time" to difficult child after school and before bed. she likes routine. i walk in on monday and wednesday it's a free for all kids are ripping into cabinets, etc. it's ridiculous. he can't handle the 5 of them. granted there's no blood shed, or anything yet he doesn't put enough effort into them. so i keep it all good tues, thurs and friday when i'm home yet monday and wednesday is a freak show.

ok sorry that was a vent lol.

marg i see your point and thank you for taking so much time to respond your soo good like that and i liked the story and see your point. difficult child's needinesss level accompanied by the change in moods every two seconds finished off by her anxiety makes it difficult for anyone to do anything around her that doesn't directly correlate to her.

creativity you are correct. just wish i had the time to put towards it right now. i have to find the time. i had 2 no shows today so i'm home eating pizza and on here before i head out again.
 

Jena

New Member
oh and to boot difficult child got up at 3a.m. last night hyper beyond belief. so, ask me what i look like today? soo soo scary. yet she's all good, feed her shower her and she's raring to go again.

i'm enrolling difficult child into a social skills class i'm trying to get a scholarship for it through my job. i think that'll help
 
Top