shes' back in day hospital

Jena

New Member
hi

horrible night last night, yet you all know that. she refused closed mri today it was too hard for her.

she refused to eat breakfast with me. i had to lie to her to get her back to day treatment unit.

i called the doctor's who told me they think her food phobia's over and this is behavioral and her other junk kicking up. so if i made a threat i have to stand by it.

so we sat her in a room and told her. she called me names ofcourse, raged and than they said if you eat today and tonight with mom you'll go home.

if you want to go home you'll eat. so it's now in her hands.

what else can i say? i'm miserable, crying alot now. just losing it altogether. the official calm jen has left the building. called my therapist to go see her. i'm so lonely for home. entering our 4th week now.

docs agree she wont' benefit from further day treatment. i just dont know anymore. told ex h if i gotta stay i'm giong home for a few days i can't take this anymore. he's going Occupational Therapist (OT) have to come out i dont' care anymore the effect it has on her
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
Your feelings are valid. Your fears are valid. You've exhausted yourself and your resources. I think you made the right choice and I don't see where you had any other option.

Once you've recovered a bit and visited with the Therapist, maybe with her support, try to get the experts there to refer you to a facility that can give long term treatment. They just have to know...even if it is not their specialty. I understand they don't do psychiatrict treatment but their patients historically have not been mentally healthy. Asking for a referral makes sense. Still sending prayers and thoughts of support your way. I'm sorry it has been so frustrating for so long! DDD
 
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Bunny

Guest
Did she eat after she was told if she ate you would take her home? Honestly, I think that the best thing for her would be to bring her home and put her in a psychiatric hospital that is connected to a hospital. This way they can admit her and try to get her other issues dealt with, epsecially her dependency on you. She has got to be able to function on her own and it is clear that she can't do that at this point. If she stops eating, the hospital can put the feeding tube in so that she can stabilize her weight. I think that you have done everything that can do for her and now it's time to bring her to someone, or someplace, that can truly help her with the other issues that are helping to cause the food issues.

Your frustration and anger are understandable. You have been through the ringer in the last eight months and it's taking it's toll on you. You need a break.

I have no other advice.

Pam
 

Steely

Active Member
Honestly, I think that the best thing for her would be to bring her home and put her in a psychiatric hospital that is connected to a hospital. This way they can admit her and try to get her other issues dealt with, epsecially her dependency on you. She has got to be able to function on her own and it is clear that she can't do that at this point. If she stops eating, the hospital can put the feeding tube in so that she can stabilize her weight. I think that you have done everything that can do for her and now it's time to bring her to someone, or someplace, that can truly help her with the other issues that are helping to cause the food issues.

Pam
I agree with Bunny completely Jen - a phosph setting is what she needs in my opinion. In a phosph setting they are not going to let her starve, just like they did not let Matt kill himself. They are going to address the mental issues, which are the real problems that have to be dealt with before she is going to get better, and then address the food issues, all the while, keeping her protected. In addition she will be with kids that perhaps she can relate more to - kids that understand severe anxiety - which is very therapeutic in and of itself. In addition visitation time is minimal and extremely structured - which will give you a break - and perhaps temporarily break any co-dependent or dysfunctional patterns the 2 of you may have going at the moment.

Many, many hugs and prayer Jen - it is OK to break - we all do at many points in this journey.
 

Steely

Active Member
One more thing - you said something in one of your posts about a phosph in Princeton with guards and such that difficult child stayed in??? Was that a state hospital?
Matt has been in a private phosph many, many times - all of which insurance covered - and there were never guards with guns. Only on call security. And the whole facility was connected to a regular hospital. Is the former experience at Princeton what you are afraid of happening if you take her to a phosph in your town? If so, I think there many other options.
Just thinking out loud here - you don't know how many times I have felt the way you do. Just know you are NOT alone - and we are all here for you.
 

Jena

New Member
ok long day so heres the update. im' staying longer. yup i said it. we're cancelling my flight back. why? not because i've lost it. i'm staying longer because basically after meeting with-the doctor's it came out that difficult child became hesitant last week prior to our announcement to leave and being told to leave. i had no idea. so i said woo wait a minute so you guys told me to leave and book a flight meanwhile she was hesitant here? why'd you do that? they said well because you told us how well she was eating with you.

i said yea that's great yet hello i get one meal you do two with her. if there was any hesitation at all that should of been shared. point blank. bottom line. tha'Tourette's Syndrome that. i said i looked at this for several days like it was all behavioral which now your telling me it's not.

long story short i gotta know in my own mind that she's done with this food phobia and if she shuts down again it's purely behavioral and her other junk. with that piece of info i was not convinced it was purely behavioral. that was prior to announcement to head back home.

so here we are. just went to buy food. i want Occupational Therapist (OT) go to parent support group tongiht yet i have no one to watch her so i can't go. which bites. i could use it. i had a total meltdown today earlier at my therapists office. yet i pulled it together once again.

what else can i say? i can't get back onto a plane with her licking crackers again. just can't do it.
 

smallworld

Moderator
So if it's not behavioral, did the doctors offer you a treatment plan?

Hugs, Jen. This is a very tough situation for you to be in.
 

Jena

New Member
i'm just waiting to see more sustained eating. there is no treatment plan its hard to explain what it's like here to all of you. the website makes it look more clinical than it is. yet i took time today to speak to the ppl therapists that work with her. their doing some good stuff. it's a small corridor of an office building. that includes a fairly small space that houses maybe 6 professionals offices, a kitchen, a yoga room, and movement room, an art room, and a group therapy room. that's it. it's quite small operation.
 

Jena

New Member
easy child back home failed all yes all of her classes. called me at 7 a.m. today and cursed me out and blamed me for it stating it's all my fault she wont' graduate. she may of discharged herself out of school yet i dont' know. husband said she was home yet left and she wont' answer cell to either one of us.

i had to talk to husband for a while today to make him get why i'm staying he wasnt' happy either. our marriage is suffering real bad since we got married due to all of this. words like divorce were being used last night. he's at his worst as am i. so after 45 min. i calmed him down a bit yet he's getting fed up now also.
 
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HaoZi

Guest
How long until easy child realizes that it's not your job to do her homework and get good grades for her?
 

klmno

Active Member
From other thread and by SW:

I consider her lack of eating a maladaptive coping strategy -- instead of melting down, she's shutting down. She needs to be taught new coping strategies, much the way Ross Greene teaches lacking skill sets in his book The Explosive Child. "Children do well if they can," Greene writes, not if they want to. Similarly, children explode or implode not because they want to or choose to, but because they lack the skills to develop adaptively.

True- but many of our difficult children will never be open to learning anything better as long as the comfortable "strategies" have been working. That doesn't mean I think it's all intentional or that there isn't anxiety as a cause, or that she doesn't really feel pain in her throat- just that as long as she keeps you bouncing around and out of uncomfortable stuff and afraid of worse, she won't change, in my humble opinion. You need to talk to husband, commit to a treatment plan for a length of time and stick to it without rewards/consequences which leave her in control of your life and ultimately, the entire family, in my humble opinion. If that one doesn't work, then miove on to the next treatment plan for a while. My gut feeling is that you won't do this because you've said in so many past posts that "you can't put her thru it" or "can't leave her to go thru that", etc- if I pick up on that, don't you think she does?
 

smallworld

Moderator
What is the highest Zyprexa dose this group of doctors has ever used to treat a child with a food phobia?

When M relapsed with her choking phobia, we needed to go to 12.5 mg Zyprexa to get her back on track.
 
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HaoZi

Guest
Kiddo went all the way to 15mg on her Zyprexa just to keep her stabilized and anxiety down. She had to do her dose in the morning, though, because an evening dose kept her up.
 

klmno

Active Member
Fine- but Jen, don't change medications or dosages without doctors being aware and giving consent.

If you don't like her current doctors not giving enough medications, then find another treatment team but I think you will create a nightmare if you don;t have both legs in and try to manage half of the treatment behind their backs. Plus, that really could become a cps issue.
 
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HaoZi

Guest
Have the doctors discussed her medications or bringing in a psychiatrist for the team?
 

smallworld

Moderator
klmno, then how come I stayed by my daughter's side the entire time she suffered from a food phobia and somehow she recovered? Why is Jen being blamed for her daughter not recovering?
 

klmno

Active Member
I am not blaming her at all for her daughter not recovering yet. If you were able to call the shots about what medications your daughter recieved and what dosages she got then more power to you. If Jen wants to follow your treatment plan, that's her perogative and I won't judge her for that either. If she has cps involved and they are checking into her daughter's treatment, they might look into whether or not she's being given dosages and medications as rxd by a psychiatrist. If Jen wants to be absoolutely sure she's covering all bases, she might want to consider putting both legs into a treatment plan then if it doesn't work, try another. That's all I'm saying. I'm happy you could cure your daughter. I'm just trying to go by what Jen has said in previous threads I've read- if she wants to find a treatment team that is consistent with what helped your daughter, that is obviously her perogative. But it needs to be a psychiatrist and not raising dosages behind a treatment team's back without them knowing, in my humble opinion.
 

klmno

Active Member
Actually, I think she should do EXACTLY what helped your daughter so you and she can get to the bottome of whether or not that will cure her daughter once and for all. Obviously, i have no stake in which treatment helps her daughter either way. But she amnd her daughter seem to be bouncing all over the place re treatment and cause and everything else. Drama and dysfunction are in abundance and that's obvious. But again, in my humble opinion, giving medications or dosages without a treatment teams knowledge can be dangerous, in my humble opinion, and I see no benefit from it. I'm just recommending that she change treatment teams if she can't agree with that and is that driven to give a certain medication or dosage.
 

smallworld

Moderator
The treatment team that is treating Jen's daughter is following the same protocol that cured my daughter (and for the record, I didn't call the shots re: medications/dosages at all -- my daughter's treatment team did). Eating disorders are among the most difficult psychiatric disorders to treat. Some kids are more refractory than others. It took about four months from the time my daughter started Zyprexa and intensive feeding therapy to the time she was eating normally so some of this may be expectations of the treatment team Jen's daughter is dealing with.
 
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