I am so distraught about everything with-difficult child 1. We've been on the Risperidone since 12/1. While we've seen some improvements, they're not nearly what I'd hoped for. I know I've mentioned here before how absolutely sick I am about difficult child 1 being on this medication. I'm worried about her gaining tons of weight and I don't think the results we're getting are worth it. We also added in Concerta per doctors. recommendation at the end of December. (I know some of you expressed concern about the dr. adding a second medication so quickly). Again, I just don't see huge changes. We are finally going back to the psychiatrist on Thursday. I think I made a mistake choosing to try the ADHD medication over the anxiety medication. Also, we see our therapist, who I really do like and trust, only once a month. She simply has no more time available for us. I *have got* to change counsellors and don't even know who to try. I dumped my pediatrician and am starting with-a new one because my old one was callous to our problems and did NOTHING to help us. She truly could've cared less about us. So we don't see the new one until end of February. On advice here, I have started her in Occupational Therapist (OT) at a place I take easy child/difficult child 2 to for speech. I really like the place and the Occupational Therapist (OT) and difficult child 1 goes for 2nd appointment. tomorrow. That was a great idea, so thank you to those of you here who suggested it. Things at school are marginally better, but there is still a lot of crying over ridiculously small issues and anger over unfair treatment by the teacher, etc... but the difference is difficult child 1 can recover more quickly from them than before the medication. I know this teacher is trying really hard. And I know the issues that are upsetting difficult child 1 are ridiculous. The worst most heartbreaking thing is watching my difficult child 1 slowly alienating friends and having friends drop her. I felt sick today when I picked her up from Girl Scouts. All the kids were happy and playing and just normal. My difficult child 1 was angry and upset and had acted out because she wanted help on a project from some of the other girls and noone helped her. Honestly, the way she gets when she's upset and bothered (which is all the time) is a complete turn-off to people. I don't blame them for not wanting to be with-her. I just want my children to be normal. I want to have a normal family existence. I want to be able to do fun things and make plans with-friends with-o feeling sick with-dread that one of my kids is going to flip out or be avoided by their peers. And sadly things with easy child/difficult child 2 aren't exactly peachy. He's still having similar issues to difficult child 1, but he's much better socially adjusted and able to function fairly well at school, so we've been focused more on difficult child 1. Our therapist can't see easy child/difficult child 2 very often either. I'm depressed and not handling the fact that things may never change with-them. I am just not able to mentally accept how things are. I *KNOW* they can't control it, but I'm angry that they just can't learn to cope with-s&&i^% better. I feel that finding this board has been a blessing and a curse. It's a relief to be able to talk these things out with-people who are in the trenches where I am. But on the other hand, I'm so depressed reading many of the posts from people in the same boat as me, years into this journey - medications don't work great, problems still there year after year. It's been this way since birth for my kids, and I still haven't come to terms with the way things are.