Soooooo.....what are your standards for stablity of your difficult child?

[timer lady]

What is your gold standard? What is the reality?

kt had her medications adjusted 3 or more weeks ago due to her antics then (brought home by police & other issues....ick).

kt is incredibly sedated ~ not sure if this qualifies as "stable" or not. It's a hit or miss; kind of like sedating a dog. Sometimes they just fall asleep, other times they lose all inhibitions & get aggressive.

I've thought about this a great deal since psychiatrist appointment this past Wednesday. My standards are incredibly low at this time. Sedated is good.

psychiatrist is willing to let kt be "tired" for the next few weeks until the increase of the mood stabilizer kicks in & then we go from the add'l afternoon seroquel to just using that dose as PRN.

What are your standards?

 

[Wiped Out]

Good question, Linda.
I'm sure my standards are not high right now. I consider difficult child relatively stable because he hasn't been very violent now in almost a year (still little incidents but few and far between). However, he still threatens, postures, and gets very manic like, touches inappropriately, makes rude gestures, and many other issues. He is also incredibly clingy and demanding.

Gold standard stability? Most of the other stuff would be gone along with the violence. Reality? I'm hoping it gets better than what it is but glad, for now, most of the violence is gone.

 

[wintak]

as wrong as this will sound....I'd be happy with sedated or at least sleepy. Might give the family a small respite. I have no standard at this point.

 

[JJJ]

Sometimes sedated is the best option. In Kanga's last 6 months at home, she was on 180mg of Geodon; pretty sure that would knock out a horse, for her it gave us about 8 hours of peace cause she slept.

 

[crazymama30]

I think for us and difficult child son, it is when he is not demanding, yelling, annoying and difficult more than 20% of the time. Doesn't sound like much, but for around here it is a hard goal to meet.

For husband, it is when he can see outside of himself, realize that his actions have a direct impact on those around him, and is not completely mired in himself. Lately (knock on wood and nekkid chicken dance) he has been doing fairly well and was even called by his old therapist to set up an appointment. He has an appointment with him Wed.

Come to think of it, gold standard stability? Are any of us gold standard stable???

 

[pepperidge]

I think perhaps what you are asking deep down is whether you should feel bad that KT is being sedated so that she can't do any more harm to herself, and perhaps let the adults in her life regroup. The answer I would think is NO.

I think we all long for those moments when for whatever reason our children aren't causing havoc--sometimes just when they are running a fever. I think it gives you some time to assess with tdocs etc whether this is going to be the new normal for KT or whether it maybe will calm things down enough to go forward--sort of two steps forward, then one (or three?) steps backward.

Sometimes this is the only vacation we parents get--make good use of it to regroup and figure out where next to go.

I think we all want as much functionality for our difficult children as possible--but sometimes mental illness sets the bar pretty low. You go with what you got.

 

[LittleDudesMom]

I keep coming back to this post Linda because I'm really trying to think what the standard of stability is.

You know, if you had asked me in 2000 what I expected for my children it would have been going to a good school, working hard, playing hard, getting into a good college and doing what you enjoy.

Enter the year 2003 when the ground caved in around difficult child - everything changed.

Now my expectations for my children are that they are physically and emotionally healthy and happy. Period.

Certainly I hope they become contributing members of society.

But I think my standard for difficult child is that he he smiles at least once a day at school, has at least one friend, puts forth effort in class aminimum of 70% of the time, I don't hear from the school or his 1:1 but every two weeks, he is medication compliant, and he listens and produces what is expected at home at least 70% of the time.

difficult child is complicated. Often he is looked at as noncompliant when it is actually his inability or fear to interact. Often his anxiety rules his choices. I think that deep down there is more going on that ADHD but not at the point where it severely effects his ability to get by.

Sometimes I wonder if "getting by" is not good enough.....

Sharon

 

[DammitJanet]

Linda...maybe I can talk about stability from a real life perspective. Would that help at all?

People ask me all the time, do you think you are stable right now? Well, that depends. I am medicated out the ying yang. I am not sedated to any great degree I dont think. I dont feel sedated. I do have some word issues but Im not quite sure where they are coming from and I do need to find someone to talk to about them.

Stable. For the most part I want to be able to get through my days without wigging out and arguing with everyone all the time. I dont want to feel so bad that I need to cry because I think people are hurting my feelings. I want to be able to have fun. I dont want to get so angry I lash out and damage anything or hurt myself.

For the most part I have achieved semi-stability. I dont argue constantly anymore. I do tend to be very touchy and get my feelings hurt easily. I cry very easily. I dont damage things anymore but the instinct is still there but I am able to hold it back. Right now I am having a harder time because I dont feel well and with the loss of my dad not that long ago, I think I am still in a bit of a funk. I am able to deal with it though and just hide in my room and not make any rash moves.

 

[TerryJ2]

Good question, Linda.

I agree, that sedated is a good SHORT TERM solution. And a good RESPITE.

But for forever ... nope. There's got to be a better diagnosis, which would lead to better medication use. (Unless the diagnosis is serial killer, in which case total sedation works best. )

In our case ... we've only done the sedation effect for a few hrs at a time, totally accidentally. But it was a nice respite. Stable to me is calm, predictable (even if I don't like the behavior very much), and consistent with-o violence.

In some ways I guess those are high standards, and in some ways pretty low.

Not a very good answer, I'm afraid ...