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CURRENT DIAGNOSES

ODD, DMDD, ADHD Combined Type, Anxiety Disorder, Math Learning Disability, High Functioning Autism, and Depression

It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean.
— John Locke

Welcome to SP3!

I have three absolutely amazing children (born in 2007, 2009, and 2013), and I’ll be using this blog to document our unique journey. Life is challenging for every single living creature, but for some (like my oldest child, with numerous diagnoses – ODD, DMDD, ADHD Combined Type, Anxiety Disorder, Math Learning Disability, High Functioning Autism, and Depression) it seems to be even more obstacle-ridden.

Maybe some of us need to struggle significantly so that others can learn from their difficulties? Or maybe there are other such lessons necessary for furthering sustainable life? I am not religious, but spiritual; I’m a yogi, believe in the power of manifesting your future, and I meditate. I feel like my child’s plight may have to do with the universe creating balance. Maybe we need every type of person with every type of problem in order to achieve a greater species generations to come. Maybe there isn’t actually a reason why, but simply another example of life’s unfairness. Their father surely had some of these issues, but he refused to acknowledge them or to get any help. I myself suffer from PTSD, depression and anxiety that stemmed from my decade-long abusive relationship with their father. Everyone has their issues; life ensures us that alone.

As a single mother of three, things are logistically chaotic. I have full legal and physical custody (and have since 2012, when my ex-husband was arrested for domestic violence), and my children spend every weekend with me. I have no family within 1000 miles, and as a single mother “down time” doesn’t exist. Money is really tight and I’m always just scrapping by even though I work two jobs, have a Master’s degree, and am a licensed yoga teacher. I don’t receive any child support from their father (although he’s court ordered, he has never payed – he hides, doesn’t register his address, and doesn’t work legally). I don’t ever expect that he’ll pay. At least not monetarily.

Between two jobs and full-time parenting, I am typically busy and on very little sleep. Sometimes I feel so incredibly lonely and lost in this battle to help my children reach their potential. I have only a handful of friends and I hardly ever go out of my house to socialize. I am hoping that through this blog I can connect with other hardworking parents determined to peacefully and positively survive the intensity of raising children (in general, yet even more so those who have special needs children) on the spectrum, with mood disorders, etc. Maybe this will be my chance to create a link of empathy and encouragement in the parenting community, helping us all to stay strong and keep pressing forward.

We can raise self-aware, responsible, helpful, mindful citizens who contribute to the world’s greater good. Despite their (or our) diagnoses, we shall see that they succeed!

We’re going back to CBAT

Alphabet Soup…

ODD, DMDD, HFA, and the list goes on with the names of my child’s diagnoses. I’ve been cataloging audio and visual recordings of her episodes for several years now and the things you’ll witness are disheartening to say the least. These recordings were never an attempt to shame my daughter, but rather to document for others what these diagnoses actually spell out for living with someone who has them all, and to help others see what it’s like to be with someone who is completely out of control more often than not.

We couldn’t go inside of Target yesterday. She was supposed to stay beside the car for what she’d done inside of the first store we entered. Bad enough, there’s a global pandemic occurring and I hardly take them to places (but this was a super special attempt to find something…***More on that another time***).

She was convinced that I was being mean to her (this time it was for not purchasing gigantic bags of candy for which she could “pay me back later”…there were so many teachable moments in the fact that she’d woken up late, not brought her own money, etc…but another time….), so she started screaming at me and doing the thing where she loudly and incessantly inserts her justification for why I’m wrong about something at the store, in the checkout lane, on the way to the car, down the street to the next place, all the while screaming bloody murder which her sisters had to endure, about her treatment.

As a consequence, she was supposed to stay outside of the second store, but she did that jumping out of the car and refusing to stay put thing. So she made a scene in the parking lot and surely someone recorded it because…it was that bad, and my phone was dying, but I used my last bit of battery to get some footage…I’ll learn to upload (without putting it on YouTube first) and I’ll share, but…

Imagine an irate and well-sized teenager looking angry and screaming things you’d normally hear coming from a toddler, “Noooo! You can’t make me! I’m thirsty and you have to at LEAST give me water!!!” Though I’d already promised to get her water if she’d just not follow us around the store protesting loudly that I buy her things “she deserves”! Of course, her ODD wouldn’t allow her to be left behind…and since at this point she’d gone a full 24 hours refusing to take her meds (of which there would’ve included 320mg of antipsychotics)…she was legit off her meds, and acting batshit crazy.

But she seems to revel in it while it’s really bad. She just goes with it. She is right and you aren’t going to hear her stop until she feels you agree or you’ve suffered enough from her actions. She’s ruthless, and it’s unjustified, but I know this behavior…I spent years being abused by my children’s sociopathic father. Back when I was a teenager, I thought he was just commanding and smart…I’ve since learned.

In addition to the antipsychotics (of which she takes 160mg every single day, if she agrees to take them, which she has not been since Wednesday…now, no…Thursday? I’m losing track. When did I call crisis? On Thursday, yes, because her psychiatrist was on…so she hadn’t taken her meds since Wednesday night. So then on Thursday she missed her morning dosage (which includes 10mg Lexapro, 0.1mg clonidine, 100mg lamictal, and 500mg metformin), and then she refused to take her afternoon meds (which includes another 100mg lamictal and 0.1 clonidine), and then she refused her meds again on Thursday evening (which would’ve been another 0.1 clonidine, and 500 metformin, but also 160mg – split into two 80mg tablets- of Latuda).

On Friday morning, she refused her morning meds, and afternoon again, but then agreed to take a dose of evening meds in order to be allowed to play XBOX with her younger sisters for an hour. I agreed to it, and she fell asleep before family movie night (which we do every Friday). She never helped to pick up any of the disgusting filth in her room or help to clean anything she’d destroyed in her rampage (which has been ongoing for a week, she has refused to bathe even once), but she is sleeping now and…that alone is a blessing.

I meant to write yesterday, and the day before to keep this updated. It feels like so much and so little happens every day. I haven’t even talked at all about the CBAT and what it will mean and any of that like I’d planned to…I guess I do have a lot more I need to say about this journey, and it’s going to take a bit longer before these entries don’t seem like journal dumps. I’m not a doctor or a mental healthcare professional, but I am a mother and a yogi and a registered yoga teacher, and I see the distress my child is in and I know when I need reinforcements…so I called the crisis team and we’ve determined she’s going to need another CBAT.

What’s a CBAT?

A CBAT is Community Based Acute Treatment. It is like a residential program that takes place on a campus or in a hospital/home-like facility for children who need to be regulated and working their way back towards being able to cope in their own homes. SO, she is going to be hospitalized. Another time…this is the…??? time. I really don’t know the exact number of times she has been hospitalized now off the top of my head. I have to look it up, but even still there were different classification of hospitalizations.

Several times she has needed a CBAT, but other times she has been iCBAT, due to having been downgraded from an inpatient status (from times where we had to be taken to the hospital from the ER) or back when things were worse and she was running away from school, probing police officers, and having the fire department called to pry her from the roof since she wasn’t actually a cat and surely couldn’t (wouldn’t?…would) really jump.

So it’s only a CBAT.

Something I could’ve never imagined saying when she journeyed this way the first time. I don’t really want her at a few places they might suggest, but there’s this place I hear is top notch and she hasn’t been there yet and that’s where I’m hoping she places. It’s near the city and they have strict pandemic protocols, which I sincerely appreciate. It’s also not someplace she’s been so she won’t feel familiar and less willing to try to prosper. I hope…she has to want to do better. Ultimately, she has to have the willpower to supersede her disorders. Right now, she is a bit greedy and power hungry.

I trust that she will be offered the right bed at the right time. For now I’ll be packing her suitcase and trying to get her to take her meds as much as possible. Like last night, I’ll be trying to bide our time peacefully…like last night how I allowed her to game, I’m trying to keep the peace. I cannot always just give her what she wants though…it’s not that simple. Especially for keeping her on track long-term, there needs to be rigidity in our approach with her or she’ll manipulate the system. Even last night, after less than ten minutes of being invited to game, although she hardly deserved to, she began rudely accosting her sisters, to the point of which one quit gaming and the other walked on eggshells for the time they played together.

There’s still so much to say and explain…

It’s … clearly not enough to update every few days. I need to get better about finding a time to come on here and document what has happened with her every single day. It’s really a lot…there was so much more that I even got to…maybe I’ll write again later. I hope this helps somebody…even if its just that bittersweet feeling of knowing they’re not the only people dealing with something so uncontrollable and consuming. I’m with you.

One breath at a time…

Crazy Bitch

Two words that really shouldn’t be thrown around carelessly are “crazy” and “bitch”. Both are charged with such negativity and vulgarity that no one wants to be referred to as these things. Not even if they qualify as those things. They are shameful. To be controlling, irrational, out of control, bossy, snide and self centered. To be truly crazy, one must lack sanity, not just knowledge. One must truly refuse to believe the truth as it is scientifically and reasonably to most people, and reject notions of others’ opinions as valid assessments. My 13 year old daughter is one crazy bitch. Literally.

But how so?!

At the moment, she is screaming at me…crying and banging on my door again. This time it’s because I’ve threatened…or rather promised to call the Crisis line for help with her (which will likely lead to another hospitalization for her…making it the 10th…11th…12th time she has been hospitalized? I cannot keep track anymore) if she continues to:

Steal food (which seems strange in the first place, right? Because no one is withholding food, but she sneaks around at night eating all the fruit and stealing all the chocolate in the freezer. Anything that’s not literally locked away, she may take. Even if it’s not hers, and even if it’s for a special occasion (like if her sister’s made a cake for someone’s celebration – A would eat a piece with her fingers then deny it).
Refuse to clean the mess she creates while having an episode – which can range from spit and snot on a wall, to broken toys, to dishes caked with dried stolen food, to a room destroyed by her lack of executive functioning skills, and avoidance of the filth she created and subsequently denies having responsibility for
Speak disrespectfully to me. Not that it’s an uncommon thing to have a mouthy teenager, but having a teen with ODD is FAR different than a “normal” teen. My teen is crazy. My teen is a bitch. She is mean, selfish, heartless, cruel, and lacks empathy. This child used to tell me her plan to stab me to death in the night, so the knives have been locked up for five years. She is not a constant threat of danger, but she is dangerous, and her mouthing off is indicative of her action plan…which is hellbent on control.
Make our household feel imbalanced, unsafe, and generally uncomfortable to live in (with her). I can never be certain that my other children are safe when I leave the house and she is here with them. I cannot sleep at night without worrying what she is getting into (hence the numerous cameras we now have, and the hours of footage of her misbehaving, and the hours of footage of her denying said recorded behavior).

This is NOT okay…

She is sick. She is mentally ill. She is not just doing these things to be an unruly child. I know this. I have lived this for the past eight LOOOONG years. She has severe disabilities and needs help. She needs help. This crazy bitch needs so much assistance, and I cannot give her enough on my own, and I am at my wits end trying to help her to be happy and feel good about her life while also trying to be prosperous personally.

I am a yogi. I do not condone violence or harming others. I will not attempt to corporal punish her into submission. It’s not my thing, and I honestly don’t see how causing anyone else pain is effective long-term. I am in so much pain myself from these exhausting constant struggles and I really want this to be…easier. To just love and nurture my child would be so wonderful! I am trying to do that with each of my children, but it’s nearly impossible to love a crazy bitch.

They just don’t love (or show love) in a rational way. It becomes a huge mental anguish game and I don’t want to play.