p10. Getting it right, getting it wrong.
When your first child is the one having problems, the world is certainly a different place. The old adage about the youngest and middle kids having more lenient parents is an understatement except when their older sibling has a serious health issue. When the issue is a disorder of the mental type, I think it blows the old adage to hell. You learn way too much about what they can do wrong, way to fast. You become a detective, doctor, cop and recently we are working on our law degrees.
With your first child, parents tend to place their hopes on getting it right for their kids. I sit back now and laugh at the younger parents discussing the merits of one preschool vs. another. I just give them my wisdom to use the one I did, because they take the kids out of the car and put them in. This was great, you didn’t have to park and put their coats on etc. Of course they may not have had a gifted program, but then we really didn’t expect left-brain kids. But we still wanted things to go right.
As things went wrong we started a mission to find the answers to questions that were so bizarre they were met with disbelief. The first psychologist we saw was when Da was three, it, as always, ended up in us needing marriage counseling. The issue is somehow never the kid. (Blame it on the baby swing.)
Discipline for a kid like Da was a huge challenge. I discovered that spanking was not an option since her behavior was so off the wall, it could really set us off to a point of no return, not a good controlled way for a parent to act. It’s really hard to live with a 3 year old who is 20.
Well the first psychologist didn’t get it right. The second was actually the first’s boss. Go to the top, right? Wrong. He tried to give us different ways of correcting her behavior which boiled down to bore her to death – well this would never happen. One day I put her in her room for timeout and came up to check that she was okay, only to find every toy in her room hanging from her dress ties. It was a wonderful puppet show. “How creative”, “what a bright child”, “she is so cute”, “wow she can sing and remember all the words” - well everyone thought we were wrong. Everything had to be right with this wiz kid, we were just the new parents who don’t have any idea of what we were doing. Wrong!
Her third psychologist started in the second grade. After 1 1/2 years she at least was right to send us to another doctor, because she felt Da was just out of her realm so we went with our fourth doctor, a psychiatrist. After a year, she was hospitalized for the first time. They wanted to get the diagnosis right; they had a huge team of evaluators. Our insurance would pay for the doctor from the hospital but wouldn’t cover the hospital so we had to pay out of pocket, for the huge team of evaluators to get it… you guessed it – wrong.
The problem being now, a wrong meant a bad prescription for the wrong medication. They felt she was depressed and started her on Prozac, a bipolar person on an antidepressant without close supervision for the onslaught of mania, is one of the worst things you can do. It can induce incredibly large swings of mania.
I summed up Prozac with Da in fifth grade in a few words… I used to say what a pain in the ass she was, but with Prozac, “she was a happy pain in the ass”.
We were right to go for medical help, they were wrong often. My husband was wrong to think his kid didn’t need medication, but he was/is right in the added attention he gave/gives her.
Right and wrong, is never black and white – it is always grey with a child who is experiencing a mental illness. It seems there are very few things that work the same for others. Your life and that of your family becomes a hit or miss.
Thank God we weren’t archers!
With your first child, parents tend to place their hopes on getting it right for their kids. I sit back now and laugh at the younger parents discussing the merits of one preschool vs. another. I just give them my wisdom to use the one I did, because they take the kids out of the car and put them in. This was great, you didn’t have to park and put their coats on etc. Of course they may not have had a gifted program, but then we really didn’t expect left-brain kids. But we still wanted things to go right.
As things went wrong we started a mission to find the answers to questions that were so bizarre they were met with disbelief. The first psychologist we saw was when Da was three, it, as always, ended up in us needing marriage counseling. The issue is somehow never the kid. (Blame it on the baby swing.)
Discipline for a kid like Da was a huge challenge. I discovered that spanking was not an option since her behavior was so off the wall, it could really set us off to a point of no return, not a good controlled way for a parent to act. It’s really hard to live with a 3 year old who is 20.
Well the first psychologist didn’t get it right. The second was actually the first’s boss. Go to the top, right? Wrong. He tried to give us different ways of correcting her behavior which boiled down to bore her to death – well this would never happen. One day I put her in her room for timeout and came up to check that she was okay, only to find every toy in her room hanging from her dress ties. It was a wonderful puppet show. “How creative”, “what a bright child”, “she is so cute”, “wow she can sing and remember all the words” - well everyone thought we were wrong. Everything had to be right with this wiz kid, we were just the new parents who don’t have any idea of what we were doing. Wrong!
Her third psychologist started in the second grade. After 1 1/2 years she at least was right to send us to another doctor, because she felt Da was just out of her realm so we went with our fourth doctor, a psychiatrist. After a year, she was hospitalized for the first time. They wanted to get the diagnosis right; they had a huge team of evaluators. Our insurance would pay for the doctor from the hospital but wouldn’t cover the hospital so we had to pay out of pocket, for the huge team of evaluators to get it… you guessed it – wrong.
The problem being now, a wrong meant a bad prescription for the wrong medication. They felt she was depressed and started her on Prozac, a bipolar person on an antidepressant without close supervision for the onslaught of mania, is one of the worst things you can do. It can induce incredibly large swings of mania.
I summed up Prozac with Da in fifth grade in a few words… I used to say what a pain in the ass she was, but with Prozac, “she was a happy pain in the ass”.
We were right to go for medical help, they were wrong often. My husband was wrong to think his kid didn’t need medication, but he was/is right in the added attention he gave/gives her.
Right and wrong, is never black and white – it is always grey with a child who is experiencing a mental illness. It seems there are very few things that work the same for others. Your life and that of your family becomes a hit or miss.
Thank God we weren’t archers!
posted by ewschott at Saturday, October 16, 2004
1 Comments:
Hi,
I stumbled upon your blog while waiting for my 7yr old son to be released from the psychiatric hospital. It was a couple hours away from our home so I was in a motel nearby and I was just desperate to understand.
It is now about six months later and I still don't understand, my marriage is still incredibly stressed, my beloved first born boy is still incredibly difficult and I am pretty sure I have been bipolar all my life as well. Many things to consider in such a short period of time. He is being medicated (15mg Abilify per day) and this helps the emotional highs and lows but his focus is still so far gone. I am so sad but am glad you have your information here. Thank you.
Angie in California
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