Posted on 03/03/2018 4:48:19 AM PST by newnhdad
need advice. I have an adolescent with sever behavioral issues. Suicidal thoughts, violent behavior, bursts of emotion, anger and very drastic mood swings. Like you see in the movies about crazy people, but from a 12 year old.
we have tried all sorts of therapy but nothing seems to move the needle. The last evaluation mentioned posbile hospitalization and medications. Does anyone have experience with this?
“Children’s Hospital in Boston”
last children’s hospital in the world ANYONE should take a child to - NEVER forget how they kidnapped Justina Pelletier and striped her parents AND the rest of her family of ALL rights of contact:
After a few years of exasperated efforts, they finally found a very remote, out of the way, top quality ranch--I think in Montana--that they sent the boys to. It was way out in the sticks and therefore doubly difficult to escape from.
The staff were/are top flight and built relationships, CONNECTION with the kids.
The short of it is, one of the twins is now on staff at the ranch and the other is about to earn his RN degree and license.
I am not in routine touch with them now but would be willing to try and connect if you can't find the information via duckduckgo.com
I'm having trouble remembering their family name though I know where the dad works as a warehouse manager.
The short of it is, EVIDENTLY the boy desperately needs a fatherly male !CONNECTION! while he claws the eyes out of everyone within reach out of his anger over so many formative years of disconnection.
Qx offers this conjecture: ALTERNATELY:
You might set up a 10-14 day wilderness camping trip with the kid, dad, & two other close mature, empathetic, skilled at connecting other fatherly men--preferably one--a grandfatherly sort. At least a couple of them must be comfortable and skilled at manly, platonic, heterosexual affection.
Might be good to strategize over 1-3 hours with a skilled therapist male as to what sorts of things to set-up, and how to navigate them--the structure for the 2 weeks.
The absolute bottom line goal would be to build connection at deep, intense, emotional levels between dad and son. Virtually nothing else would matter. There would be risk.
The wilderness can be dangerous. Kids in emotional, disconnected, angry distress can tend to do foolish dangerous things. So you'd need to consider the risks, how to mitigate against them and decide if they were worth it, or not. e.g. what's the risks of not doing so?
NO MEDIA, SCREENS, ETC. on the trip except a satellite phone for emergencies. Also, a satellite locator beacon for the same reasons. Avoid wilderness areas where 411 type mysterious disappearances have occurred. Carry suitable protection against bears etc. Avoid allowing the kid to get out of sight.
Might be useful to research OUTWARD BOUND types of exercises.
I don't know if Brene Brown's youtube videos on connection would help you, or not but they are top flight and wouldn't hurt. See some links below.
If you haven't read:
ATTACHMENTS: WHY YOU LOVE, FEEL & ACT THE WAY YOU DO
It is well worth the time for anyone. Qx would give it to every parent on the planet, if he had the funds to do so.
BRENE BROWN
COURAGE, COMPASSION AND CONNECTION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r3-icqeOt0
VULNERABILITY, SHAME & CONNECTION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0&list=PLQxg8LcANU0LRAMR8mT11fN8ffkQQ1Nw5
EMPHASIZING GENUINENESS: DOES VULNERABILITY MATTER FOR EMPATHETIC CONNECTION?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtx98TssCE4
Self-Awareness, Self-Love & Self-Worth
THE POWER OF EMPATHY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzvYm2DNzS0
MANIFESTO OF THE BRAVE AND BROKENHEARTED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7urSzq63abU
SELF AWARENESS, SELF-LOVE & SELF-WORTH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-JXOnFOXQk&list=PL6StD5HhGmVVM4Goruc-rFusfG140VJ-x
There Are No Prerequisites for Worthiness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZR0-WFUfeE
HOW DO WE BUILD A WALL AROUND OURSELVES? VULNERABILITY, LOVE, INTIMACY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gaTaX4LwIM
HOW TO CONQUER FEAR (Tim Ferriss, Brene Brown, Daymond John, Mel Robbins, Neil STrauss)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX114eo-SlM
THE POWER OF VULNERABILITY & EMOTIONS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkWNz2G9T24
SHAME, RESILIENCE & VULNERABILITY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ifUM1DYKg&list=PLmvK0QBfWqL2G5B2vRlK3kgRO6P47Mm1u
THE GIFTS OF IMPERFECT PARENTING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLZhG90HFG8
ANATOMY OF TRUST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUeI7HQ3zgk
3 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO STOP A SHAME SPIRAL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdtabNt4S7E
SHAME IS LETHAL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEBjNv5M784
THE MAN IN THE ARENA SPEECH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s6DQrqVHxM
TOXIC SHAME & TRAUMA IN ADDICTION TREATMENT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBoH5LVYHaU
WORTHINESS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHHghrHUGOI
Anyway--that's about the best we can offer off the tops of our heads and experiences.
It sounds like an emergency. Hospitalizing her would be alright. It worked out for a friend of mine and I hope it does for you, too. She takes the meds they gave her still after 5 years. It keeps her balanced.
As far as meds go, you can figure out what they are giving her and evaluate and research it later. As far a picking out a good hospital, I have no idea how to do that other than referrals from doctors you have used and like/trust. School office staff might have experience with hospitalization if you are going to tell them/trust them.
Pray like crazy for her. I will be praying for her, too.
God Bless you and your family.
If the kid is already on an anti-depressant, and you are serious about going on the 2 week wilderness event--we'd suggest talking to the psychiatrist about slowly weaning the kid off the med, FIRST. Otherwise, he wouldn't be AS emotionally available as needed out in the wilderness.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been proven to be the most effective treatment of choice. However, it takes considerable work. There are no side effects and it lasts a lifetime. It involves rewiring the brain away from the endless depression loops/circuits.
Probably !CONNECTION! must be established, first.
If the kid is female, 2-3 women would be necessary on the wilderness event, too.
As one who obviously has a great deal of education in the psychological field, I would have thought you to think your training gave you great insight into child mental issues - kudos for not being full of yourself. Very few people, particularly the more educated in these fields, are keenly aware of the differing needs of deep disorders that defy textbook definitions. You could no more walk into my house and know how to deal with my child as I would have no clue right off to understand another’s child even with the identical diagnosis.
We are assuming that all diet, medical—blood work etc. issues have been covered.
Thanks for all the great links. I havea n appt on Monday where we do the bloodwork and start the ball rolling on that analysis.
I think we might be heading to the children’s hospital with the results. Her primary care doc is through Tricare and it has been a revolving door over there.
Unfortunately, as it is a curse upon me more than a blessing, I can walk into a person’s house and know their life history and why they act and feel the way they do. This increase in understanding has provided me immense compassion which leads to non-judgement of the person I am working with. I’ve had this ability for 30 years since I died, left my body and returned. My psychology degree and neuroscience studies were merely to gain understanding into myself.
I’ve worked with many military vets who are beating themselves up for the people they have killed, to remove the guilt or moral injury caused by their actions. I do not judge them in any way. Often it only takes a few minutes and they are free.
Most psychologists hate me as I do in a few minutes of what they often take years of talk therapy with no success as depth psychologists. My curse is that I feel people’s stored memories in their soul of every emotionally traumatic event occurring since their conception. Their stored memories are physical to my perception.
I use this ability to perform very unusual diagnostic procedures to determine the memories stored in the soul that determine personality development and mental functioning. Everything, including the physical body and the neurobiology of the brain is a function of the consciousness flow patterns in the soul.
The human soul, which enters the body at conception is the life itself that forms the physical body. When it leaves a person is dead. (Nothing can kill the soul, even when the physical body no longer exists.)
When I reach out and touch these stored memories that I feel as physical objects in their soul, the high emotional component stimulates physical body movement, even when the person’s eyes are closed and I am 15 feet away from them. Often it knocks them off their feet. This is true even for soul memories stored by a fetus while in their mother’s womb, while the person I am working with is now an older adult.
The things that I have found using this ability:
Memories begin at conception.
Memories are stored based upon the perception of the child at the moment of the experience, regardless of reality.
A child in their mother’s womb can’t differentiate between their own experiences and those of their mother.
A child in the womb needs an emotional consciousness mother and a logical consciousness father in order for proper attachment and normal development. (Gender identity is totally a function of the dominant aspect of consciousness, masculine or feminine in the soul, regardless of actual birth gender.)
The child’s perception of their father and often all men later in their lives is often strongly influenced by the mother’s perception of the birth father during the pregnancy.
Relationship attraction is a function of conscious flow patterns in the soul.
...............................
When I touch the early prenatal/conception memory of a person who was adopted, it most often knocks the person off their feet backward as they perceive the rejection of being unwanted. (this happens even when the mother changes her mind later and is the best mother a child could ever desire after birth)
The person repeats this same backward movement every time I touch a similar memory of rejection as I reach through the timeline of memories stored in their soul.
There is much more to this than I can share in a post.
This is why the Florida shooter who was adopted, did what he did... He was also a self- mutilator or cutter which indicates internalized guilt. This often accompanies adopted children when they blame themselves for the rejection and act out to create the punishment they feel they deserve to get rid of the misguided self imposed guilt.
Cruz experienced the rejection by his birth mother, re-experienced rejection when his adopted father died, again when his adopted mother died, again when the school rejected him, and I had read somewhere he was rejected by a girlfriend. His anger that got him in trouble was a result of him blaming himself for all these rejections, until the last rejection was clearly an externalization of the built up internal anger.
Here's some more brainstorming sorts of stuff from Qx:
1. How emotionally bonded, healthily affectionate were you as dad the first 6-8 years of her life?
2. If not so much--you might sit down with wife and/or therapist and come up with 15-20 items you could walk out toward establishing a !CONNECTION! at this stage.
3. At the core--worthlessness, disconnection, emotional, heart-level isolation etc. are devastatingly powerful toward depression and other crap.
4. One of the most depressing, terrifying things in the world is to feel like if we walked into a room full of the people closest to us, we'd be more or less non-existent to them--particularly at an emotionally connected level.
5. It's kind of like looking into a mirror and nothing being there.
6. At some level, the child/individual is screaming--does it matter at all that I'm on this planet breathing air and taking up space? How much does it matter? To whom? Why? Without robust, quality answers to those questions, daily existence is a huge terrifying weight.
She must have qualities that are worth affirming.
Somehow,it is also critical to affirm that her merely being your child is sufficient reason to love her unconditionally.
Yet, most of us get our sense of worth--or lack of it--from our fathers. Mothers tend to love regardless and act it out regardless. Fathers--to some serious degree--we tend to have to earn it or at least earnestly endeavor to earn it.
So, how does a father affirm unconditional love yet require effort and growth? Hard to answer simply. Can be tricky. First priority is to communicate the love simply because she is your child. Then help work out a practical path that seems doable to her about behaving in overcoming, successful, growthful ways.
Anyway--prayer for your struggles.
Every child and every soul is unique. Thus while I have identified several patterns, the complexity of the soul is great. I learn more when I find an exceptions than the norm.
Psychologist Qx finds your narrative believable.
This might sound odd, but make sure that he has proper bathroom routines and not “holding it in”. Some kids do this because they hate using bathrooms in public and/or it just becomes a bad habit! This obviously builds up all kinds of debilitating toxins! Might want to tell the poor guy that you need to verify his bowel movements before he flushes. They should not be thin and choppy. Sorry, but I think it’s important.
We’ve all seen the show Duck Dynasty. Read the books Si wrote. He has a very serious side apart from the show. His son growing up had a lot of problems and became a risk to self. Finally an Army doctor got it right it was Asperger syndrome. With some medication and therapy he is fine and IIRC even retired himself from career Army. Second possibility that can show an onset at about puberty is Manic Depression aka Bi-Polar. i would push for him to have a Neurological workup and even an Endocrinologist test him for chemical imbalances as well.
LOL...
My mother has been dealing with this type nightmare for over 30 years with my sister.
I PRAY for you that alcohol and drugs do not get involved.
As to an answer for you after 30 years i still have none....
My sister has been to McLean so many times over the years that the have a reserved bed for her.
Nothing seemed to help.
See my post 97....i think it was 97
I just read a little of the other’s post so forgive me of someone offered this already.
I myself used to be a very troubled teen (way back when). I was raised by my father alone. He wasn’t perfect but he did go to work every day and try to provide for us. He was raised by a single mother and he winged the whole fatherhood thing. So parenting was a learn as you go thing. I thank God daily for him in my prayers.
My best advice I could possibly give, is it is not really about words. You can talk things to death. And even say the ‘wrong thing’ without meaning to. Words can be misunderstood. Hugs say Love, acceptance, and “I am glad yo are here”. Hugs is what I believe is most important.
Just live as a good example. And give HUGS freely. .
Give real hugs. Those hugs says more than any words ever could.
I watched the Billy Graham funeral yesterday. And when his one daughter talked about how she just had a second failed marriage and was going back home really moved me. He was so ashamed and felt like a failure. And what her Father , Billy Graham, might say to her. But when she arrived home, he just put his arms around her said, “Welcome Home”.
I cried myself when I heard that. That is what being a loving Father is.
Opps, sorry about the typo ==
Meant to say SHE felt so ashamed. Not ‘he’.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.