Son arrested for destroying my car during a rage
Hello I have a 14 year old son who was diagnosed as adhd at age 7. He was also diagnosed bp at 11. We were in denial and took him off of meds that just seemed to make things worse. He was diagnosed again recently. I started reading to try and educate my self and learned that antidepressants can make bipolar worse with out a mood stabilizer. My son has been arrested 3 times over the past few years and all of those have been shortly after a med trial of antidepressant and stimulant(.The arrests were from angry outbursts) I shared what I learned with my husband and also the judge and juvenile justice system. I feel like he needs to be treated to find the right meds. No one agrees with me. They say he has to be punished for his actions no matter what. I just feel so guilty for giving him prescribed meds that made him worse. Has anyone dealt with situations like this? Why would doctors not be more cautious?
Sadly, your story is all too common. You could probably find articles from medical journals documenting this adverse effect of AD's, especially in children. It seems ridiculous to punish your ds for his actions under the influence of a prescribed med. I think I would fight this if you can.
Why do pdocs do this? I don't know, some are just stuck in their ways (out-dated), some don't "believe" in pediatric BP. Here's a link to the Treatment Guidelines and the AACAP Med Guide. You may also want to go to the "Learn" tab above and go to the "Getting Started" section.
Best of luck to you, and I hope you can find a better pdoc. In fact, if you can get him evaluated by a good pdoc, then that doc could help you in your appeal to the legal system.
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Brenda,51, CABF Parent to Parent Volunteer
Mom to A, 16, BP, Tourette's, OCD, ADHD: Eskalith CR, Trilafon, Lamictal, Seroquel, Cytomel
E, 15, BP,AS: Seroquel, Eskalith CR, inositol
B, 13 & H, 11
Married 17 years to DH, 50
FROM CABF: Do not start, stop, or change medications or other treatments for yourself or your child based on what you read on this Website or elsewhere on the Internet. Information presented here should not replace the considered judgement of a doctor who knows you or your child.
I had similar problems with my son. He's 18 now and just now living with me again. We have a tentative agreement but I am uneasy. The last time he was severely manic, I was on the phone with the phosp nurse in Charlotte and he said he could hear how manic my son was in the background, hounding me to give him a ride and following me outside in the freezing cold in the middle of the night (I was trying to get away from him while on the phone so he wouldn't know what I was doing!) This was two years ago. The nurse told me that he would call 911 for me and have an ambulance sent out. What wound up happening in our local yokel town with no real help for the mentally ill was that a couple cops arrived, who already knew my son and felt that the whole thing was a joke and just because he's a pot smoking delinquent. They told the ambulance to leave (I saw it happen) and then they came in and tackled my son, who called them "f*&king pigs" so that's why they tackled him...the crazy thing is, though, my son has this whole other side to him, intelligent and sweet and well mannered...when he's stable. Who in their right mind cusses cops and resists them?? Mentally ill people when they are unstable, duh! That's the angry, bitter feeling I have when I try to face the reality of my situation and my son's. They hauled my son off to jail because he had taken my van without permission earlier and didn't have a license. They assured me that was just a delinquency problem, not mental illness, and that people who commit crimes do not HAVE mental illness, they are merely criminals. Of course, son hated me for a long, long time for this incident and believes I called the cops on purpose. If I were to tell him i was trying to get him help, though, he'd turn on me and say, "for what" and get angry and say I am soooo stuck this bipolar crap and that he doesn't have a mental illness, he is just a teen like all the "trained professionals" have tried to tell me. (He got that line from some nurse in the hosp once).
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Elizabeth
separated from BP dh
mom to Charlie, 18yods, living with dh, BP, substance abuser, high school droupout forced out by the school, BUT a reader, thinker, and lover of music, pianist...working on GED
dd 16, lovely, mature young lady, dancer, no dxes
ds 12, sweet, outdoors lover, car enthusiast, Mr. Fix it, no dxes, possible ADHD
dd 7, Miss Merry Sunshine, drama queen, dancer and gymnast, very mood swingy
You don't have to feel guilty about anything, you did what you considered it was best at the time, your son's actions have nothing to do with you. I really hope he will get better, perhaps things will settle once he gets older, I doubt anyone will care about what your son did while he was a teenager. People will have a background check only if they think something is wrong and I doubt this will happen.
Honestly have mixed emotions about it know first hand how riddlin makes my daughter meaner then anything and sends her into a major manic cylce and anti depressants proven to make bipolar rapid cycle but on the other hand he has to know that he cant just do anything he wants with out any punishment for actions regaurdless of bp cause when he is 18 no one will really care that he is plus seen it get worse first hand w another teen. I would ask for comm service (will satisfy everyone else that he is being punished for actions with out being out of line with the situtaion at hand defferd judgement so that he can have a clean slate when he is done with it in florida its part of mediation that they offer in juvinelle court system. Going to junville hall prob will not help him and could make things worse... What does his dr say?
Kristin 32 single mom mdd aniexty and ptsd
Hannah 7 ptsd mdd bipolar adhd
meds we are still working on them but
abilify 10mg lithium 900mg (weening off killing thryod) clonidine .35mg
Kristin,
I have no BP, but I explain everything in my sig line.
So, your dd has made something inacceptable while not stable.
The question I have to ask you is : would you punish a child for having a seizure ?
Your dd has made these inacceptable things while unstable.
When she will be stable, you can apply consequences to her acts. Because she will be in the state to control her actions.
But discipline comes after stabilisation. Not before. Otherwise, it's like you were asking a person with ventricular tachycardia to run a marathon.
Pick your battles. First and foremost, her health.
Then, when her health has somewhat stabilized, you can discipline her.
But don't put the cart before the horse. Otherwise, I guarantee you a major disaster. I guarantee you a vicious circle. I guarantee you that your dd will act out more and more. I guarantee you that she will go in front of the justice for something very serious at 18.
If you discipline your daughter whereas she acted because of her illness or a medicine side effect, it's as useless as injecting water to cure a cancer.
Don't think about "no one will care about it when she'll be 18". At the moment, she is 7, so don't look that far because in 10 years, things have the time to change.
Not only it's wrong, but also because you react like if your daughter were her action.
They have to take on the table her mental state when in a trial.
But also, your dd is not her offence. And she made it while unstable, so unable to control her actions.
So the first thing to do is see her pdoc and ask a letter, or ask him to be an expert witness.
Show at mediation that yes, you know that your dd made something wrong, but she needs first to be cared and then, you can discipline her.
If you want to be believed, you have to involve her pdoc. Otherwise, she will be treated like a "malicious girl" whereas she needs mental health care.
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25 yo, ADHD, sensory issues, Maths LD and prelingual Single Sided Deafness.
Preparing myself to go back to university to study Law (hope to become a lawyer).
Interests : languages (I speak French as mother tongue, Italian, English and Modern Greek), medicine, law, computer.
I had the same kind of things happen with my almost 14 year old son. He was diagnosed with adhd when he was 5 and i suscepted bipolar when he was 11 so i had him retested and they said he did indeed have adhd but maybe also bipolar but they were going to wait. We had him on vyvanse and fluoxetine and i was not aware that if he does have bipolar that made it worse, but a few weeks ago he was hospitalized and they took him off of those meds and put him on depakote. The worse part about all this is the fact that he was sexually abusing my younger daughter and now he is in out of home placement. HELP PLEASE!
Is your ds in a therapeutic foster home? Hopefully he is now on the right track for correct treatment, but it will take time to get things under control. What an awful situation, is your dd doing okay?
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Brenda,51, TBMF Parent to Parent Volunteer
Mom to A, 17, BP, Tourette's, OCD, ADHD: Eskalith CR, Lamictal, Cytomel, Allegra
E, 15 1/2, BP,AS: Seroquel, Eskalith CR, inositol, Buspar
B, 14 & H, 11
Married 18 years to DH, 50
FROM TBMF: Do not start, stop, or change medications or other treatments for yourself or your child based on what you read on this Website or elsewhere on the Internet. Information presented here should not replace the considered judgement of a doctor who knows you or your child.
Sounds like my newly diagnosed 16 year old. When he is off meds he is very out of control. He came home after getting in trouble with police a few weeks ago. He dosed himself with gas, came in the house and lit himself on fire 1 foot away from me. second degree burns on 20% of his body. He has been in the mental hospital for 10 days and the new meds are helping a great deal. He is on Trileptal and Abilify. He comes home tomorrow. I am scared to death about what is in store for us. How can I ever trust someone who could do sometthing like this. Vodka therapy has not been very effective for me the past week or so.
--Wow, I couldn't imagine what that must have been like for you. I hope things will be much better now that he is on new meds!!
Our first real clue that my 13 year old son was Bipolar was his manic reaction to being put on Prozac. Our Dr. said he had several kiddos on it for anxiety and depression. It seemed to be a miracle drug at first, his rages were gone and he was in a much happier mood! But after about a month, he started doing strange things like mooning the neighbors outside, riding his dirt bike on the main road and sneaking out in the middle of the night. Then one night he took my car and went on a joy ride, picking up his buddies and he even tried to steal an 18-wheeler!! He wrecked my car and is lucky to even be alive. Needless to say, he was caught by the police and now is involved in the Juvenile Justice System. I definitely think doctors need to rule out any possibility of bipolar disorder before even thinking about prescribing antidepressants!!!
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Angela R.