new--? about hallucinations (daughter)
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| Wed, 03-21-2007 - 10:31am |
Hi, there--
I'm in the process of trying to get answers to symptoms that my daughter has. She is 14 years old. A couple of months she told my husband that she wanted to see a dr. because she has hallucinations. She wrote down as much as she could remember and titled it "my hallucinations." She thinks she has had them ever since she was little. About a month ago she had one that was really gory and because of it she won't sleep in her room--she's been sleeping on the living room couch ever since.
She also has regular headaches, including migraines.
She started on Celexa about two months ago for depression; during the visit where the dr. prescribed it, she gave her the hallucinations paper to look at. The dr. recommended that she go to counseling and that we see a psychiatrist for meds. We have a psychiatrist appointment on March 29.
She has had some episodes, also, where she will feel paralyzed or will "blank out" for 15-20 minutes at a time. A couple of weeks ago she was holding her head in her lap with both hands and couldn't answer me when I asked her what was wrong. It seemed to me that she was having a seizure and when I looked up seizures, that seemed to explain these.
Could any of this be related to bi polar disorder? She was a very difficult, explosive little girl. She has always struggled socially, and at times we thought she was hyperactive. Sometimes she will switch all of a sudden to the point where it seems like two different people. Things will be fine and then all of a sudden she's angry, and the trigger will be something like telling her that it's time to get her shower.
She has a lot of difficulty organizing herself, maintaining her room, keeping track of school work, etc. and get angry at efforts to correct that. Sometimes she doesn't care about her grooming or what she's wearing. Up until about five days ago she was cooperative with a routine of showering at night and then letting me blow dry and straighten her hair; I suggested that because she has such a hard time getting ready in the morning and I can't stand it when her hair doesn't look nice. It was working out well but she's been really uncooperative about it and hasn't let me touch it in the past four or five days. Most girls at this age are obsessed with hair/makeup/clothes, etc. and she won't spend the time to look her best.
I'd appreciate any input you can give me.
Thanks--Heidi

#1 Go to the child bipolar board http://messageboards.ivillage.com/iv-ppchildnbd This may be a better place to take your question as this board is mainly for adults.
#2 Read "The Bipolar Child" by Papalos. Do this before the psychiatrist appt. It will help you to see what child bipolar is like or EOBP (early onset bipolar)
By the way an anti-depresent without a mood stabilizer can push a bipolar into rapid cycling which it sounds like your DD is doing.
Hope this helps.
Brenda
Thank you, Melissa--I appreciate your suggestions. I had that book quite awhile back when I suspected this is what was going on but some of it didn't seem to add up at the time. Part of my thinking that may be that we had her seeing a therapist at the time who, rather than looking at the possibility of bipolar disorder, took the approach that she simply needed to know who was boss and stop manipulating the family. She did have all of us jumping through hoops and that time and was having some serious raging issues, so this T took a "tough love" approach with her, which was needed at the time. When things got better I sold the book on ebay, thinking I was on the wrong track with that. Darn it, it's an expensive book!! :o)
Things have been much better than they were back then with her behavior, but there is definitely something going on (as I've suspected for years; mother's intuition is an amazing thing, isn't it!).
I went to the other board and posted. Thanks for the link.
Heidi
Brenda
Hi Heidi,
My eldest dd (17) is bipolar and shares some of your dd's signs. The personal hygeine is a problem and she always gets defensive when I suggest that she shower. She recently was in the hospital and they made her shower every day and boy, she didn't like that one bit. She's been home since Tuesday and has only showered once. Her room is like a black hole and she can't seem to muster the focus to clean it. We have a Scottish exchange student coming in a week and her younger sister and I are the ones who will end up cleaning her room because she has to "catch up on her homework" but every time she says that, I catch her playing online or talking to friends online. Yesterday when she got home she said she was going to clean her rabbit cages (she has 3). Then after about a half-hour she said she was going to have a snack, then clean the cages. Then, after that she said we had to go to the store and drop off her prescription to be filled and she'd clean the cages when we got home. I finally blew my stack at that one. I told her that was the last excuse. As soon as we got home she was to clean the cages period! She did clean the cages then. But long story short, there are definite similarities so it is worth looking into. Keep us posted on how she's doing and what you find out. We're here for you whenever you need support.
Hugs,
Traci
Thanks, Traci--
I could definitely hear echoes of my dd in what you described! :o) It's amazing how far she can go to avoid doing what she doesn't want to do. Keeping up with homework and bedroom are huge challenges for us over here, too. She doesn't like being micromanaged, but left up to her she doesn't get it done.
What happened that made it so your dd had to be in the hospital? How long was she there? This is one of the possibilities that scares me, mostly because I don't want people treating her differently if that happens. People can be so mean when it comes to mental health.
Thanks for the wecome and for sharing--Heidi