On 2005-01-21 23:09:00, chi3 wrote:
"I have stayed home and raised my daughter almost completely by myself since she was born. She and I have always been extremely close. She is not at the children's prison because of any little thing, it was lots of little and big things. I repeat, I did not know this place was a hell-hole!!! I was led to believe it was just a strict place for them to cool down and think about what they wanted to do with their lives, get ahead in school, and talk out their problems. Well, know I know differently. I know what my daughter did and didn't do, some she told me, some I heard on the phone, some in instant messages, some in notes and letters, and some from her friend that want her safe. She has a real problem with sex. She is not just fooling around a little. She is obssessed. Especially with gay sex and kinky sex. She is very compulsive. That's why we had been seeing psycologist for years. The problem is, she has no morals. No regrets. She has had sex in the school bathrooms, dressing rooms, bus for band trips, etc. When we took her out of school she was the one planning a massive orgy for about 25 of her friends with lots of drugs. This goes geyond just regular sex and drugs stuff in high school. I know, I did it , too!! I couldn't get her to open up with the doctors. She either lied to them or refused to talk to them. The school kept calling me telling me what was going on, trying to keep it quiet. Well, it got to be common knowledge. I just wanted to try to save her from all of that. I didn't freak out and get hysterical, just didn't know what else to do."
Chi3---the problems with sex can be biological.
You're essentially describing me as a teen except I was monogamous (thank goodness!).
I've spent a lot of time thinking about what my parents could have done differently, or I could have done differently, to get different teenage results.
I'm happily married, have been for over ten years, and my husband and I are happily monogamous.
*Safe* kink is unimportant as long as it's kept *private* and within the context of a sexual relationship that is *otherwise* within your family's (and later, your daughter's) religious taboos.
Your daughter is hypersexual. That's a symptom that suggests she *may* be bipolar. May not, but it's a symptom of mania and suggests you should get it checked.
For me, and for other bipolars I've known, mood stabilizers don't necessarily reduce sex drives (although *some* psychiatric medicines do for *some* patients---to the point that it's a problem and the adult patients have their doctors change their meds over it). Anyway, the meds don't reduce your sex drive, what they do is improve your impulse control and your level of rationality so that you make better choices about what to do about that drive. Such as being in a monogamous relationship, using condoms and contraceptives, and masturbating privately instead of including the whole damned world in the details of your sex life.
I don't see your daughter's libido as the problem. I don't think it would matter how often she was masturbating as long as it was privately under the covers (alone) at home.
Your daughter's problem is judgement, rationality, and impulse control.
It's not even a matter of morality, really--not at the level you're discussing with your daughter. Even for someone with absolutely no morals, your daughter's behavior would be stupid just from the coldly rational standpoint of personal safety.
I guess I'm saying that she has to get her *practical* judgement in control before her *moral* judgement comes into play one way or the other.
I'm *NOT* saying that every promiscuous teenager is mentally ill. I *am* saying that combined with the other stuff you've said, *your* daughter's sexual behavior sounds to me like a symptom of mental illness because it's so extreme ('vivid' in clinical terms) and unsafe.
Her sexual judgement will probably *NOT* improve any time soon without the appropriate medication to improve her rationality and impulse control.
As she gets out of her teen years, she will probably grow out of at least some of this behavior because teens generally have lousy impulse control, they're frontal lobes of their brains are still developing (where impulse control lives), and even mentally ill people have better impulse control once their brains are fully mature and developed than they do as teens, when they're still developing.
Getting a couple of opinions from seperate board certified pediatric psychiatrists, particularly asking them to consider the hypersexuality and evaluate whether or not your daughter *may* be bipolar, would be the next thing I'd recommend.
*IF* she has an organic brain disorder (she may or may not), then all the behavior mod in the world even from the best places isn't going to fix her behavior if you don't treat that problem first.
If she doesn't have an organic brain disorder, then a single-sex accredited boarding school that knows her history and is okay with the extra supervision necessary would probably be appropriate for a year or two. Not to turn her into a perfectly celibate stepford teen, but just to give her time and safety for time to work its normal miracles of having her grow up a bit.
Her morals might not ever agree with yours (or they might, who knows?), but her behavior is risky enough from an HIV standpoint that I can see why you feel *good* residential care is necessary.
But if she's screwing everything in sight because she's ill, it's possible that they could get her stabilized on medication and send her home with her own better judgement more in control of her behavior---in which case you could probably manage her.
I'd say before you do anything else you have to know what you're dealing with.
If it were my child, I'd bring her home to get her out of WWASPS, and I'd enroll her in regular or alternative public school, or homeschool her, while I made the rounds of second and third opinions with board certified pediatric psychiatrists to make absolutely sure of what I was dealing with.
Because you really can't have a solid game plan until you *know* what you're dealing with, and you can't get her to doctors to find out while she's in WWASPS.
Free advice is worth what you paid for it, but that's what *I* would do if I were in your situation.
Also, while I had her home, any time she was going to be out of my sight I'd make sure she had a whole lot of condoms in her purse. At this point, you're just trying to keep her safe enough to grow up and have her better judgement kick in.
When I brought her home, if it were me, as long as her behavior didn't get unsafe and she was cooperating with seeing the doctors to find out if there was an underlying problem, that would be enough for me. I wouldn't put her back in even *good* residential care unless and until her behavior got actively, imminently dangerous again.
Timoclea
