I know you mean well and I'm sorry, but no, wrong, and your recommendation is dangerous.
Psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations, in a child, are *NOT* "reactions to sadness"---they are very serious and should be treated very seriously.
Yes, of course if there are problems with the environment you want to improve the environment.
But most likely these parents are just ordinary people whose daughter got a bad role of the genetic dice to be vulnerable to mental illness and something triggered it---we have no idea what triggers these vulnerabilities, just that as far as the doctors can tell the parents of these children are a lot like any other parents.
Since when identical twins get it, the other twin is much more likely to come down with it but not 100% sure to, we know there's a genetic component *and* something to trigger it, but that something could literally be *anything* and is something, since nobody has even half a clue what it is, that the parents have no control over.
These are not bad parents. This is not a bad child. This is a child with a serious neurological disorder that usually responds well to treatment, but it takes a fair bit of trial and error to find the right one of the many available treatment options for any specific patient.
Do not hand out the false hope to these parents that if they somehow make their home life perfect their child will no longer be psychotic.
I know you mean well, but your comments are more likely to sink the parents in self doubt, even though you said you don't intend that. And I believe you don't intend that.
Nevertheless, if you sink them in self-doubt and persuade them to avoid getting their child on appropriate antipsychotic medication, that would be a disaster for their family and their child.
It could be the difference between their child living and dying---and that isn't program-speak exaggeration.
Their kid needs a good pediatric psychiatrist to take another close look at the kid's medication right the hell now, preferably in a hospital setting.
I quote:
"Suicide is often an impulsive act: A child can be having a glass of milk in the kitchen one minute and leap from a bedroom window the next. It happens that fast; it happens that unexpectedly. The notion that people who threaten suicide never actually go through with it is a dangerous myth."
_The Bipolar Child_, page 265, by Demitri Papolos, M.D. and Janice Papolose, ISBN 0-7679-1285-3
(also authors of _Overcoming Depression_
---------------------------------------------
"Many people might ask: Who would expose their child to such a symptom profile? Well, it all goes back to risk/benefit. The chances are that the movement disorders and TD may not appear, but certainly psychosis, severe rage, and mania are malignant for a child. Psychosis untreated gravely imperils a child."
Same, page 108
-------------------------------------------
"Demitri Papolos, M.D., is an associate professor of psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and the codirector of the Program in Behavioral Genetics. He is the director of research of the Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation, and is in private practice in New York City and Westport, Connecticut. Janice Papolos is the author of three other books, all recognized as definitive in their fields, and is the editor of the highly respected 'The Bipolar Child Newsletter.' The Papoloses are the authors of the classic text _Overcoming Depression_, now in its third edition. They live in Westport, Connecticut. Visit their website at
http://www.bipolarchild.com"
Biographical notes on book jacket.
-------------------------------------------------
If this were my child, and she is still suicidal and/or experiencing delusions, voices or hallucinations, I would take her *immediately* to the emergency room, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
If she is not still suicidal or experiencing delusions, voices or hallucinations, I would call her psychiatrist (pdoc) and get a phone consult and talk to the pdoc *today* about the symptoms she has been having.
This is *not* something to take lightly, and it is *not* something to wait on.
Consult a qualified pdoc right now.
I am not a doctor, but I can tell you need one, and you need one now.
The only exception would be if you have seen her pdoc in the past week and the pdoc said it would take a bit for the symptoms to clear.
When my daughter was this unstable---and she wasn't even suicidal or psychotic, "just" manic---her pdoc was seeing her *weekly* to monitor how she was or wasn't adapting to her changes in medication.
Timoclea, bp for 22 years, stable on paxil, welbutriin, lamictal
mom to Katie, bp, 9 years old, stable on Abilify
BS in Psychology, Georgia Tech, 1990
On 2005-04-12 10:19:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Original Poster:
I am not saying this to call you out or make you feel bad.
But please look at the whole household situation for your daughter. What have things been like? If she is a very sensitive girl, she could at least in part be reacting to whatever the problems are with the people she is living with. I speak from personal experience. In a house of pain, I think the sensitive child reacts and takes on all the pain, expressing it by what she is doing.
Her bizarre ideas could be a reaction to or a way to escape from all of the stress at home. Whether the relationships around the house are noisy and confrontational, or stewing with unspoken painful history, teenagers often feel this stuff acutely. This will take a little passage through pretty uncomfortable stuff for you, too.
I only wish you the very best, and thank you for posting here and caring to ask about getting the right kind of assistance for your daughter.
"
Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? ... If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
-- Patrick Henry
