Have You Been Reported Yet for Child Abuse?

I got an email this week from a frantic friend. She had gotten a phone call from an investigator for the county Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) informing her that she and her husband are under investigation and they needed to meet with him.

She is the mother of two children; one diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and OCD, the other neurotypical. Understandably, she is a nervous wreck. The investigator didn’t say why he was calling or what or who was being investigated. She didn’t know whether to call an attorney or not. She wrote me asking for some advice and some comfort, which I gave, but I punctuated it with a phrase I know she didn’t want to hear, but had to. Get used to it.

Read the rest at S-O-S Research Blog.

Order and Oblivion

Photo by Rick&Brenda Beerhorst

I sometimes joke that I can see the diagnose a mental illness in anyone. Obsessed with eliminating clutter? OCD.  Involved in 40 projects at once? ADHD. Use anger as a defense mechanism? Bipolar.  I've always tried to focus on the symptoms, but my need for order and organization pushes me towards a label for what's going on in people's brains.

But how could I not see what's going on with my own daughter? Have I really been focused on Tim's disorder so intently that I didn't recognize her symptoms of depression?  If that's what it is? It's definitely more than just being  teenager.  And my own OCD-ish obsession with labeling what's wrong so I have an idea of how to fix it is now in hyper-awareness, trying to focus on symptoms and not a diagnosis, and failing badly.  I do recognize that we need help.  So we're back to therapy next week.  That's the soonest we could get her in.

And I'm going to try and stay off the Internet diagnostic sites until after then, and focus on only her mood and behavior and how to alleviate those that cause her discomfort.  Wish me luck.

What a Difference a Friend Makes

When my son Tim was younger, he didn’t have a lot of friends. From a very early age, he didn’t relate well to other kids. He didn’t want to play with them. It wasn’t a matter of not wanting to share toys; he had no interest in people his own age and size. Adults thought he was charming because he would sit on their laps, giggle, and even flirt with them, but a small child can’t form a relationship with the occasional adult visitor. We let Tim’s lack of friends slide, describing it as one of Tim’s idiosyncrasies; another piece of shrapnel inflicted by the war on his mental illness. Until he went into residential treatment. There he met other teens like him with the same challenges, and through living with them, going to school with them, and playing sports with them; he made friends, for really the first time in his life. And I firmly believe that his friends have played a huge role in his stability.

Read the rest at BringChange2Mind.

Irritated and Debating

Tim's caseworker called a few minutes ago, with Tim in his office. Tim's had a bad second day in a row where he is argumentative in class about doing work independently.  Yesterday he was also scheduled to get a flu shot and he HATES needles.

I had Tim describe what was going on with him.  He said he's been having bad dreams at night about aliens and they are keeping him up (caseworker confirmed he's tired).  I asked how long he's been having these "dreams" (it's a crap shoot if he's awake or asleep during them) - three or four days.

Now, I know the routine there.  They usually go to the movies on Wednesdays.  So I ask, jokingly, what did you see last week, Cowboys vs. Aliens?

Yep.

Sigh.  Seriously?  They took a kid who's been clearly unstable for several weeks to see a movie about aliens from outer space attacking Earth, and then they wonder why he's projecting?  He's amazingly impressionable, and while I doubt he's been hallucinating aliens, he will fixate on the idea of them being evil and, more importantly, being a real, imminent threat.  Good job, RTC, triggering his paranoia and delusions.

Which makes me vaccilate on what to do when Tim ages out of his current RTC at 18.  Do we find another RTC where he can finish high school and stay until his ICG  grant runs out, or do we bring him home and use wrap-around services, since I get calls to figure out what's the deal with him from the professionals anyway?

Childhood Onset Schizophrenia: Orphaned, or Overlooked?

A fellow mental health mom (a freaky term for us, but hey, it fits) asked me last week about a statistic that states 0.1% of the population of children have childhood onset schizophrenia. There are reports that this is the case, but statistics vary.  I read one recent report that suggested two in every million children are afflicted, which would mean in the US, where there are 62  million children under the age of 15 as of 2010, there would be only 124 cases. That seems exceptionally low.  Another said it was one sixtieth the rate of the standard adult onset type.    In either case, however, if the statistics are accurate, they both place childhood onset schizophrenia squarely in the definition of an orphan disease.

Or is it?  It is accepted that 0.7% of the adult population has schizophrenia.  In the US that would mean there are about 1.7 million adults living with this disorder.  Is it really possible that more than 1.69 million of them had no symptoms before the age of 15?  And, if 50% of mental illness cases begin in childhood, wouldn't it be logical to assume 50% of people with schizophrenia exhibited symptoms when they were kids?

I watched Boy Interrupted on HBO last week, a heart breaking but interesting documentary made by the parents of Evan Perry, a 15 year old diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder that committed suicide by jumping out his New York apartment bedroom window.  In the film his psychiatrist talks about diagnosing Evan and he says something very important: the idea that a child can have a severe mental illness is a new concept in psychiatry.  As recently as the 1980's it was still believed that it wasn't possible for children to have depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.  Just 30 years ago.  And plenty still don't believe it today.  Explains why there isn't enough research on childhood onset mental illness, doesn't it?

So on this World Mental Health Day, I'd like to encourage everyone to consider education, research, and resources for childhood onset mental health conditions.  We need to know more about how mental illnesses develop, particularly severe mental illnesses, so that we can get more adults into recovery by starting their treatment when symptoms first appear, even if they appear in childhood.

I Am A Rock, I Am An Island

My daughter - Tim's adoptive (not biological) sister -  has an Inhibited Attachment Disorder, brought on by years in foster care.  She was shuttled from home to home (as many as 10) before we adopted her 12 years ago, at age 4.  

And some days, I wish it was Schizophrenia instead.

Mental Health Awareness Week - Infographic

Brought to you by MSW@USC Masters in Social Work

When Doctors Won't Diagnose

I regularly receive emails from parents of children experiencing emotional problems who are distraught because the psychologist or psychiatrist they are seeing won’t officially diagnose their child. When your child clearly isn’t well, you want to know what the condition is that’s making them unwell. That’s natural.

And this is a phenomenon that is almost exclusively an issue with young children and mental health disorders. You’d never see a doctor telling parents, “We found a tumor, but we won’t diagnose it as cancer,” or, “Your child is having grand mal seizures, but I can’t say it’s epilepsy.” But it is fairly common for a psychiatrist to tell a parent of a child exhibiting symptoms of mental illness, “I won’t officially diagnose your child with bipolar disorder.” And, as hard as that may be to hear, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Read the rest at S-O-S Research Blog.