You're Invited to My Pity Party

I find this stuff harder to write about than I expected. It's hard enough to live it sometimes without reliving it to write it down. That's probably why I'm posting so infrequently.

The holidays passed without event. All the kids home and Gary here until the end of January provided a good distraction, especially having someone around to play video games with Cassie! We've been slogging through winter like everyone else and for such short days they can seem s o o o l o o o o n g. Having massive amounts of depression in the house makes a long day even longer. The darkness has really closed in the past few months. She's added Lamictal to her med regimen, and that gave us a really good respite there for awhile and then CRASH! Hard.

Voices are overpowering, terrifying. Scared to go to sleep, scared to face the day, go to school, church, every and any social event. School attendance is ridiculous, a continual source of guilt for me. Eating, eating, eating. I think there's nothing to eat, but then I'll catch her with half a loaf of bread or entire cans of fruit. Anything in excess will cause weight gain. We lock up the food at night or whenever things get out of control. She got into the food storage in the basement, so we had to lock that up, too. Lest you think I'm starving my child, trust me, she's in no danger of that.

School is not quite a disaster yet, but getting there. This week, she was suspended for 2 days for kicking a kid in the head. This has NEVER been a problem and I have theories I'll get into in a minute. Her gen ed classes (yearbook and choir) are both pretty loosely structured, allowing lots of time for students to talk. The subject of high school conversations is a daily source of grief for Cassie. Sex, parties, and drinking are topics Cassie isn't ready to digest. A couple girls in choir were showing her pictures of male anatomy they'd drawn and I went ballistic about that. The fact is, I can't protect her from all this rubbish and I just don't know what to do.

I started researching a psychiatric hospital in Grand Rapids and she got to the point about a week ago where SHE was telling me she needed to go somewhere because she felt so bad. I was considering a partial program there. Insurance has changed and I'm on the hook for 1/2 the cost of hospitalizations, which certainly puts a different view on using those services. However, if we really feel it would help and she absolutely needs it, of course we're there regardless of cost. Our past experience with hospitalizations has not been good, so we've agreed she pretty much has to be to the point of needing an ambulance before we'll go that route.

In the meantime, in light of increasing and debilitating symptoms, psychiatrist put her on another new med, perphenazine. Side effects create the need of pairing with ANOTHER drug, congentin. This poor baby is so medicated, she'll get to the point where she refuses to take it and that's not good. She threw some geodon I gave her the other day. Usually it's not a problem. I can certainly see her point of view, though. When you're taking a literal HANDFUL of medicine and the voices in your head are still screaming horrible things in a frightening way...I'd probably have exactly the same reaction...why am I taking this crap?? But pity doesn't really help anyone, so I bury those feelings and put on my no-nonsense face and tell her to take the blankety-blank medicine. (I really say blankety blank, because swearing is just so yesterday.)

The perphenazine (aka Trilafon, a medium potency typcial antipsychotic)caused a ramping-up of Cassie's behavior. She got really talkative, started calling people on the phone, became the life of the party, thinking every boy was 'staring at her'. Sounds great, right? Except I knew it was the drug and it was swinging her into a manic state. This is a drug that's supposed to cause sedation. The culmination was the suspension when, thinking it would be funny to wake a kid up in the library (who was sitting in video gaming-type chair) she planted her foot on the kids' forehead. He went to the principal and I got a phone call the next morning. For once, I was happy Cassie hadn't gotten out of bed yet for school and I told the principal she could not deal with being reprimanded in his office. He felt bad about the whole thing, knowing something of our situation. I was pretty hysterical. I know kids and adults with issues like Cassie's are not strangers to social troubles, but this has never been part of what we've dealt with. Cassie has been a quiet, compliant student because she saved her fallouts for home.

In talking to Cassie, we had to keep it pretty low key, so as not to push the whole cart over the edge. Of course she realized right away it was wrong and will apologize to the kid tomorrow when she goes back. Her teacher told me, "not to let her wrap me around her finger." Yea. Comments like this produce extreme amounts of guilt, even though I know what we deal with is not your typical ADHD (and I know that can be quite bad, too.) My child is losing her mind and I'm well aware there's a certain amount of manipulation that occurs, but I live every day by the seat of my frickin' pants.

Parenting is difficult as it is, and parenting a psychotic child is on another level altogether. There's no tried and truer techniques, no clear boundaries, nothing. We watch her peers achieve and progress, while Cassie struggles to keep her head above water every day. Her jealousy knows no bounds as she compares herself to those she wishes she could be like and ends up hating them for being what she can't. I cannot even begin to relate to parents of normal kids because it just makes me want to cry. "Mary had such a good time at prom, she went with a bunch of girls from her cheer squad!" "there's Emily, star center of the basketball team and straight 'A' student!' Cassie doesn't really have a friend at school. Her 'best friend' is the para-pro. Her weight and inability to cope with competition makes it unlikely she'll ever play high school sports, and she's in a class that doesn't give grades. She'll receive a certificate at graduation. I really try to be happy for their kids' achievements, but it's a bitter pill to swallow every time. And I wonder how many parents watched Gary and Missy and all their promise and felt like I do now. One good thing that comes of this is a newfound sensitivity toward those who are different.

That said, I want it known that I'm proud of Cassie for hanging on by the skin of her teeth most days. Some days, victory is defined as going to school for 2 hours. I'm proud of her fantastic sense of humor, her willingness to try again and again to fit in, and conquering fears each and every day. I love her so much and I'm just having myself a fine pity party at the moment, so don't mind me. Tomorrow's a new day, right??