A Note From A Child Psychiatrist

By Elizabeth J. Roberts
Sunday, October 8, 2006

I have been treating, educating and caring for children for more than 30 years, half of that time as a child psychiatrist, and the changes I have seen in the practice of child psychiatry are shocking. Psychiatrists are now misdiagnosing and overmedicating children for ordinary defiance and misbehavior. The temper tantrums of belligerent children are increasingly being characterized as psychiatric illnesses.

Using such diagnoses as bipolar disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Asperger's, doctors are justifying the sedation of difficult kids with powerful psychiatric drugs that may have serious, permanent or even lethal side effects.

There has been a staggering jump in the percentage of children diagnosed with a mental illness and treated with psychiatric medications. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2002 almost 20 percent of office visits to pediatricians were for psychosocial problems -- eclipsing both asthma and heart disease. That same year the Food and drug Administration reported that some 10.8 million prescriptions were dispensed for children -- they are beginning to outpace the elderly in the consumption of pharmaceuticals. And this year the FDA reported that between 1999 and 2003, 19 children died after taking prescription amphetamines -- the medications used to treat ADHD. These are the same drugs for which the number of prescriptions written rose 500 percent from 1991 to 2000.

Some psychiatrists speculate that this stunning increase in childhood psychiatric disease is entirely due to improved diagnostic techniques. But setting aside the children with legitimate mental illnesses who must have psychiatric medications to function normally, much of the increase in prescribing such medications to kids is due to the widespread use of psychiatric diagnoses to explain away the results of poor parenting practices. According to psychiatrist Jennifer Harris, quoted in the January/February issue of Psychotherapy Networker, "Many clinicians find it easier to tell parents their child has a brain-based disorder than to suggest parenting changes."

Parents and teachers today seem to believe that any boy who wriggles in his seat and willfully defies his teacher's rules has ADHD. Likewise, any child who has a temper tantrum is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After all, an anger outburst is how most parents define a "mood swing." Contributing to this widespread problem of misdiagnosis is the doctor's willingness to accept, without question, the assessment offered by a parent or teacher.

What was once a somber, heart-wrenching decision for a parent and something children often resisted -- medicating a child's mind -- has now become a widely used technique in parenting a belligerent child. As if they were debating parental locks on the home computer or whether to allow a co-ed sleepover, parents now share notes with each other about whose child is taking what pill for which diagnosis.

These days parents cruise the Internet, take self-administered surveys, diagnose their children and choose a medication before they ever set foot in the psychiatrist's office. If the first doctor doesn't prescribe what you want, the next one will.

There was a time in the profession of child psychiatry when doctors insisted on hours of evaluation of a child before making a diagnosis or prescribing a medication. Today some of my colleagues in psychiatry brag that they can make an initial assessment of a child and write a prescription in less than 20 minutes. Some parents tell me it took their pediatrician only five minutes. Who's the winner in this race?

Unfortunately, when a child is diagnosed with a mental illness, almost everyone benefits. The schools get more state funding for the education of a mentally handicapped student. Teachers have more subdued students in their already overcrowded classrooms. Finally, parents are not forced to examine their poor parenting practices, because they have the perfect excuse: Their child has a chemical imbalance.

The only loser in this equation is the child. It is the child who must endure the side effects of these powerful drugs and be burdened unnecessarily with the label of a mental illness. Medicating a child, based on a misdiagnosis, is a tragic injustice for the child: His or her only advocate is the parent who lacked the courage to apply appropriate discipline.

Well-intentioned but misinformed teachers, parents using the Internet to diagnose their children, and hurried doctors are all a part of the complex system that drives the current practice of misdiagnosing and overmedicating children. The solution lies in the practice of good, conscientious medicine that is careful, thorough and patient-centered.

Parents need to be more careful with whom they entrust their child's mental health care. Doctors need to take the time to understand their pediatric patients better and have the courage to deliver the bad news that sometimes a child's disruptive, aggressive and defiant behavior is due to poor parenting, not to a chemical imbalance such as bipolar disorder or ADHD.

The writer is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in California and the author of "Should You Medicate Your Child's Mind?"

What is Love?

Slow down for three minutes to read this. It is so worth it. Touching words from the mouth of babes. What does Love mean? A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds,

"What does love mean?"


The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.

So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."

Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."

Billy - age 4

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."

Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."

Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."

Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy
and she takes a sip before giving it to him,
to make sure the taste is OK."

Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing,
you still want to be together and you talk more.

My Mommy and Daddy are like that.
They look gross when they kiss"

Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas, if you stop opening
presents and listen."

Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who
you hate,"

Nikka - age 6

(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

How Proud Are You Of Your Country?

By George Paxinos
2-18-9
 If we do nothing now, if we do not see the link between what is happening to everyone on the economic front and on the crowded streets of the destitute, lined by clusters of empty shops, between which cower the huddled masses of women and children left homeless and penniless while their menfolk are dragooned off to an oil cartel's "Never-Ending War on 'Terror'" for their corporate fun and profit and for the furtherance of the jackbooted State-Terror of the New World Order's Globalist State-Fascist Agenda, if we cannot make the connection from conditions in our home society to those happening to forgotten individuals held incommunicado on the Dark Side away from the light of life in secret places like Gitzmo, Guantanamo's Camp X-Ray, Abu Ghuraib Torture and Interrogation Camp in Iraq, Bagram Torture Facility in Afghanistan, then not only will we never be able to look ourselves in the mirror again with anything like a clear conscience, but we ourselves, our families and our loved ones, will soon enough land in home-side versions of those same camps. 
  
Read below what America has become, Dick Cheney, a clipped-wing bird-hunter, who approved the crushing of a child's testicles : read here : 
  
"I feel sick to my stomach as I write this. 
  
This morning I read the interview with the former Guantanamo guard who describes in excruciating detail how Gitmo prisoners were allegedly subjected to anal rape as well as other forms of sexual abuse, torture, humiliation, and other atrocities, all at the hands of their U.S. captors, in some cases under the supervision of U.S. medical personnel. It is a ghastly account." 
  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seery/cheney-chief-of-churls_b_167451.html 
  
"Dick Cheney -- the clipped-wing bird hunter -- as the poster boy of U.S. sadism. He became the bragging ringleader for policies that exceeded the bounds of respectable military strategy (and/or domestic partisanship) in order to inflict special psychological damage on all perceived adversaries [...] the insistence on waterboarding; the indecent disdain for the Geneva Conventions; the Plamegating of critics; the spying without warrant; the legal approval for squeezing a child's testicles : [...] ... 
  
"In several public fora heretofore, Yoo has insisted that no law -- neither domestic nor international -- prevents the president from authorizing the crushing of a child's testicles or the raping of an infant as a way of exerting pressure upon a terrorist suspect." 
  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seery/testicles_b_109687.html 
  
  
Former Gitzmo Guard Tells All : 
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004409 
  
DOJ Report on Yoo/Bybee Torture Memos 'Damning' : 
http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/687-doj-probe-on-yoo-torture-memos 
  
I am not going to write more regarding America's fate if it does nothing to stop these atrocities, nor about the way America will go down in history as a far, far worse Fascist Regime than Nazi Germany ever was; from now on in, it is up to you to do this -- for yourselves. 
  
Even here in Switzerland I am under observation by obscure security services probably not Swiss for writing articles like this one, I have found two professional bugs planted in my tiny apartment by persons and agencies unknown, and calling Swiss Intelligence and complaining seems to have surprised them as much as it had me : these obscure agencies or persons can most probably only be acting from British or American sources, and they are acting illegally on Swiss Territory, to promulgate the goals of their New World Order against the laws of my new home country, or else there are politicians in our midst who are turncoats and traitors to our country, lapdogs of the NWO, whose only goal, it would appear, is to share in the bloody-handed ghoul-feast of the ultra-rich, be they only small scavenger buzzards, themselves. 
  
I am now a Swiss, and if Switzerland was ever lacking in Wilhelm Tells, if he was indeed only a figment of Schiller's imagination, then at least there is one in this country now. If the New World Order wants a fight, then they have got one. But not by Tell's Second Arrow -- he was a gentleman; I am not. 
  
Compared to docile Americans, British and Continental Europeans, I am of South African birth and Greek and Boer extraction, and now the spiritual, if not the genetic, inheritor of the spirit of Wilhelm Tell; if others do not want to fight for the freedoms of themselves and their families, and fight the destruction of their countries and basic human decency, then I shall at least defend those that Switzerland might still have left. 
  
I have to shave every morning, and cannot look at that face if it were as smeared with the blood of innocents, as those politicians of ours who allowed CIA Torture Flights to land at some of our airports in transit from one US camp to another. 
  
May God Almighty fry all those lap-dog politicians in Hell. 
  
George

Fonetic Fun...

It has often been pointed out that communication would be simpler if English spelling were not so unnecessarily difficult; for example, cough, plough, rough, through, and thorough. A gradual program of changes would wipe out these anomalies.

In the first year, 's' would be used instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly sivil servants in a sities would reseive this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replased by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but keyboards kould be made with one less letter. And English would look more like German.

There would be growing enthusiasm when, in the sekond year, it was announsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written 'f'. This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty percent shorter to print.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double leters, whish have always been a deterent to akurate speling.

We would all agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop them and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began, and people would be reseptiv to steps such as replasing the'th' by 'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsh is , after al, half a 'w'.

Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o' kould be dropd from vords kontaining' ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer dombinations of leters.

Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls, difikultis, and everivun vud find it ezi to understand etsh ozer.

________________________________________________________________________

I had found that little article in a Readers Digest Magazine quite some time ago. Here's another one gotten from the same place.  I have always been fascinated by English, and will therefore probably bore you with more tidbits about the language ;)  By the way, why is Phonetic not spelled phonetically?

________________________________________________________________________

Eye Halve A Spelling Chequer

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.


As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no 
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.


-- Sauce unknown

Triskaidekaphobia

Today is Friday the 13th.  So many people are scared of this day, one of the reasons being that Jesus was crucified on a friday and his last supper seated 13.  And who was the 13th member to be sited at that supper?  None other than Judas of course, the one who betrayed Jesus and sent him to his death.

In Norse mythology, the god Odin was throwing a dinner party in Valhalla at his home.  He had invited 11 of his closest friends.  The god Loki crashed the party, bringing the total number of participants to 13.  In the legend, the god Balder tried to kick Loki out of the party and a fight started.  Balder died from an arrow tipped in mistletoe.

In Canada and the States (probably elsewhere as well, although I'm not sure of it) there is no 13th floor in tall buildings nor are there apartments numbered 13.  It's as if the number 13 doesn't exist.  Usually what would be 13 is called 12 b.  As if normal people don't realize that means 13!  Not only buildings, but try finding a numbered street 13, they skip it or give it a name such as Jones street.

In the States, they never made an F-13, they simply went straight to the F-14 Tomcat, go figure!

Another interesting tidbit involves the Hebrew calendar.  It's a lunisolar calendar and therefore needs to have a month added to it occassionally in order to keep the balance between the lunar and solar cycles.  The years with the 13th month are considered to be unnatural and therefore unlucky.  

Paraskevidekatriaphobia, fear of Friday the 13th, is probably the most widespread of superstitions.  There has even been a study done correlating traffic accidents on both Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th.  "The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52%. Staying at home is recommended."   This according to the British Medical Journal.  

Because so many people are scared of this day, there are claims of millions of dollars in revenue lost due to people avoiding moving, travelling, lack of weddings etc.

Personally 13 has always been my lucky number, and Friday the 13th has consequently always been my luckiest day.  How about for you?  Do you hide away and hope nothing bad happens? 

Or do you embrace the day and enjoy it?

VIAGRA SPILL REVIVES LAKE MICHIGAN

Once-Cold and Torpid, Waterway Now Greatest of Great Lakes

A freighter containing 62,000 metric tons of popular impotence drug Viagra struck a reef and sank in Lake Michigan today. As a result, the once-frigid lake no longer dangles into Illinois and Indiana, but now spans majestically across northern Wisconsin. 

According to eyewitnesses, roughly 30 to 60 minutes after the ship's contents dissolved, the lake slowly but firmly began to push northwest toward Minnesota. Eventually, its swollen banks managed to poke aside Lake Superior, which cartographers said will lose its standing as the largest of the Great Lakes for the next four to six hours. 

Area residents were surprised by the sudden shift, but conceded Michigan was "like an entirely new lake." 

"For so many years that lake just, you know, sat there," said Martha Strop of Eau Claire, Wisc. "To be honest, I never even thought about it anymore. There wasn't much of a point. But now, well, this has changed our lives forever." 

Government officials, however, were more cautious. 

In Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle declared a state of emergency, while in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Pawlenty declared: "Is Lake Michigan a threat, or is it just glad to see me?"

I hope "nobody" get's offended!

Tired of Being Isolated and Ignored, Continent Isn't Bloody Moving 

Sydney, 800 miles S. of Nova Scotia  

After what witnesses described as an all night blinder during which it kept droning on about how it was always being bloody ignored by the whole bloody world and would bloody well stand to do something about it, Australia this morning woke up to find itself in the middle of the North Atlantic. 


"Good Lord, that was a booze up," said a bleary-eyed Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, speaking from his residence at Kirribilli House, approximately 600 nautical miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. 

According to Australians and residents of several countries destroyed or lewdly insulted during the continent's nearly 7,000-mile saltwater stagger, the binge began just after noon yesterday at a pub in Brisbane, where several patrons were discussing Australia Day and the nation's general lack of respect from abroad. 

"It started off same as always; coupla fossils saying how our Banjo Patterson was a better poet than Walt Whitman, how Con the Fruiterer is funnier than Seinfeld, only they're Aussies so no one knows about 'em," recalled witness Kevin Porter. "Then this bloke Martin pipes up and says Australia's main problem is that it's stuck in Australia, and everybody says 'Too right!'" 

"Well, it made sense at the time," Porter added. 

By 2 a.m., powered by national pride and alcohol, the 3-million-square-mile land mass was barging eastward through the Coral Sea and crossing into the central Pacific, leaving a trail of beer cans and Chinese take-away in its wake. 

When dawn broke over the Northern Hemisphere, the continent suddenly found itself, not only upside down, but smack in the middle of the Atlantic, and according to most of its 19 million inhabitants, that's the way it's going to stay. 

                                                

"We sent troops to Afghanistan. You never hear about it. We have huge government scandals. You never hear about it. It's all 'America did this,' and 'Europe says that,'" exclaimed Perth resident Paul Watson. "Well, we're right in the thick of things now, so let's just see if you can you ignore us." 


Officials on both sides of the Atlantic conceded that would be difficult. "They broke Florida," said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "And most of Latin America is missing." 

Meanwhile, victims of what's already been dubbed the "Australian Crawl" are still shaking off the event. 

"Australia bumped into us at about midnight local time," said Hawaii governor Ben Cayetano. "They were very friendly — they always seem friendly — but they refused to go around unless we answered their questions. But the questions were impossible. 'Who is Ian Thorpe? Do you have any Tim Tams? What day is Australia Day?'" 

"Fortunately, somebody here had an Unimportant World Dates calendar and we aced the last one," Cayetano added. 

Panama, however, was not so lucky. 

"Australia came through here screaming curses at us to let them through," said Ernesto Carnal, who guards the locks at the entrance to the Panama Canal. "We said they would not fit, so they demanded to speak with a manager. When I go to find Mr. Caballos, they sneak the whole continent through." 

When Caballos shouted to the fleeing country that it had not paid, Australia "accidentally" backed up and took out every nation in the region, as well as the northern third of Venezuela. They then made up a cheery song about it.  Chavez was not amused!

By late morning today, however, not everyone in Australia was quite so blithe. "We've still got part of Jamaica stuck to Queensland," said Australian army commander Lt. Gen. Peter Cosgrove. "I think we might have declared war on it. I don't bloody remember. Maybe it's time to go home." 

Cosgrove, however, is not in the majority, and at press time, U.S., African, and European leaders were still desperately trying to negotiate for Australia's withdrawal. But the independent-minded Aussies were not making it easy. In a two-hour meeting at midday, Australian representatives listed their demands: immediate inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a permanent CNN presence in all 6 Australian states, a worldwide ban on hiring Paul Hogan, a primetime U.S. television contract for Australian Rules Football, and a 4,500-mile-long bridge between Sydney and Los Angeles. 

U.S. negotiators immediately walked out, calling the Australian Rules Football request "absurd."

Some history Part 3

"I see that the old flagpole still stands. Have your troops hoist the colors to its peak, and let no enemy ever haul them down." - Douglas MacArthur

Just a day or two before Munchkin and Silver met, she had pulled a knife on me and said she was going to kill me, and then she'd cut herself up till she bled to death. I didn't know what to do, so I just grabbed the knife out of her hand, grabbed her and held tight while she screamed and fought me off like a tiger. I just kept telling her I loved her, and somehow we'd fix what was wrong with us. I think it had taken 2 hours to get her calmed down, that was the scariest night of my life, and all I could think was "How much worse is this going to get before we can make it better?"

The weekend prior to that, she had broken her bed for the second time on return from her father's, in a rage at him for having been drunk all weekend again. Somehow, I just couldn't get too overly upset with her for that. 

I knew though that something had to be done. I also knew I wasn't a very good parent. What I didn't know was how to fix any of it. I knew too that I needed better parenting skills, but where do I go for that? My parents? I don't think so, I didn't get anything good from them to begin with obviously! The doctor's? Apparently not, as all they did was medicate us. I knew Munchkin and I needed help, but everything I did made things worse. She was now up to 100 mg of Serequil per dose, and I was at my wits end.

I asked Silver about getting help, but didn't really think he'd know as he didn't have kids, but that just goes to show how little I knew about him at that time.

I wish I had the vocabulary to explain all that Silver has taught me about first and foremost being a woman. Secondly, about liking who I am, and more importantly accepting it. He also taught me about being a parent, and about what it means to be a single mother (you'd be surprised how different that is from being a parent). And last, but most definitely not the least, what it means to be a lover! It's amazing how tied together these all are and yet how separate. I'm still learning in all these areas, and I'm sure I will be till I die, but at least now I know how to learn!

I think the biggest thing I have learned so far is that without love and respect for myself, I can not show it to anyone else, nor and more importantly, teach Munchkin how to love and respect herself or anyone else.

I seem to have gotten off track here a bit and yet at the same time, I haven't. Once Silver took it upon himself to teach us, he had me talk to Munchkins teacher and have her watch for changes in her behavior at school. I also had her watch for consistencies.

One of the first things Mme C noticed was Munchkins withdrawn, almost to the point of appearing sick, behavior every other Friday. Well that coincided with her visits to her father on the following Saturdays. Another thing Mme C made a note of was Munchkins being a bully to her and her classmates the following Mondays to Wednesdays or Thursdays. Her behavior in school became so predictable that Mme C had Munchkin assigned a "Big Sister" so she could spend an hour with her every week and get a lot of her frustrations off her chest.

Thanks to Silver, the school and I became a team in helping Munchkin learn to express herself in a beneficial manner.

After that, the only problem we really had was how whatever Munchkin would learn at home and school in the 2 weeks without her father, was completely undermined in the 2 days with him. It was 1 step forward, and sometimes 5 steps back. I must say, that was quite frustrating to say the least.

In case you didn't know, I have Munchkin in French Immersion because she was bored with school, getting her work done before the rest of the class, and would then become disruptive. Since regular English classes were too easy, I made the decision to transfer her to French. Well, unfortunately, that is starting to become too easy for her as well. When it comes to the sciences and math's, she is still finished long before her classmates and she begins to distract the others from their work, but at least the teacher understands this and has her do some French reading lessons.

After one particular weekend with her father, Munchkin went back to school on the following Monday, looked Mme C in the eye and said, "My father says French is for stupid people and I'm not supposed to listen to you anymore!" Mme C just let it go at that, left Munchkin to her own devices for the day, and let me know what happened. That got her a much-deserved smack when she got home from school, and of course it took the rest of that week as well as the next week to re-train her.

That all happened in the beginning of Grade 2, by the end of the school year, Munchkin had learned so much about her father, that she realized how much better off she was without her father in her life.

Backtracking again, (yes I'm bad at keeping things chronological), I should remember to tell you that the very first thing Silver had me do was wean Munchkin off the Seroquel which in turn ended her breathing problems, not so surprising I suppose! Then he threw out my Amytriptiline and I thought he was nuts until I started to get better of course!

It was last May/June that Munchkin decided her father was no longer part of her life. That came 1 year after Silver entered our lives. Now one year without Munchkin's father we have indeed become a family. Yes Munchkin is still an 8 year old, acting as 8 year olds do, but without all the previous drama. She and I are no longer a dysfunctional family, we're finally happy!

Thank you Silver, I know I don't say it enough!

*PS

Remember that I wrote these over 2 years ago :-)*

Munchkin is now a thriving 10 year-old-going-on 30 year old...lol.  The biggest regret she has is that Silver is not her actual father.  As a matter of fact, her biological father calls once a year to talk to her and convince her to go to his house.  Usually she refuses to take the phone, this time however, she didn't, she actually talked to him!  Guess what she said!?!

If you guessed that she told him not to call anymore, that she has a real Dad now, you'd be right.

There Nobody, that's the kick-in-the-teeth that the ex got from Silver, and I dare say, it couldn't have been a better one!

Some history, part 2

“Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.” – Roger Lewin

How about if I go back to the beginning of all this!

I married my second husband when Munchkin was 11 months old because I believed him when he said he’d kill me if I didn’t. To make a long story short, our life together was fraught with abuse, most of which Munchkin was witness to.

I had him arrested for the second and last time when he threatened Munchkins life, and when she started to cry he said, and I quote “You’re nothing but a fucking little slut you bitch, and if you don’t shut up soon I’ll hit you so hard you’ll never make another sound again!”

That was the last straw. Prior to that he had never said anything nor done anything against her. It was always against me, and I thought I could handle that.

Munchkin was just 3 ½ at the time and suffered terrible nightmares after that. She would wake up screaming, and once calmed down enough to talk, she’d tell me what she had dreamt. One was much like the next, always with the same theme. I won’t go into the detail she did, but they always involved her father breaking into the house and making her watch him kill and dismember me in one way or another. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for her to start acting out.

Soon the divorce was finalized and despite what had happened, the judge ordered supervised visitation every other Saturday. The day before she was to see her father and for a few days after, Munchkins behavior was terrifying to say the least. So I started to take her to a child psychologist. After a few meetings the psychologist had a co-worker who was licensed to prescribe medication to come in and observe the next few sessions. This led to Munchkin being diagnosed with ADHD and Bi-polar disorder and was put on 25 mg of Seroquil 2 times/day. At the time, I did not know that Seroquil had not been tested for use on children under the age of 18, and here my little girl who was just about to turn 4 was put on it.

Because visitations with her father were supervised, the judge was still monitoring what was going on with the help of a family conciliation mediator. She told the judge that the visits seemed to be going well so she suggested that after 6 months visitations should become unsupervised and be from Saturday 10 am to Sunday’s 6 pm, and because I still had a standing restraining order against him, the exchange of “the child” should take place at the home of one of my ex’s brothers. I was to drop Munchkin off, leave and then my ex’s new wife was to pick her up. With just the opposite happening on Munchkins return to my care.

With every visitation Munchkins behavior became worse. She was soon put on a steroid inhaler because she was beginning to have a hard time breathing as well. Not only that, but her Seroquil was doubled to being 50 mg 2 times a day.

Sadly I didn’t question the psychologists/psychiatrists in regards to Munchkins care. I later found out that 98% of the children these 2 women care for medically were diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, Bi-Polar disorder, Aspergers disease and so much more. It seems there is no such thing as normal children anymore. The funny thing is, when I was her age, just barely 30 years ago now, these diseases didn’t even exist. Children that displayed any personality, were just kids being kids.

Munchkin was started on the Serequil at roughly 4 years of age and at 4 and a half she was given the inhaler to help her breathing. Somewhere around 5 months of non-supervised visitations Munchkin started to get violent. She broke her toys and would push and hit her friends. This culminated in her breaking her bed and her Serequil being upped once again, she was now on 75 mg twice daily at 5 ½ years of age. Her behavior started to stabilize, meaning she wasn’t getting worse, but she wasn’t getting any better either.

Part of the mediators suggestion to the judge about visitation was that after a suitable trial period of unsupervised visits, providing nothing “bad” was happening and my ex was still with his 3rd wife, visitations during summer holidays could be held for a week at a time. I grudgingly agreed to this. These extended visitations also included x-mas holidays and long weekends. I didn’t like it, and had my misgivings, but like I said I did agree to it.

Munchkin was still acting out prior to and after visitations with her father, but the year she turned 7 she started her week long visitations during summer. Little did I know, but it wasn’t going to be pleasant to say the least.

Backtracking just a bit, I had met Silver that same May, and later introduced Munchkin to him in June. I suppose neither of us will ever truly understand why he didn’t cut and run on the spot, but he didn’t, he stayed! When he was at my place for the first time, and saw the way I was allowing Munchkin to behave, and my phone never stopping with it’s incessant ringing, not to mention my mother showing up out of the blue, he saw me literally fall apart at the seams. 

I guess he realized that he was the only one who could help me. In that 1 day at my place, he saw that everyone, including Munchkin’s doctors were doing us more harm than good. I, myself, was on a rather high daily dose of antidepressants that was leaving me at a disadvantage for being able to think clearly, but that’s no excuse for how terrible I let the situation get to be. I am the one who trusted blindly, I was happy to keep my head in the sand and blame the world around me for the way my life had become.

A little bit of past history

I'm posting this from an old blog of mine, so keep in mind that this is 2.5 years old.  I think I'll be doing this as a series, as that's how it makes most sense, even if it's not necessarily in chronological order:

Well to be honest, my daughter used to be the world’s biggest brat! She has broken a couple of beds (consequently slept without one for a while), and has pulled knives on me wishing I was dead. I took her to a child psychologist, who of course prescribed heavy-duty medication, Siroquel to be precise.

Thanks to the new man in my life, these problems are going away. She is no longer on those meds, and nor does she throw temper tantrums or break things. She hasn't had a nightmare in god knows how long either. Knives are now only used for helping with meals (exactly what they're meant for). So suffice it to say that doc's don't know as much as they pretend to. Sometimes it's like Silver says, if you don't discipline properly, you've got war in your home with the child being the general and the parent being the private. 

Thanks to Silver, I am now the general and my daughter is the private with no say in what happens. She may still gripe and complain as all children do, but she now does as she's told without fighting about it. She also even respects me now, and the only time I really have a problem with her is when she comes home from her fathers’ house after being there for a weekend with him.

I just wish that my parents knew how to raise children. As long as they are alive I'll always be their daughter. The trouble is that they don't like me. Never really have I don't think. 

I suppose this is a word of advice to parents’ everywhere. Please don't put your children down. My mother has called me the devil's spawn for as long as I can remember, and now she doesn't understand why I don't want her to come over, nor can she understand why I don't go there, (even for gatherings). She had even told me how, when I was about 12 or 13, she tried to abort me just 2.5 weeks before I was due to be born. It has left a lot of psychological scars that will never heal, because she doesn't acknowledge that any of this happened, let alone apologize for it.

I'm not looking for help here, I have all the help I need in Silver. He is teaching me to deal with my problems as well as how to deal with my daughter.