**I am going to begin to use something that is used on a web support group I belong to at http://www.bpkids.com/ and I will place meanings in parenthesis so everyone knows what the acronyms mean.
With our DD #1 (Oldest Darling Daughter) her delays and issues did not stop with her education and gross motor delays. She began showing signs of some more issues at hand that would take our lives in a direction I knew very little about, MI (mental illness). She began with some mild anxieties and "qwarks" that had no reasoning attached it them. She would sit for hours counting monopoly money, how many pink ones, how many yellow ones, ect.... Once it was counted out she would mix it up and count it again. She would also spend hours separating beads into color piles and again mix them up and do it again. We never had a game very long because she would take all the pieces out to "organize it" and loose pieces so the game was unplayable.
Like many children, she became obsessed with certain books to the point that she would refuse to read other ones. I had to read her "7 Little Rabbits" every night for so many years that even 16 years later I can still say it verbatim without help from the book (and yes she still has that book today). I also began to notice that our DD #1 never did well with change in her life. She would freak out if we had to do something out of the ordinary or if I didn't prepare her for something days before hand. If she had a doctor's appointment or if we had to go to the store for something on the way home, I would have to let her know that morning or there would be a meltdown.
At the age of about 8 or 9 yrs of age, the "rages" started, where I would have to sit and hold her until she calmed down. I am not talking about a temper tantrum that all kids go through at some point. I am talking about a full out, throwing things, yelling, cursing, hitting, scratching, head butting rage. I was told by so many people that all she needed was a good swift kick in the butt. Family members even told me this and that I wasn't hard enough on her, discipline is all she needs. Yes there are some kids out there that are not disciplined and allowed to do as they wish. For those kids that react to limits at too late an age, that is true. I on the other hand did set limits as well as a cause and effect modality with all my children. You do something, whether it is good or bad, and there will be a result of it. I wasn't one to "save" a child from the natural consequence of an action unless it could physically injure them or someone else.
These "rages" that my DD #1 had were off the chart to me, a 15 on a scale of 1-10. I don't know how many times I would come out of a rage with her with bruises, cuts and swollen hands from her actions. Now keep in mind that these started out small and developed over the years and began getting more violent and more often. By the time she was a pre-teen and teenager, a week didn't go by without one or two rages. I know that some of you reading this would say that you would never allow your child to do this too you. There is no "allowing" here being done, the rages come whether you want them or not and you have two ways of dealing with them. You can either react to them in a positive calm manner or you can react to them in a negative explosive manner.
It took me years to figure out that how I reacted to my DD #1's rages would either help them to reduce the rage itself or I could yell and scream back at her. By staying calm and not taking what is being said verbally or done physically, personally, then I could successfully get a rage under control with minimal injury to myself and my DD #1. If I reacted to her rage in a yelling and screaming manner then that was like adding fuel to the fire and it quickly escalates out of control. With this being said, it is not an easy thing to do because you are in the midst of a situation where your adrenaline is heightened and your first natural reaction to someone swinging at you or throwing things is to fight back. It took years for me to get to a point where I no longer reacted to her rages with anger, and yes I do slip from time to time and yell back before thinking.
By the time my DD #1 was having these rages frequently, my husband and I divorced. With time I had noticed that these rages only happened when my DD #1 was with me and not with her father. When I had talked to my ex-husband about the rages, he was surprised because he had never seen one. The school also had never seen her having this behavior. I began to believe what my ex-husband was saying, that maybe it was me causing her to do this because it only happened with me. I began having some issues around this, myself. Always second guessing myself and mentally beating myself up inside, trying to rack my brains as to what I might have been doing to cause her to be like this.
My DD #1 was 12 years old when I placed her in a partial program at our local mental facility in order to get help with her. She went to the hospital from 9-3 Monday through Friday, to do her classwork as well as intensive therapy groups and trying her on her first Psych medication. She was Dxed (diagnosed) with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), Anxiety and mood disorder NOS (not otherwise specified). She spent 6 weeks in the partical program before they had to admit her to the in-patient program because she was beginning to dabble in SI behaviors (Self Injury) and refused to contract for safety. After a six weeks in-patient stay our DD #1 went back to the partical program for another 5 weeks before being discharged full time. This was the beginning of yet another roller coaster of life as we know it now. When dealing with loved ones who have MI, the roller coaster does not usually end, it just takes a hiatus during times of stability on medication.
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