Parenting Teenagers (12-18) Support Group

My greatest fear is that I will be living with what you are living with in 2 years. My son is 16, and we are headed down the same road. He's not bipolar, but his mental illness is undiagnosed or at least noone can agree aside from anxiety/depression/obsessive. But that doesn't explain his hostile unpleasant personaltiy. Does your son see a Pschologist who can advise? Is residential treatment and option? I don't have a real answer for you, but I feel for you and your frustration. Maybe a local chapter of NAMI could put you in touch with an organization in your state. Prayers for you.

Hello and thanks for replying.
My son no longer sees a therapist or any doctor. He wants no part of it and like I have said does not take his meds. He feels he does not need them and does not like the way they make him feel. He is black or white thinker and is almost impossible to try to reason with.
He was not diagnosed with Bipolar until he was 15 and was alwasy diagnosed with ADD & ODD. We are at a point in our lives that we are severly burnt out emotionally by he behavior, that we don't even want to help him. He wants help but will not take any advice or constructive criticism which he feels is disrespect.
I know this is about tough love now but so hard to turn your child out on the streets.

Our grandson has been like that since he was 10
and as time went by got worsed. He stayed in therapy three & one half years. My husband & I have guradianship of him now. He has had alot of negative happen in his life but I can't reach him either. The more freedom he gets the more he wants. He is 16 and a ninth grader. All tests show no reason for this. He has always fought with his Mom. He blames her he dididn't see his Dad much. His Dad knew where we lived & never came to see him until he was five. That was a mistake. The boy's eyes sparkled when he told me Dad was coming. Only Dad didn't keep coming. Never did on his own.
The will be 17 in Jan. 10 I don't know what he will do . He thinks he is going to sweep in & take the G.E.D. test. He will find out it is hard.We are old & can't handle the stress like when we were young. But what do we do. My daughter sent him off once. Wev'e tried everything. He is so imature. It just makes me sick with worry.

It's so hard emotionally to go through that everyday. We have had 1 year of our son who is now 14yrs being VERY arugmentative, depressed, anxious and just plain obnoxious. I have a 17 yr old daughter who has BP II and is terrific at taking her medications. She remembers the horror years and doesn't want to go back down that road but I do think some personalities are easier to work with than others. With my son he started showing the same signs only when he is depressed or hurting or has low self-esteem - all of which go hand in hand with mental illness - he resorts to violence, rudeness, obnoxious and destructive behaviour for his coping mechanism. Our daughter would crumble into tears so it was easier in a way to be sympathetic but boys just don't let their guard down that way and present their insecure feelings into hostility. I can totally sympathise with how unpleasant living with him must be and it is such a shame that he refuses to get good help. Part of BP can be this black and white thinking approach and as he has gone undiagnosed for so long and didn't like the way the meds made him feel he is just hostile now to any belief that things could get better. Perhaps he would be open to a deal. In order for him to remain with you he needs to try a new psychiatrist and new meds for 6 mths. If he is not feeling functional and not seeing that he has better mood control then the situation can be reviewed but at 17 he needs to realise that he is not giving himself a chance in life by refusing to get the help he needs. Our daughter was so happy to think she could get back her life and function properly again and this was the message I gave my son when I took him to the psychiatrist. We haven't had great success in the first 7 mths but with a tweak of the meds and some changes I am hopeful that over the next 4 months we will see some increased improvement. Just having a psych to go over the problems with has helped - but it is important to find someone who understands teenager biochemistry. Our first 3 psych's were useless with our daughter and just made things worse. Sent her psychotic. We now see a lady who specialises in adolescents and it has made a huge difference. She really knows her stuff. At 17 he is still under your care and whether he wants to co-operate or not you still have the advantage of taking him to see someone and I would just ask that while he wants to live at home he at least work on his situation with you. I put it to my son who was really negative about starting medication that we weren't doing this to harm him in anyway and no-one would give him anything dangerous but he had to see that we could not continue to all live in such a hostile house and it was unpleasant for all of us and breaking the family. I also gave him the analagy that if he was a diabetic he would have to take insulin and adjust it until his system balanced and the same is with his brain chemisty. For some, things are just unbalanced and in order to have a successful life we needed to get that balance back. Fortunately for us the psychiatrist did a great job in using engine analagy's to explain to him what his brain was doing and when it all made sense to him he was much more open to it. My son hasn't been to school much all term - 10 weeks (I live in Aust) and it has been so frustrating but we are hopeful with the new meds and some counselling in place that things will improve. Good luck. I know it is really hard right now but try to catch him in a vulnerable moment (hard as they are to find) and see if you can't reason with him to at least try. My son also has ADD and ODD and that causes him to be impulsive, quick to anger and argumentative. Trouble is they get so righteous in their thinking that they BELIEVE that THEY are normal and question why you are always on at THEM. Here if you need to talk.

I was given a handout on ADD yesterday from my son's psychiatrist on how it affects and is in conjunction with other areas of the body. I thought the following may help to understand things for your son and maybe help him also. Sorry in advance for the long post (and the previous long post).

"Many with ADD syndrome report disproportinate emotional reactions to frustration; a short fuse, a low threshowlf for irratibility. Many with ADD syndrome describe the following aspect of emotional experienced; a feeling that an emotion floods one's mind, taking up all available space. This overwhelming intensity of feeling that can cause one to lose perspective and become, for a few moments or much longer, so preoccupied with that particular feeling that other relevant thoughts and feelings are displaced, ingnored or overlooked. the immediacy of the emotion then can have too much influence on thought and action, cuasing one to speak or act in ways that don't adequately take account of other feelings, ideas or infotmation that may also be important.

Many with ADD syndrome describe themselves as "overly sensitive" and reacting too instensely to even minor slights or criticism. Som others report that they often have difficulty modulating feelings of sadness, discouragement or depression.

Some with ADD syndrome also meet full criteria for another disorder that more directly relfects problems with managing one or more emotions, for example, an anxiety, depressive, or bipolar mood disorder. At issue with these various examples is simply that persons with ADD syndrome, with or without any additional psychiatric disorder, tend to suffer from chronic problems in managing frustration and other emotions. These chronic problems appear to be an integral aspect of ADD syndrom and not just overlap with other disorders. In addition, like other symptoms of ADD syndrome, they often respond to treatment with stimulants."

THIS is my son to a T. Hope it helps.