Category Archives: Mental Health

Articles relating to mental health are in this category. Typically they will fall into one of two categories. Yours, or your child’s. Yes, your mental health is important.

Playing with fire

I feel like we are playing with fire here.  Admittedly, David also likes to play with fire. David admitted to that too.  We had blamed another child for the small fires.  David claims that it was him that did the deed.  We have not had any of the fires during any of the periods when David has been in facility based care. What methods can we employ do we deal with that?  Sure we can keep all matches, lighters, knives, candles, and other things that could be used to hurt the family, but at what point does it become too much?  In what reality is it fair for everyone in the house to live in an environment like this?  Why should the other kids feel like they too are being punished for David’s deeds? Safety and Security Sure we can fill the house with fire extinguishers, we have smoke detectors

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Admitting the horror

It has come to our attention that David has admitted to trying to kill animals with his hands, and with chemicals. I don’t fault David for admitting the horror that he has tried.  I don’t fault him for it, it is a symptom of his mental illnesses. Last year he attacked me more than once and tried to crash our vehicle when we were doing a transport of him to the mental health unit at the hospital.  Given that he has admitted these things, and our family has experienced the things that we have from him, why would I just bring him home? He is my son.  And I love him.  But. But he is not the only person to take into consideration.  Would it not be considered neglect or abuse to subject the rest of the family to a threat of harm from David?  He has shown the propensity

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Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Eval

David and I are traveling six hours tomorrow to get him evaluated for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.  This is a second opinion.  At 15, he likely will not be able to get any services for the diagnosis. But like I have said in the past, I don’t want anyone to say we haven’t tried to do everything that we can for him. I made arrangements to pick up from the residential facility where he lives. I purposely didn’t tell him, and I told the staff that we weren’t going to tell him.  He obsesses about things.  So why cause him stress unnecessarily? Guess what?  Someone told him what was going on tomorrow.  It isn’t the end of the world for me that he knows, but you would think his world is ending. I have talked to him more since Friday than I have talked to him in the last three

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