This guest post was shared with me on Facebook. In the wake of the killings of children in Connecticut, it’s insight into how a parent with a mentally ill child deals with daily life.
I’ve excerpted a couple of paragraphs, but please click through and read the entire post.
I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.
A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.
That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist.
We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work.
The statements and/or suggestions below have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration., and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Dan,
Would you forward this post to the Mother that contacted you via. Facebook.
If I were in her shoes I would visit https://www.herbdoc.com and order “Super Food Plus” tablets for the family, (the powder taste’s O.K. in cold water), and especially the “Brain Formula” for the special needs child.
I am not suggestion that the herbs will help or cure her child.
This reminds me. Has Pedroza written any more suicide notes to you guys?