Dear MEDHELP,
I am desperate and we overwhelmed. We need help. We have a four year old son whose uncontrollable rages, inpredictability, rigidity and hostility is killing my marriage and my other two, normal, well adjusted, sweet kids. My son is a miserable, miserable child. He wakes up crying, he pushes away all food at meal time. He is an insufferable human being. He seems to hate life and ends and begins the day this way. We are a happy, well liked family - we don't not know where or how he became this way.
He may fly into a rage over the way his toast is cut, a certain juice, a shirt. i.e.. If it is time to read a book and shut the tv off. My other two may say, "Oh mom, a few more minutes please." And when they realize no is no, they will do as I say. The other one has no fear, there is no amount of normal discipline in the world to break him; timeouts, spanks, no spanks, speaking, etc., that he cares about or comprehends. I read books about putting them in timeouts. He will not stay in a timeout. He bites, hisses, spits, growls - and we had to get a skeleton key to lock the door. I am broken inside. I feel horrific doing this and would pass poor judgement on any other mother I had heard would do so, prior to having our son. When he gets upset, his legs involuntary shake and bounce and it is so sad to watch. He gets himself so upset, his nervous system goes haywire.
His rages last for 50 minutes. He screams so loud and with such craziness, it sounds like his toenails are being pulled out one by one.
We are so worried for him, his future, his happiness - He feels bad inside. I know he does. We don't know what we can do to help. Child psyche said possibly ODD/ADD (hyperfocus cannot transition) Another thought Tourette's and we also spent a fortune sending him for an OT evaluation. They did find Sensory Disorder issues were prevelant.
At this point, we're involving the town and the two reports, but what really are my options. Will we be tortured our entire lives by this behavior. Will we feel awful that we all chose to leave our son home to go on vacation because we don't know if he'll throw an insane fit of rage on the plane for no apparent reason....
There is some history of mental illness in my family - but nothing as extraordinary as this.
I am so afraid he has bipolar. So deely afraid the way he triggers us to respond as parents, which is enraged, overwhelmed and so disgusted, will further hurt his self esteem.
The trick to this, and you'll be shocked, is he is very well-behaved at school. So, I have a Jeckyll and Hyde situation.
So - everyone thinks we're crazy. My family didn't see it so much either, until we spent the summer together and they caught a glimpse of what we go thru and felt horribly for us.
What medicines are out there? What is this, a mood disorder, a sensory intergration. Please help me. What can we do? Medication, therapy anything new? Any information you can give?