Worsening symptoms

[Guest guest]

Well, we met with our psychiatrist, whose first impulse on hearing that my

daughter's behavior had worsened, was to suggest adding a fourth medication to

her regimen. We said no. During our appointment last Friday, said that

she just wished that the Zoloft were still working. So the doc said, okay,

let's go back to 250 mg of Zoloft, and remove the Anafranil, and stop the

switchover to Lexapro. It seems so arbitrary. So far I have tried two other

psychiatrists, but no one is taking new patients. (Any recommendations for

someone in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area???)

Here's the deal: at home, it's taking literally ten to twenty minutes for

to walk across a room. It takes ten minutes to get out of the car and

into the house. It takes ten to twenty minutes to say goodbye to me in the

morning, which makes me late. If I get up earlier and try to get her started

earlier, there is no improvement. We are " not allowed " to urge her on or try to

make her go faster - she gets irate and literally screams at us that we're

making everything worse. When she's tapping a glass on the dinner table,

repeatedly turning a faucet on and off, banging her foot repeatedly on the

floor, whatever: if we mention it or ask her to stop, she insists she's " not

doing anything. " If we press, she gets angry. This has always been her

reaction - pure anger and rage.

We're coming up on nearly 12 weeks of treatment with Zoloft (with about a

month of decreasing the dosage to 50 and now increasing back up to 250), and

frankly, it's not looking so great for success. I've had recommendations about

natural remedies, and am considering trying that. She refuses therapy and

appears to be in some deep-felt denial. My blood pressure, even on medication,

is being adversely affected, and I am losing it. This morning, after waiting

for her to come to the door for her morning goodbye ritual, I literally turned

and walked away when she screamed at me that I was responsible for her being

late. This is the first time I have kept my promise to leave without giving her

the benefit of the ritual. I felt so awful, abandoning her on our front porch,

but I did it. Since she is at school right now and I am at work, I don't know

what impact this has had on her (her dad takes her to school).

I don't know what kind of advice anyone could give. We are just so worn out.

Thanks for reading.

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