My intro

[Guest guest]

Hi, I'm Ginger, mom to Steaphan who is 13 and in 7th grade. He's been

treated for ADD since he started 3rd grade and it helped but not quite.

He's had problems since preschool with focusing and getting frustrated

really easily. He's a smart kid but the behaviors aren't letting him

show it. He has torn up his homework when he's frustrated and during

school goes under his desk and curls into a fetal position. Still does

that one. He'll obsess for the rest of the day because he forgot his

favorite pen. He's very sensitive to touch (clothes have to be really

soft), taste and texture of food, sound etc. Looking back, it's such an

autistic thing but it didn't click with anyone, including me.

The last couple of weeks he's gotten violent and started throwing things

when he gets frustrated so the school told us we needed to take him to

the psychiatric hospital cause we needed an answer. Right now he's a

danger to himself and others. He was in outpatient for 1 1/2 days then

they told us they had to admit him because he wasn't being cooperative

and he needed more intensive therapy. He's been there a week now and

hopefully will get out today or tomorrow. This week has been parent

hell. I've been close to joining him in the hospital! LOL Friday

night the psychiatrist called saying he has very high functioning

Aspergers and may or may not have ADD on top of it. They'll decide on

that once they get this under control. He's on Risperdal and Depakote

and may start antidepressants and he's still on his Ritalin. We had

family counseling at the hospital yesterday and she couldn't believe we

didn't know he had Aspergers until a few days ago and that they just

treated it as ADD. She could tell after talking to him that he had it.

He should have been diagnosed by the time he was 5. She said she was

going to go to her office and get really mad cause it never should have

gotten to a point where he's in a hospital. There's something

comforting about that. We're not the only ones feeling that way.

At least now we know something and can get him the help he needs. We

kept telling them that hiding under his desk isn't normal but the

teachers kept saying 'we have it under control...he just needs to mature

a little and it will stop " . He'll start the outpatient program at the

hospital for a week as soon as he's discharged from inpatient then will

start school again after that. Thankfully the Spec Ed program at the

school is wonderful and have been doing everything they can think of to

help him and keep him as stress free as they can. We're going to put

him in resource for math and english and put him on reduced workload for

the rest of the year to make things as easy as possible. Then we'll see

what happens next year. By then he'll have some coping tools under his

belt. He's also going to start counseling at the school (ironically he

was scheduled to have started the day he went into the hospital) and get

an OT there for social skills.

Glad we're getting it treated now. We have a 7 and 5 yr old also and

the 7 yr old already thinks he can yell at us and get throw a major fit

when he doesn't get his way because he sees his older brother doing it.

Course the older brother has more of a reason for totally losing it but

now we'll be able to start getting that under control.

Glad to be here and know that I'm not alone.

Ginger