Saturday, May 29, 2010

What now?

I was just starting to believe we might have seen the end of Mary ripping her clothes. It has been a few days since she has done anything. Ever since we changed her ADHD medication. This morning I found a shredded shirt in her drawer. I completely lost it. I screamed my head off, stomped my feet, a whole ugly temper tantrum. Of course I'm screaming, "why, why?" Knowing full well that Mary has no clue. Maybe I think if she sees me really angry she won't do it anymore. Not likely. I told her I was not going to spend any money on her for anything. We went to the mall and she wanted to go look in a couple of stores and I said no. I reminded her that I wasn't going to buy anything for her. She pleaded, "I'll stop, I'll stop". My reaction and subsequent punishment was, I realize, pointless.

So, now we changed medication thinking she would stop and she hasn't, what now? Mary started taking an antidepressant thinking it would help with OCD, as she was picking at her skin. All she did was substitute picking her skin to picking at her clothes. I have noticed that she does not seem to be phased by anything sometimes. I started thinking, maybe it's the anti-depressant. It seems like she just doesn't care, she used to get so upset when she did something she knew she was not supposed to be doing. I am going to ask the doctor about stopping the anti-depressant. Why should she take it if it's not doing anything but making her more aggressive? Or am I just looking for something to blame this all on?

2 comments:

Sandy Nawrot said...

Doesn't it take like 4 to 6 weeks for an anti-depressant to actually kick in? I guess I don't know how long she has been taking it, but maybe you just need to give it more time?

Don't feel bad about the tantrum. We all have them.

Marianne Murphy said...

Thanks Sandy. Mary has been taking them for a little over 2 months now. Dr. started them to get her to stop picking her head. It worked for that, so who knows! :)