How did you know your child was disordered?

Started by BeautifulCrazy, March 07, 2020, 07:30:24 PM

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BeautifulCrazy

How did you know your child was PD? How old were they when you began to notice?
As far as I know, I don't have a PD child. Mine are young yet. 13 and 10. We all have fleas from living with my uPDh and their bio dad has been recently diagnosed with two, possibly three comorbid PDs. I worry though. A lot. They are really great kids but the eldest sometimes shows very little capacity for self reflection. Might be just a phase, I mean he's 13.....?

~BC

Penny Lane

Hi BC,
I urge you to take a breath! Kids and young teens can't even get diagnosed with a PD because a lot of PD traits are the same as normal developmental stages in children. Do any of us know a 13 year old with great capacity for self reflection?

What I would worry more about is fleas, that your kids are picking up on bad behavior patterns from their father.

Some skills I would work on instilling in them are: Being able to identify their emotions, emotional regulation, seeing things in shades of gray rather than black and white, and being able to solve the problems that come their way. Teach them to the kids and then model them yourself, so at least one parent is modeling good behavior. Those things will help them become the most emotionally healthy people they are able, whether or not they're eventually diagnosed with a PD.

BeautifulCrazy

Penny Lane, thank you for taking the time, however, that's not really what I'm asking.

What I'm wondering is how did you come to know your child was disordered?
How old were they when you began to notice? Teens? Twenties? 
What did you notice that let you know things were not quite right or started you exploring in that direction?
Are there things you were able to identify, even if only in retrospect?

NumbLotus

I met my best friend in high school when she was newly 14 and I was still 13. She was diagnosed bipolar around 14 or 15, and they were talking about BPD by 17 (this was back in the early 90s, for context).

She was displaying all the BPD signs by 14, Including cutting. We all knew she was disordered - kids, teachers, everybody. She was emotionally dysregulated, her affect swung between hypomanic (which seemed to me an effort to mime happiness, a state she could not comprehend) and PD rage.

More context: My friend was on the farther end of the spectrum. She had BPD and not NPD. She also should have been diagnosed with PTSD.
Just a castaway, an island lost at sea
Another lonely day, noone here but me
More loneliness than any man could bear

momnthefog

BeautifulCrazy,

Welcome to the Parent's Forum.

Yours is a difficult question.  There's reluctance to dx a child and create a self fulfilling prophecy.  However, IME things were off from early age.  Emotional instability being one, difficulty with transitions another.

I am binge watching Dr Todd Grande (found him will binging on Dr Les Carter) and came across this video 11 Signs a Child May Become a Psycopath. I have rarely seen a T address this issue so frankly...it should be required listening for people working with at risk children and youth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pKYmCp3-Hs&spfreload=10

And this 10 Signs of a Daughter with High Signs of Narcissistic Traits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy3j6ZJidV8&spfreload=10

Fleas are certainly a possibility.  I've found that it has taken months for me to disengage from the drama enough to be living my life on my terms and not an adult child. 

Again, welcome!
momnthefog

"She made broken look beautiful and strong look invincible.  She walked with the universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings."

LemonLime

Beautiful,
I know that my mom says my uPD sister was difficult all along.  She said that when the nurses put my sister on her chest, mom thought "I wonder if we will get along?"
Mom says sis was difficult to soothe all through childhood.  And that once I was born, my mom knew that this wasn't especially "normal".
Sister had very very tumultuous teen years, and ever since I can remember she felt like a victim.   And she never felt like her FOO was good to her or liked her.
It's tough because she was temperamental, but we did like her and were kind to her.
Even in teenage jobs she couldn't stand her bosses.  She had friendships, but they seemed to fracture eventually.

So, in a word....very very early she seemed different.

AMom1

I think that behavior a child exhibits at a fairly young age, even as early as 5 or 6, could be indicative of a PD later on in life. Therapists are usually reluctant to diagnose PD earlier than age 18, doesn't mean there aren't early signs. Lack of impulse control, self harming behaviors (both physical and mental) not responding to feedback (both positive and negative), excessive lying, can all contribute to PD. My daughter has BPD and ADHD. Because she is 14, doctors will not diagnose a PD but there have definitely been signs. The meds she takes address the depression and anxiety, as well as ADHD but there are some behaviors that will probably never go away. She will never be outgoing, make friends easily or even relate to her peers in a normal way.  These are behaviors she exhibited from the time she was in 1st grade. But it wasn't until 7th grade that the behaviors escalated from wanting to be alone, and isolating from friends, to self harming and posting extremely inflammatory things on the internet. She has been stable for nearly a year, but only with partial hospitalization, then full hospitalization, and a full summer program last summer. I wish I would have paid attention to my instincts earlier on, when she was in elementary school. I don't think anyone ever wants to believe their child has mental illness, but in this case I only prolonged the inevitable. Even now that she is down to therapy twice a month, I am constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's painful and can be exhausting.  But the short answer is this: I always knew my child related to the world differently. It wasn't until she was in therapy that I realized the extent of her disorder.

Janeite V

What mominthefog said about the risk of self-fulfilling prophecies is spot on. Sometimes too much focus on "not being like that" can be counterproductive. Instead, focusing more on the qualities that you actively want to nourish (such as the self-reflection you mentioned, empathy, emotional regulation, assertiveness, etc) will really help your family heal from any fleas they might have caught.

To answer your question more directly:

My own PD was noticeable to me around the age of 8-9, and increasingly obvious to others until my early twenties where it began to cause real problems.

Two other uPD people I know exhibited signs very early as well, but again it became very obvious and problematic during their late teens and early twenties.

PwPDs who don't externalise as much or who are high-functioning tend to be diagnosed much later and are much less obvious to others. So even if they are doing well at school/work, never have had issues with the law, and have good relationships, does not necessarily mean they are not struggling with a PD.

Boat Babe

I have a friend who has an adopted daughter. This 11 year old has always been "difficult" and is now starting to show real traits of cruelty, hyper sensitivity to perceived slights, refusal to take responsibility for actions (very common in kids that age but this is off the scale) and other traits from the list.

This is clearly only my opinion and I am not an expert so I say nothing. I feel really sorry for my friend who is already tearing her hair out with worry for her daughter and frustration at her behaviour. We know for a fact that birth mum has a diagnosis of BPD and has lost five children to adoption because she is so screed up and a danger to her own children.

The whole thing is tragic, from start to finish.
It gets better. It has to.