So *that's* what a bad side effect from a psychotropic drug looks like!

Hi there! Yeah, I think it's been a year. How are you? You look great. Me? Thanks, but not really, I'm about the same weight I've always been. I keep trying to cut down on the coca cola, but you know how that goes. If it's a choice between the coke and the smoking, coke is better for you. And no, diet coke gives me headaches.

Yeah, I just came in here to tell you about today. One of the more frightening days I've had as a mom, actually. The daughter is 10 now, in the magnet gifted school, and the son is 6, in the local school. Things got really bad at the end of last year, and didn't get better this year, so the parent who is not me finally realized that medication had to be an option.

And had the balls to tell me at one point "I was never anti-medication." But that's not what this is about today. (Oh, but I could go on about the shifting reality, if I had the time & energy.)

Son is on a SSRI for depression and an ADD medication, both of which are doing really well for him. He's had very few side effects. Daughter started a couple of weeks ago on an ADD med, which is working well, and the doctor wanted to add a medication that has helped Aspie/Autistic kids with rages & anger control.

She had her first dose before bed last night--a very small dose, .5 mg. Later, I came to turn off her light & say goodnight, as I always do after she has her reading time. She got really angry with me, when the report from Other Parent was that she had not been angry all week. She never gets that angry at lights out. Sure, she whines for 5 more minutes, but she's also putting the book down while she does it. Last night she was whining with slurred speech. Drowsiness is a known side effect of this drug, and to be honest, it was one I'd really looked forward to for her, since sleep is hard. But she didn't really sleep. She tossed and turned, so much that I thought she was still awake. I did wake her up at one point, because I thought she was having nightmares, and again, her speech was slurred.

This morning she was drowsy and not as responsive. She got up and was doing stuff, but much more isolated. The son got in trouble for messing with stuff that wasn't his after being told not to, and she got really agitated when she didn't know what was going on. She was complaining of being tired. Then I told her to come down out of the loft and pick up some of the trash in her room. She went ballistic, hysterical. I know that some of you who have heard or seen her in "feral cat" mode might be thinking that she has sounded hysterical in the past, but this was Different.

I was waiting for her head to spin around and the green puke. I was pretty sure she was going to injure herself. The Other Parent was on his way over to get the son for his overnight camping, and I was pretty sure that we were going to be going to the hospital. She was in her, and kicked the ceiling.

There's a hole in the ceiling now.

After she calmed down--because once the rage stopped, she got scared and hysterical again because this was Not Her--she lay down on my lap and I stroked her hair. We talked about how this drug was one that we had hoped would help, but it wasn't, it was making it worse. She cried. I could see as the day went on ways that the ADD med was helping, things that the Other Parent had mentioned from last week.

She's back asleep now, a more restful sleep than last night. We have been so fortunate in the meds prescribed for the kids--this can be such a shot in the dark process, and of the 4 prescriptions, three have been spot on. This one was a miss, but on the bright side, it was not a close or subtle miss. It was right there in giant letters like Surrender Dorothy.

I am glad she is safe and well and sleeping here. I hope the son is doing well on his camping. I hope the Other Parent is enjoying it too. (And I am glad I am not there, since I do not like to camp.)