Posted by simon levane on February 3, 2006, at 8:45:57
In reply to Re: Suicide on Effexor » simon levane, posted by Racer on February 2, 2006, at 20:14:23
Racer..
Both DM and myself did try to get help for our children. DM's postings tell how hard they tried to get help for their son. I also tried, this was extensive.. psychiatric ward of major children's hospital, centre for troubled youth with family counselling, parent support groups, consulting psychiatrists. My ex-wife and I had our daughter in a secure youth facility for two weeks when she was totally out of control. There were periods when she was going to school regularly, but the trouble is that neither her mother nor I really understood her illness and it was not very well explained to us. We also had contradictory diagnoses by different doctors and not very good advise on how to help her. She lived with me, so I was at the very "front lines" of coping with her behaviour and after so many years, I had fallen into a state of frustration and upset. I have read of other parents coming to this kind of situation.
Her care in terms of a concerted committed effort by professionals to help and to intervene was not very good. Her family doctor who should have been monitoring her overall health situation, was simply IGNORANT of the drugs he was prescribing her and did not recognize the warning signs that I was telling him about, and I was looking to him to advise and guide, but he simply was ignorant of her condition. The psychiatrists she saw were uniformly useless.
I now live in the anguish of regret that I did not research her illness as I should have done, but seeing these professionals in high places, I just took their advice and their lack of concern of risk as being reality. The actual reality is that she was at a very very high risk, and the drug she was on had a risk factor, but no one told us.
It really comes down to education and to some reasonable standards of medical practice.
My view of the psychiatric profession as I now see it is very low. There are smart doctors out there who understand the urgency of care for troubled youth and understand specific risks and how to keep kids safe, but unfortunately there are so many professionals out there who are really ignorant and who take prescribing drugs - psychiatric drugs, very very lightly..
It is a well known fact that Ritalin is over-prescribed, and in the tragic case of my daughter, I actually refused to let her have this drug at first, but felt over-ridden by all these qualified doctors. In hindsight, I was right to have expressed concern and she should never have been allowed to have that drug. It was a major contributor to destroying her.
The bottom line is that more education is needed for professionals and for parents in awareness of suicide risk and of better patient care. My daughter would be alive now if her doctors had not be so lackadaisical in her care.> I am so sorry about your daughter. Reading this thread was heartwrenching, and you both have my deepest sympathy.
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> In the course of your searching for support, have either of you found any organizations that try to tell parents and other loved ones about this sort of thing BEFORE it happens? Or that try to find ways of reaching out to parents as soon as they start getting help for a child? I know that there are organizations that exist if someone looks for them, but I'm not aware of any that try to encourage parents to seek that information?
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> Again, I'm sorry -- and I'm also sorry to break in asking for information. Thank you.
poster:simon levane
thread:601406
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060129/msgs/605830.html