Need a hug, take a hug.

[BigBlueHen53]

I feel for you. All of you.
My other 2 are also special needs, one being Autistic. Similar to your situation, little guy has struggles but he's high functioning and a very sweet boy, he WILL grow up and be a productive member of society on his own.
My oldest is so intelligent, he could be a military space engineer if he wanted to (he currently thinks an environmental or agricultural engineer career) but he will go no where if we cannot find the right therapy and meds. A brilliant mind trapped and overcome by aggression and delusion.
We are absolutely warriors. These children need us to be.


Imagine if she heard about my 40

Yup. My boy is kinda scary smart. He wants to go into robotics engineering and loves computer coding. But at 13 still has to be reminded to brush his teeth. I dono.. is that the autism, or the age? I think a boy as tall as me should have his personal hygiene down to a daily habit by now. That's the kind of thing that wears me out. I can't do all his thinking all the time .... I have enough of my own chores to do.

 

[CarpCharacin]

I started taking an SSRI in late 2018, and it killed my appetite, and made me lose a lot of weight, and I already had a very low body mass index, in the bottom few percentile ranks, so I stopped taking the medication. I don't think it was safe to stay on. I've thought about trying medications again, but I have a feeling it wouldn't be worth the side effects. I was also prescribed antipsychotics at 12, but I never took any.

I still feel pretty crappy about my situation with school, it makes me feel like I'm not capable of completing anything.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I started taking an SSRI in late 2018, and it killed my appetite, and made me lose a lot of weight, and I already had a very low body mass index, in the bottom few percentile ranks, so I stopped taking the medication. I don't think it was safe to stay on. I've thought about trying medications again, but I have a feeling it wouldn't be worth the side effects. I was also prescribed antipsychotics at 12, but I never took any.

I still feel pretty crappy about my situation with school, it makes me feel like I'm not capable of completing anything.

I suggest you talk to your doctor about adjusting your meds. Some meds you should wean off gradually, rather than just stop taking. When I got diagnosed with bipolar, it took a long time and lots of trial and error to find the right meds for me. Some of the side effects were pretty bad, but there are lots of meds, so we just kept trying. I have been stable on my present medication since 2000!

You've had a rough go of it and your first therapist sounds unprofessional and unsympathetic. But keep trying till you find a good one. From what I've read of your posts here you sound like a very bright and helpful person, also insightful with a wonderful ability to problem-solve! So maybe your skills don't work well in a school setting, or you don't test well. That was also true of Thomas Edison. I read once that he was sent home from school and his mother was told he could never learn anything. Don't be discouraged. Figure out how your gifts and abilities can work for you. We'll be rooting for you!

 

[CarpCharacin]

I suggest you talk to your doctor about adjusting your meds. Some meds you should wean off gradually, rather than just stop taking. When I got diagnosed with bipolar, it took a long time and lots of trial and error to find the right meds for me. Some of the side effects were pretty bad, but there are lots of meds, so we just kept trying. I have been stable on my present medication since 2000!

You've had a rough go of it and your first therapist sounds unprofessional and unsympathetic. But keep trying till you find a good one. From what I've read of your posts here you sound like a very bright and helpful person, also insightful with a wonderful ability to problem-solve! So maybe your skills don't work well in a school setting, or you don't test well. That was also true of Thomas Edison. I read once that he was sent home from school and his mother was told he could never learn anything. Don't be discouraged. Figure out how your gifts and abilities can work for you. We'll be rooting for you!

The only thing I've really been taking recently has been the melatonin for the sleep disorder.

I've seen a good amount of therapists over the years, I was seeing one in 2019 who I thought was nice and who I liked, but I didn't make a lot of progress with him, and then he left his job as a therapist to work somewhere else.

I used to test well through elementary school, but I feel like I "regressed" somehow in the past several years. My home life hasn't been very good, and I think I'm probably going to move in with my dad to get away from that. I also lost 40-50 points on professionally administered IQ tests, and that's what initially fuelled the worry about having some sort of encephalopathy. Most of the therapists that I've seen thought it was just due to things like being very tired during the second test, as it was in the morning, and I have a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, and also not having eaten much around the time of the test, due to the SSRI killing my appetite, but it's still a huge regression.

They were going to do a special ed evaluation in spring of 2019, but I declined, as I didn't think being in special ed would help me. Even though I tested well in elementary school, I was pretty unhappy, as I said before. But when I was younger I would initiate projects that weren't related to school to keep me busy mentally, like creating websites at 6-7 and designing an electrical system for a detached garage at 8. I still do work on projects like that to an extent, but I have less energy to do so now, I think being in a worse home environment is draining.

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

For anyone needing an extra special hug today.

 

[ShrekDawg]

For anyone needing an extra special hug today. View attachment 2013375

Awwwwww

 

[TwoCrows]

For anyone needing an extra special hug today. View attachment 2013375

This can make even the most sad, depressed person smile.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I don't know how old you are now, @CarpCharacin , and it's none of my business, but if you were working on projects like that at those ages I don't think your IQ is in question. As for your home life, there is no such thing as an ideal background when it comes to that, and most of us manage to overcome whatever detriments our parents (or lack thereof) may have inflicted upon us in our youth. Youth is temporary anyway. All any of us can do is try to "rise above it," whatever "it" may happen to be, with the help of whatever support system we may be able to find. Hopefully, this one right here can help you, by believing in you, encouraging you, supporting you and being here for you. I think you have a lot going for you!

 

[CarpCharacin]

I don't know how old you are now, @CarpCharacin , and it's none of my business, but if you were working on projects like that at those ages I don't think your IQ is in question. As for your home life, there is no such thing as an ideal background when it comes to that, and most of us manage to overcome whatever detriments our parents (or lack thereof) may have inflicted upon us in our youth. Youth is temporary anyway. All any of us can do is try to "rise above it," whatever "it" may happen to be, with the help of whatever support system we may be able to find. Hopefully, this one right here can help you, by believing in you, encouraging you, supporting you and being here for you. I think you have a lot going for you!

I guess sometimes I just get feeling down, like I feel I'll end up stuck at some minimum wage job and not have a good life in the future, largely in part due to the fact that I'm behind academically where I should be for my age, as I've missed a lot of school.

 

[Meg-in-MT]

The last therapist I saw wasn't very good. I tried to talk to her about how I worried about stuff, like how I was afraid that I might be suffering from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, but she said that I was just using a "grandiose rationalization" for my behavior, since I don't accomplish much compared to others my age, like she thought that I was claiming to have some disease to justify everything wrong with me, when the fear of having the disease was really just a worry that I hoped wasn't true and that was causing me anxiety. I had seen her once before in May of 2018, where she said something to me along the lines of "All you seem to do is rub people the wrong way", and when I found myself looking for a therapist again in December, I decided to give seeing her another shot, and it was a mistake.

Wow, that lady needs a new job. That's the problem with a number of professionals, they aren't worth their weight in crap, but the still have the credentials to get them clients/patients. I hope you find a good one, Carp. Don't give up.