[katheryn]

daughter has been on tegretol retard for a while now it is used to help with her mood swings she is on 250 mg dose twice a day, also she is on 1 mg of risperidone in the morning and 2 mg of risperidone in the eve all use to help her mood swings,
but today she saw the doctor at the clinic he is only a locum but he was interested in getting her of the risperidone as she has put a lot of weight on since she was 16, she will be 23 next week in this time she practically tripled in size but isn't even 5 ft tall so we have been trying to get her to loose weight she is now 11 stone 7 pound ,
he is interested in trying her on prozac because of constant outbreaks of crying and irritability shes been like this most of her life so if this helps good but i have to watch out for side effects the main one is if she becomes very high I'm to stop prozac immediately then he will try something else

[amco]

Maybe she's just unhappy with her life!! Have you ever asked her what would make her happy? What are her dreams and ambitions? Can't you all just work together to help her help herself achieve these things? Maybe then she wouldn't need these drugs. She must be crying for a reason. She must be irritable for a reason. There is ALWAYS a reason. Sometimes people need help to find it. Can she spend time on her own doing things that she enjoys or is she constantly watched over by her parents? At 23 years old she needs some sort of independence to feel healthy. She needs to feel in control of her own life. Drugs should NEVER be the long term solution. There is something wrong in the world if drugs are the answer. People need to search within themselves. I am trying to with my problems. sometimes i think part of my mothers behaviour, illness, whatever it is, is made worse by me trying to help her!!
I will also add this. I used to be on prozac because i was depressed and couldn't stop thinking about all the injustice and cruelty in the world. images of tortured dead people kept coming into my mind. when the prozac was increased i put on a lot of weight and felt worse. i hated myself because i was so fat. the psychiatrist wasn't interested in talking to me and understanding me. he was just interested in prescribing his drugs. i was just there to help him make money. anyway, i don't know how i got myself out of it, but i started watching this tv show...Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Suddenly I began to feel emotion again. To cut a long story short I had a spiritual experience which resulted in me temporarily losing my ego. I became interested in all sorts of things, in particular Carl Jung's teachings and Joseph Cambell's heroes journey and the meaning of metaphorical language. The experience I had was transforming and helped to change me for the better. But if I had gone near a psychiatrist he would have told me that I was having a manic episode or a psychotic episode. Since my mother has a mental illness and has been abused by psychiatry, I knew it was in my own best interests to stay away. My life is better for the experience. The only big problem I am faced with is my mother's illness and I have repeatedly asked the universe to tell me what the hell test it has sent me because i just can not figure out what the point of her suffering is. She is learning nothing from it and neither am I. I want it to stop. I have told the universe over and over again to hurry up and teach whatever it has to teach about this. I want my mother to have a decent quality of life. Everything happens for a reason, even the bad things happen to teach us something. But I have no idea why she has to live the way she is living. She is totally alone.

[katheryn]

sorry that i didn't explain more about daughter she has a learning difficulty and behavioral problems and add she is classed disabled and wont ever be able to work, needs prompting to do small tasks, but she attends a day center were they watch what she eats and her behavior, I'm classed as her mum/career

[amco]

hi,

can i ask what sort of learning difficulty she has? there are so many...i myself have dyslexia and when i was little they suspected i had autisism, but it was never diagnosed.

[katheryn]

she was never diagnosed what learning dificulty she has because they couldnt test her, she wasnt given meds for her add untill she was nearly 8, by the simple writing and numbers were beyond her she saw all the right ppl, we belive its a form of dyslexia but as she couuld only copy what was put in front of her , and her concentration span was nil for a long time, even now numbers are refered to as 6 as a upside g we get her to do things because she says she cant if you dont push she will give up, simple tasks like using the microwave or washing her teeth is constant prompting

[amco]

why couldnt they test her? what type of people did she see? does she see a psychiatrist? Or a psychologist? Does she have a diagnosis now? I think that for the sake of your daughter you need to seek out a transpersonal psychologist.

http://www.mdani.demon.co.uk/trans/tranintro.htm

Even though she is 23, it's never too late. You should also read this : http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Dyslexia-.../dp/039952293X