Doctor's appointment...square peg

Cj saw the doc today for the first time in the community. The doc is very experienced, not an intern at a treatment center, but a person who has seen alot. I am thankful for that because his knowledge and opinions, and the time he took with us to evaluate CJ and then discuss his illness, means the world to me. We have a long road ahead of us. Doc feels that CJ has been misdiagnosed for a long time. He wants to read more of his files but tentatively gave us a picture that, for the first time, seems to fit. He said to throw out the diagnosis of BiPolar Disorder. He said many kids bear this label simply for billing purposes. He explained that when CJ was younger, there was no such thing as being hospitalized for Asperger Syndrome exacerbated by ADHD...so BP was the winning diagnosis for the the insurance companies and for the doctors/hospitals to be able to bill for services. He said CJ, from his history, sounds like he was suffering from Asperger's Syndrome as a child complicated by ADHD. Asperger's is a form of autism. He said that alot of the behaviors, like hard to handle tempers, etc., is a result of these kids being a square peg trying to fit into a world of circle holes. The frustration they feel is something they do not know how to handle, and it comes out in rage. When CJ was young, Autism was just being noticed and there weren't any of the interventional programs available then that exist today. It went unrecognized for what it was, and misdiagnosed for many years. Doc feels that CJ's first psychotic break at 9 years old was not that of Bipolar Disorder, but that of early onset schizophrenia. In a nutshell, he said my boy is schizophrenic and due to the early manifestations, quite severely so. He wants to have another IQ test done to reaffirm cognitive decline, but he feels pretty comfortable with his diagnosis. So, for many years, I placed my child into hell within treatment centers that were never able to help him. They just passed him along without looking any further into diagnosis because his label had already been applied, improper or not.

My god. Shame on them and shame on me. I have done so much more harm than good. I didn't know. I just hope I can do well by him in the upcoming days. Doc would not fill out the evaluation forms for guardianship. He wants to wait until he has seen CJ a few more times and knows his files/history better. So I am praying hard that the judge will be merciful and that I can work with the public defender. If not, we will need to hire a lawyer to keep him out of a state institution. In the meantime, I am happy to have my square peg with us at home...he fits just fine here. I just don't know if I can forgive myself or the professionals that were supposed to help him for being so very wrong and causing him so very much pain.

Today I say goodbye to my child again, and hello to something that I hope we can help him with.

Doc gave me a script today for haldol.

Too many tears right now to continue typing......