My son is doing well but he has a cold so he hasn't been going to school. I have decided against the ADHD label as for now but decided to go with the sleeping medication as he has been having dificulty with that continuously from his baby years.
Do not go with sleep medication, unless all alternatives were tried. Create some kind of routine ritual before going to sleep: foot bath with warm water, drinking warm milk with a bit of honey, classical music, reading a story together and etc. All meals should be taken at least 3-2 hours before sleep time. All extensive physical activities should be done at least 3 hours before bed time. However the physical activities during the day time will help tremendously. I hope it will help.
I'm with Gene on this one, except for the "unless".
A boy his age should have no problems passing out at night.
You shouldn't resort to drugging him to sleep.
There could be a number of reasons to blame for this.
Is he still back and forth between the two of you?
That's a dumb question....
Has his days & times between the two of yous been consistent?
Do you and his mother try to follow a similar daily routine with him?
Is he on a sugar high at night?
You know, it doesn't have to be from candy and junk either.
Fruit & fruit juice/drinks, is high with natural sugar.
Is he sleeping too late?
Wake him up early and if he falls asleep later on in the day,
let him nap for about a hour, then get him back up.
Give him a nice, warm bath before bedtime.
Start prepping him for bed about a hour before
you actually plan on putting him down for the night.
Do it at the same time every night.
If he won't stay in bed and go to sleep,
send him back to bed and let him cry himself to sleep.
If he gets up in the middle of the night,
bring him right back in his room and tell him to go back to sleep.
Are you making sure he goes to the bathroom before he goes to bed?
Even if he says he doesn't have to go, tell him to go anyway.
Do you have drapes/curtains on his windows?
Do they keep out annoying light?
Are you in a busy area with a lot of outside noise?
Even if it's birds, crickets or natures noise.
Try placing a small fan in his room and run it on low,
creating a white noise to drown out other sounds from outside.
If you can put the radio on low, do that.
Is he eating filling meals for dinner?
Do you turn off the lights around the house as it gets later?
If all else fails, put him in his pj's,
put him in the car and go take a ride somewhere.
When you see he's nodding off, head home and place him in bed.
It pisses me off that a pediatrician would resort to drugging a kid,
instead of taking the time to ask questions to pinpoint possible reasons,
so s/he could suggest different solutions that would likely solve the problem.
Find a new doctor!
Peace, Love & Strength
Lynn
_________________ If you can not stand for something, you will fall for everything
Thanks for them words I am glad to know thier is a team of people that I have here to help me sort through the hardship of addiction and as you put it wait with me. I hope things are getting better again in the slow process for you and yours. I hope she stops running away and I do have to say I need to catch up.
Thank you Gene and Lynn, Lynn, Lynn lol (if you can tell I am losing it) for the advice and information. I would go as far as to say that not only does the doctor suggest drugging him to sleep she also suggested to put him on a ADHD medicine if the sleeping aide doesn't help him "behave better" throughout the day. Mind you the medical doctors were against it but she is a psychiatrist so I am not use to moving so fast in any direction so I told her to just write the prescription for the clonidine and I will not fill it until I read up more about it and feel it is safe and a last resort.
I will not put him on any ADHD medicines, after the first talk I found that she did indeed leave out vital information and also this drug is used on ADHD patients as I have done my research and so if a child does not truly have ADD or ADHD then putting them on medication can latter cause a dependency to illigal drug use. Where if it is truly nessesary then it can help them not to resort to illigal drug use so he is way too young in my mind to determine.
How nice for me that things happen for reasons such as the advice given here and also what I have learned in my psychoolgy class. I have tried many things you have listed Lynn but there are a few I may have to redo again such as the drives at night. It is cold so only in summer will I use the fan but good idea. The television is a big problem because his mom llets him watch it all day and night so she can do what she wants I am sure.
I remember doing the drives when he was little as far as mommie she is so self indulgent and into herself that I truly believe it will not be long before she up and moves away. I doubt she will care to be responsible for her own blood, how sickening is that.
That is where me and my mother discussed full custody and her helping me as she has already is in any process that may occur. Thought I may update this issue.
Anyways Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Enjoy this day with loved ones and haiving fun.
I appreciate your thoughts and support. I hope all is well with you too. I have a lot on my plate right now and I am in the process of trying to figure out a plan for Annette so things seem at the moment like being backed into a wall as far as the system goes.
Family is not doing so well especially grandmother as time has reveled who really loves her and wants her to live and a few at least on selfish person who is already made it known of how much getting a "piece of the cake" is worth more then love and support.
Son is still keeping me up at night, still displaying hyper symtoms but I have another appointment set up with the doc. More focused on his unusual energy and lack of sleep at night.
School for me is going well, I am ok but in regards to my sisters situation I am feeling mixed emotions as far as sympathy, understanding and what to do in a state that offers little help but locking people up.
my mother is really stressed and worried, sick as well physically I am worried about her, trying t make her go to the doctor is like pulling teeth.
How is Jacob and you doing? Is he looking foward to school break and Christmas? I hope that you have found a good job you enjoy. I will be back to seek some ideas or thoughts about this situation and to try to offer some support here till then I will say stay safe and be good. As if there are any doubts......
Just updating the current situation, Annette is supposed to be getting out January 20 something so real soon. As it goes no one wants to be her sponsor by allowing her a place to live. She has not wanted to support herself and stay off drugs for over 17 years and it has made her a hard person to live with and support.
Violence is the main factor and truly it has made me really sad. She has never been in this predicament before as someone has always been there to support her basic needs while making it able for her not to realize that drugs are destroying her life and the wellbeing of others around her.
While that is said the parole board has not and does not want to give her another shot at rehab which is due to her failure to remain drug free after the short in term stay. Her case manager said that she may have to do her complete sentence until June of 2008. Well Annette is mad, she is mad at my mother and she is mad at me. She feels that we are not supportive and that she has suffered all her life through her child hood and with the lack of support. I am too hard on her I want her to work on sobriety well in her eyes she has an incurable disease. Thanks A. A for the helplessness you preach. Of those classes she partook of clearly she only remembers the helplessness.
I can’t enable her to kill herself meaning that I can’t support her as far as housing, food, and a place to do drugs while I am not there or while I am sleeping. She is on her own to face the facts that nothing in life is free but our choices. Some choices have costs that are more then monetary value. Health for instance and the stress it places on her family has no real benefit. I am not sure how this will work as it has never been put in place there has always been an open door but now she has to make it a priority to get cleaned up because if not she will not have someone to fall on.
It is tough, a really tough choice but after I read that she has no plans to quit my whole perspective diminished on her recovery. My mom can’t handle the stress as she is a senior citizen and really sick health wise. My grandmother and aunt dealt with her getting high in the front room and my grandmother can’t handle the violence she displays in order to get money.
I am so tires of the manipulation and threats that I have put up a wall. I know a few of you will completely disagree with this approach but I feel like a victim too. I don’t know what the right thing is Lord will be the judge but if I am supposed to live in a house that is not obeying the law or in conflict with regards to what is right then what am I supposed to do?
Being such as it is, I am sad, have been and will be because I don’t know how she will do. I hope when her boyfriend gets out he will get a job and start trying to support him and her in the right ways. Staying off the drugs but if not I guess the choice is theirs but I had to make one of the toughest decisions and stick with it. Why because what we have been doing, taking her to her classes and trying to talk to her, spend time with her, buying her food and cigarettes and all other necessities has only showed her drug use has not affected the endless possibilities of scheming and continuing because she can wipe her *censored ( | ) with us when she is done.
Drugs plain out don’t use them or end up ruining your life in the end it is you who pays the biggest fee- your life, your happiness and your relationships. Don’t fool yourself it is not “all good”.
Sometimes we know, sometimes we don't
Sometimes we give, sometimes we won't
Sometimes we're strong, sometimes we're wrong
Sometimes we cry
Sometimes it's bad when the going gets tough
When we look in the mirror and we want to give up
Sometimes we don't even think we'll try
Sometimes we cry
Well we're gonna have to sit down and think it right through
If we're only human what more can we do
The only thing to do is eat humble pie
Sometimes we cry
'Fore they put me in a jacket, and they take me away
I'm not gonna fake it like Johnnie Ray
Sometimes we live, sometimes we die
Sometimes we cry
Sometimes we can't see anything straight
Sometimes everybody is on the make
Sometimes it's lonely on the lost highway
Sometimes we cry, sometimes we cry
Gonna put me in a jacket, and take me away
I'm not gonna fake it like Johnnie Ray
Sometimes we live, sometimes we die
Sometimes we cry, sometimes we cry
Sometimes we live, sometimes we die
Van Morrison "Sometimes We Cry"
Last edited by unforgiven2 on Dec 27, 2007 - 09:03 PM; edited 1 time in total
I will reassure you that I am no longer the person that I once was. You know very well that the choice to not use means sticking true to your words. I have heard for so many years the same old song. It does hurt because she is my only sister. I have no other true siblings that I grew up with but I know of the others through my "get around father" =) but not personally.
I like your rhyme there that was the old never ending tune but things have changed ever so drastically this year. With the funeral of my grandfather, the breaking down of my family, higher responsibility and with the realization that life is what you make it, and the hands of time that never stop. Lynn, as you have read my posts and shared with me you have came to know me and my family from what I have wrote but my past weakness is and was that thorn removed a hundred of times just to find it digging deeper. That crack just never wants to leave my life completely.
"Nothing changes if nothing changes" that is right that vicious circle but I will tell you this much you gave me the push to take charge concerning my boy and things are looking up for the two of us since. You realize my sister has done things to me that I forgave but never forgot and I always wondered if I was in her shoes and my younger sibling of 15 years of age was drug free, working, making a's in school would I give them dope to try? The answer is no, no matter what I still have some reasoning whether high or not that told me kicking in my mother or grandmothers door for money, threatning and breaking thier stuff, smoking crack in the same vehichle with mom in it is not even an option. She behaves as if everything is owed to her, well if love is not enough it is only our money that makes her love us or us love her and the forever same song well then I am not one to continue with a misery song.
She makes her bed now she will have to lay in it. I gave chances, I have talked, cried, helped, searched, prayed and now it just remains that I no longer have to live that way I once did as a teenager and in my early twenties.
I gave all I could for the cause "the cause that was more to me then the world world."
"It was not till I seen the axe laid to the root that I found the full extent of what I had to loose and suffer but my conviction of the right was only established by the wrong and my earliest hopes will be my last regrets."
My hope to get high, just one more puff, push the pipe over and over for what some stupid lil rush that wasn't there anymore, depressed and tweaking, get in my car search the floor maybe I dropped something, turn on the keys hit my dealer up at 4 a.m. her and her old man treat me like *censored sh_t but take my money, over and over again same stupid *censored sh_t that never amounted to nothing good. Repeat, new day more money down the drain in my systems down the toilet damn those runs! Over and over again months turned to years and years. Someone should have gave up on me and I know they did because in the end it was what I did to make it like that.
My family ashamed of who I became, loosing it all and almost losing my life. I have overcome and damn it, it aint easy as we who quit know but the *censored F--> of the matter is it aint *censored f-->ing impossible. I was a heavy user, *censored sh_t how can you be reserved on crack?
One thing I can say for myself and not for my family is that there is no way I will subject my son to a home where drugs are present. He will not go through it as long as I am alive, pay my bills and keep a roof over our heads. It was sad to hear him see her high that last time and he knew something was wrong with her. He says his prayers since she has went back "Godd please help auntie" over and over, he misses her, we miss the old her. The thing is I dont wanna lose faith but Godd helps those who help themselves.
I will not test fate as a means to overcome it I ran from it. That is right it dont just fall in your hands. Where I knew it was present or those I used with I literally put my running shoes on and ran hard. I am not scared of her Lynn, no I am scared of crack, seeing that pipe when she was here last, smelling it faintly and just knowing it was around me drove me crazy. I fear crack and I overcame it but I don't test that neither do I play with it like a game. I will lose that game so I have and always will be wise enough to know that it is something I can beat but I must not be around it, past "freinds" gone but that dealer is still around. Somethings never change, but I have indeed.
I know what keeps me sane, sober and dope free and I want happiness if she doesn't want it well that is on her and her to answer for. We all have an account to give and life does not end here but for the short time here she and I both have heard the word of Godd I can't pray her prayer for her,or for her salvation, and commitment to make a change we all know crack is from the devil. I can't force her to put the pipe down to block out her dealer's calls, to lose her addict boyfriend, to say what she means and mean what she says or do it. I can be here for here when she is doing those things that equal sobriety not blowing smoke up our *censored ( | ) but till then that wall is there and nothing will break it.
I love you, you are such a great freind for writting me and keeping me in your thoughts. I hope you and Jacob had a wonderful Christmas.
Thought I would bring some good news to the table. My sister has been out for over a week and has stated that she no longer craves or wants to get high. My mother has helped her get into her own place as stated before she could not live with any of the family. The rest of the family has pulled together to help in getting her some things for her place. She has a really nice place it is a duplex and her dog is now happy to be with her as he has really been sad without. He even has a back yard to play in. She has it so clean and it is really cute thus, being the biggest motivator she has as she has always had to live with someone. She is really happy as are the rest of us.
While she was incarcerated a lot of things changed as it was not as easy on her. The cut back in money being sent to her and not receiving visitation really made time hard on her. This time around she said she never wants to go back and she no longer wants the drug life. She has something to look forward to and a goal to work towards now, her own place. Her boyfriend had been released a few weeks before her and he has gained weight, looks healthy and has been off the crack and pills.
Annette has to go and do a 14 day in patient treatment and then plans on finding a job. I hope anyone reading this will pray for her that she remains safe and continues on sobriety. I believe Lord has heard the many prayers and answered them and life is so less bitter and sad for me. I enjoyed spending time with her. I could not see her on the street as it also was breaking both me and my mother’s heart. Things are looking up but the devil is always on the prowl and works through the dealers but I know Lord is stronger.
I been very busy with school but glad to come her and read about people mantaining their sobriety and those seeking help. I miss you all.
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