<p>Peachblossom:</p>
<p>The 22 year old young adult even in a good frame of mind can hardly handle the college bureaucracy…let alone one not thinking clearly and with a psychotic break. I will support her and go with her all the way as a guide and advocate. </p>
<p>Thanks for your advice!</p>
<p>Joules</p>
<p>Gladiatorbird:</p>
<p>We were able to get her into a Psychiatrist office at 7:30 am on this past Saturday morning after her Friday morning breakdown. Its amazing what cash can do in an insurance system that leaves a lot to be desired. I am not sure if I can get insurance reimbursement for the $400 but it was worth it to get her evaluated and on meds rights away. The other choice was involuntary commitment, however, she is 22 and not a threat to harm herself or others. My spouse and I would have had to lie with our word against hers to have her committed. We thought that would have left her with no respect and trust for us and possibly ruined her life with that type of commitment on her record. So we opted to do it outpatient with strict supervision. We are both RN’s and I had faith we could do it. We are also on opposite shifts and have another young adult daughter to help us as well.</p>
<p>The diagnosis was paranoia, depression and delusional disorder possible brought about by the recent stress in college and some sexual abuse that we just found out may have happened by a female babysitter years ago. We dont know if its coming from the delusions or it was the cause of the delusion. When she is better we can delve into that with therapy.</p>
<p>Joules</p>
<p>PM’ing you.</p>
<p>We went through this last year with our son. I agree with others - you HAVE to focus on your daughter’s health. Do not worry about stigma or education at this point! I was in your shoes, so I understand how you feel! What finally jolted me out of my stubbornness was the statement, “At this point, you just want to keep the ball in play - keep them alive. Once you get them stabilized, THEN you can think about their future.” Yes, it CAN be that serious.</p>
<p>I also urge you to contact NAMI - National Alliance on Mental Illness. They have FREE 12-week classes to get you up to speed on everything you need to know. FOR EXAMPLE: It takes the brain TWO YEARS to heal after a psychotic break! Read that sentence again! It doesn’t mean the person can’t function during that time, but he/she needs understanding and a lot of sleep! My son is still sleeping up to 12 hours a day, over a year after the onset of his illness.</p>
<p>MaineLonghorn:</p>
<p>Thank you for you response. I am sorry that you were in the same position. Yes…we a trying for a medical withdrawal now as the Dean of her Department for her major said today that we had to negotiate an incomplete with an extension with each and every Professor individually. That alone could put me into a break, let alone having my daughter at 22 try to negotiate that. Not to mention that they do not work over the summer in this major so it would have to be completed in 30 days. That is way to much pressure. She would get 18 credit of F’s if she did not finish. Her GPA is 3.2 now after 4 years. The medical withdrawal if granted would make her lose 18 credits of hard work, and a full tuition for the semester, but would salvage her GPA so she could continue again in the future.</p>
<p>That seems to be the safe way to go.</p>
<p>Joules</p>
<p>Not to belabor the point, but just wanted to make sure you contact(ed) Dean of Students, not (just) the Dean of the Dept. The Dean of Students job is to look after the well being of the students. They will advocate for your daughter with the professors etc. and contact the professors on your daughters behalf. They have a lot of power across all the departments, not just the academics, and can help with classes, dorms, registrar, student health, counseling center, etc etc.</p>
<p>Additionally, if/when your daughter returns, she will need to arrange the return through the Dean of Students so it’s best to have him/her involved from the beginning. How much you tell them is obviously up to you but they should be able to do the logistics for you.</p>
<p>Also, see if your D’s school has some sort of student intervention team/critical response team/etc. They are set up specifically to take care of university-level resource coordination and red tape when a student is in crisis (serious physical illness, mental illness, bad car crash, apartment fire, what have you). My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.</p>
<p>ihs76 is exactly right. The Dean of Students, not the Chair of the Department, is the one whom you must contact, and the one whose job it is to contact professors, etc.</p>
<p>Sorry that you are going through this. Sending good thoughts your way, and for your D.</p>
<p>Dear Joules,
Your daughter is so lucky to have you. At her age, any diagnosis should be a working hypothesis–to be clarified and refined as more information emerges about symptoms and triggers. It is important not to narrow possibilities too soon; it sounds like your provider is exploring those with your daughter. It is too soon to know whether this will be an acute crisis (that she rebounds from with intensive care) or the beginning of a long journey with mental illness. In any case, there is reason to remain hopeful as the picture emerges. You and your husband are doing all you can; she is lucky to be much loved.
All our thoughts are with you and your family.</p>
<p>I wanted to reinforce the comments in post #46 re contacting the DEAN OF STUDENTS.</p>
<p>We had a medical situation with our son in his senior year. He was a week away from finals and had an accident requiring surgery and there was no way he could take the exams, for several weeks.</p>
<p>He was really worried about handling this with 5 different professors, dealing with the Incompletes and timing afterwards. We contacted the Dean of Students (I believe I got that advice on this Board!). </p>
<p>She was magnificent and set everything in motion with all the professors. If our son had decided he was unable to complete the Incomplete, they would have changed it to a W.
As it turned out, he did finish all the work on schedules worked out with each professor.</p>
<p>But the important part was that the Dean of Students became his advocate, insuring that everything on his record was handled appropriately, that all the professors knew about it and had to work within the University guidelines on this, NOT what their own departments might choose to do. </p>
<p>It was a godsend since we were having to deal with surgeons, follow up care, insurance, roommates, and travel etc. </p>
<p>The key is to contact the Dean of Students immediately…timing is critical, particularly at the end of the semester. I made a phone call, left a message and followed that up with a detailed email to the Dean regarding the circumstances. Quite honestly, she took it from there, helping us navigate everything.</p>
<p>Best wishes to you and your D. I’m sure this is a very scary time for all of you and while clearly her health is far and away the most important thing, I do understand your wanting to make sure this semester’s work isn’t lost. Dealing with the Dean will help assure you and your D that her future options will be protected.</p>
<p>CCers have given you good advice, Joules.
Wanted to add one last thing that may be helpful: substance abuse and acute medical conditions (including adverse drug reactions) should be actively ruled out before any psychiatric DX is settled upon. As I mentioned earlier, drug use or an underlying medical problem can masquerade as mental illness (Mythmom’s post illustrates this powerfully). You may want to inquire about how and if other possible causes were ruled out as the diagnostic process proceeds.
Also: Delusional Disorder is a rare condition; severe Depression complicated by other factors (sometimes with accompanying psychotic symptoms) is less so. Only your provider can explore these things and determine your daughter’s needs, of course. I wanted only to provide some general information that might be helpful as you sort this out under considerable stress and time pressure.
I wish you and your family well</p>
<p>Good posts by Gladiator bird. Another example of a medical source of delusions is lupus, particularly vasculitis. An ANA test might be helpful. Lyme disease (and other infections) can cause delusions as well. I would also seek thyroid, adrenal and sex hormone testing. Learned this through hard experience.</p>
<p>ihs76:</p>
<p>Thanks for bringing that up. I may have made a mistake contacting the Dean of Education. She said she had to go out on a limb to grant a medical leave of absence and medical withdrawal from college. I am still not sure where I stand with the latest email. I think I will get the Dean of Students involved tomorrow.</p>
<p>Thanks,
Joules</p>
<p>Gladiatorbird:</p>
<p>Thanks… The problem as you know is she is 22. Nobody wants to deal with me because of her age. She is supported 100% by us but is considered a young adult and they can not give info without her consent. During her psychosis she did not want us to know anything. So this was a problem. Being that my spouse and I are RN’s we are sending emails to the school that are made with honey at this point, however, push comes to shove we will have to send out the sharks. My daughter is losing 18 credits and a career. She may never be able to teach. The school has the money already, so I dont know why getting this medical leave of absence would be a problem. The Dean seems to be understanding, so I guess its just a matter of time. I even told her that I would bring my daughter in to sign the papers she needs. I will give her some time before I start pushing harder. </p>
<p>Thanks,
Joules</p>
<p>curiouser:</p>
<p>What do you think about sending an email to the Dean of Education asking if she would rather me email the Dean of Students to help with this problem? That may be a nice way of appreciating her help but moving the ball forward.</p>
<p>Joules</p>
<p>Gladiatorbird:</p>
<p>Since this is anonymous, I can tell you that it was a female babysitter that molested her at a young age. My older daughter has guilt now since the babysitter made my older daughter molest my younger daughter. The younger daughter has a vauge memory of it, but seems to be ok. The younger daughter is 19 and is socially active and thriving in her first year in college. We are all going to counseling though, just to be sure we dont have other problems. There is no drug or alcohol involvement. We have been with the oldest daughter now 24/7 between me and the spouse and there are no withdrawal symptoms noted. Usually, by day 3 the detox symptoms are severe. Besides the older daughter is like the peace corps girl . She adopted a child from Africa for $10 month. She trick or treats for Unicef every year. She volunteers teaching at the church. SHe is so sweet and it a shame that she drew the short straw in life. We are also going to deal with this babysitter once we get her better. That is going to blow up big time. Wondering who else this babysitter ruined. Although we found out later that the babysitters father was a drug addict and a cheater on his wife. Who knows is she was molested by her father… this world really stinks!</p>
<p>We are also looking into litigation against the health care professionals who apparently never reported this abuse to the authorities when my daughter said she told counselors. She was of age at the time of the disclosure, but my younger daughter was not. If the professionals can not tell their loving parents, they better damn well report it to the authorities to be investigated. I am in for a lot of stress in the coming years because of someone elses incompetence.</p>
<p>Joules</p>
<p>Joules, if I were in your shoes, this is what I’d do:
<ol>
<li><p>Once you have that ball rolling, I’d email the Dean of Education to let him/her know you’ve been advised to work through the Dean of Student’s office (or whatever office it turns out to be). Something to the effect of " thank you for your time in discussing this with me. I appreciate your consideration but I’ve been advised that D needs to manage this health concern and the impact on her studies by coordinating through the Dean of Student’s office." By the time you send the email to the Dean of Education, hopefully you can be more specific with any additional info you have garnered from the Dean of Student’s office, concerning how finals are to be treated, grade classifications/postings, timing, formal requests that may be filed (medical or otherwise).</p></li>
<li><p>In our case, we were told by the Dean of Students what we needed to do on our S’s behalf…email each professor with info about him having a medical issue, that the Dean of Students was involved, and asking each professor for accomodations re timing for future completions on the work/finals to be taken. The Dean of Student’s office handled the administrative tasks concerning his permanent record, and official notifications to each professor of his status, and probably other things we didn’t even realize needed to be done.<br>
Apparently, it’s not uncommon for individual students/parents to request additional time at the end of the semester to complete work/finals for minor reasons. S’s college did require us to submit documentation of the medical need (this was NOT shared with all the professors or the Dean of the college where he had his major).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hope that helps. Once you get in touch with the right office, hopefully you will feel relieved as to how much they can help. It really made things much easier for S and for us.</p>
<p>Joules, I’m still thinking of you a lot. I’m hoping that the school is as kind and helpful as DS’s were. He finished one year (with a 3.6 GPA, which shocked his doctors and my medical friends). He started the next, but lasted only a week. The school gave us a FULL refund (the lady in the Dean of Engineering Office had to word the request carefully, because that really was against the rules) and said DS could come back if he wanted. His co-op dorm gave us a full refund minus $100 or so. We were SO thankful. Everyone we dealt with was great.</p>
<p>His prognosis now is excellent - things DO get better!! He will be on meds for the rest of his life, probably, but he has a good chance of living independently and thriving. He is living at home and attending our local small school, majoring in applied math. </p>
<p>Here is a saying that a very wise CC high schooler posted recently (in response to some kids upset by their college rejections). I have typed it up and put it up on the wall.</p>
<p>“If you can let go of what might have been, it can be surprisingly easy to be happy with what can happen now.”</p>
<p>I hold on to this quite often! It’s really true.</p>
<p>^^^Awesome quote! I’m stealing that one, too!</p>
<p>Best of luck to the OP. Keeping you in my prayers.</p>