Mrs. Furious ... Recipes, Rants & Reality: So What Is The Right Thing To Wear...

Sunday, June 26, 2011

So What Is The Right Thing To Wear...

to your kid's psych evaluation?

P.S. it absolutely matters

15 comments:

Kiki said...: Simple dress or cropped dress pants and tunic top. Interesting piece of jewelry. Flats or wedge. Keep it simple and easy, you don't want to be uncomfortable and if you have Baby with you you might have to manage her and you don't want to have a tricky outfit on.

You'll be lovely no matter what you wear, inside and out.

I'll be keeping a good thought for you all.

XO; June 27, 2011 at 12:24 AM
G in Berlin said...: What Kiki says. Good thoughts going your way.; June 27, 2011 at 6:34 AM
Torey said...: I would leave the clown suit at home, and likely change out of your bathrobe before going.

I agree with Kiki. You want to be comfortable.

Sending lots of happy thoughts your way!; June 27, 2011 at 8:00 AM
Julie said...: You know I have been there. Good thoughts flowing your way. Hopefully you won't get blamed for everything;). How long is the eval?; June 27, 2011 at 9:19 AM
Mrs Furious said...: Thanks all.

I don't know how long... at least 2 hours. There are two steps to it. Baby is heading to my mom's.; June 27, 2011 at 10:05 AM
Brenda said...: You know what's funny... I have no idea what I was wearing to K's eval. Be comfortable and bring a book for the waiting time. No one is judging you, I promise... just take a deep cleansing breath and remember that knowledge is power.; June 27, 2011 at 2:45 PM
Mrs Furious said...: 5 hours!

just getting home from going to get Baby at my grandmothers and then eating dinner and coming all the way back.

Sadly, the whole thing was a waste of time.

More later. No major revelations and to quote Kid on the phone to Mr F...

"It was horrible. We're not going back, Mom said so. Everyone was younger than she is and don't know how to do their jobs correctly. They hadn't even been working as long as Mom did."

Word. If I wanted a students opinion I'd travel back in time and meet with myself.

And to top it off all they can do is put us on a waiting list which might be months off... and when I asked about the turnover it is every 1-2 years... so... everyone we'd see would be a student. They don't think she needs meds right now anyway, and for real, if we're going to see a therapist (which we probably will) I'd like them to have some experience and be a consistent provider. She said we might not even get an OCD specialist just however came up next in rotation. No thanks.

Also, during Kid's private session she said "It was the most boring thing I've ever done... she kept looking at her notes to think of a question to ask like 'um... so I see you are homeschooling'."

We both just wanted to blow our brains out by the end.

I should say my own therapist warned me NOT to go to the U... I was hoping that the neurologist who referred us knew something she didn't.

So good news... all of the testing showed she is only just over the borderline for OCD and anxiety. She's over the borderline for internalizing, but that's about it. It's good to have this as a baseline and to hand off to another therapist, but this isn't a treatment facility we'd go to. Even in their recommendation it felt like maybe they don't consider themselves a place for ongoing treatment. It was weird, there was not a lot of information about what to expect before we got there.

So at this point as far as they are concerned she has tendencies for anxiety & OCD but they are not impeding her since we've homeschooled her. They'd be willing to provide therapy (unclear if they were recommending or if they thought I wanted it) to help her developing some coping strategies for her anxiety. If she went back to school and her symptoms flared they'd consider meds at that point. Which is exactly what I had said I thought would be our plan in the intake interview.
I left feeling like after all that time and all the weird tests I didn't get any insight or info from them.; June 27, 2011 at 10:09 PM
Kiki said...: I'd been thinking all day about it, I'm glad you got the baseline but sad that it wasn't what you'd hoped for....I know you won't give up!!! I'll be keeping a good thought for you and the girls, keep us posted!!!!; June 28, 2011 at 12:34 AM
Julie said...: Oh damn. It is such a letdown when you find out what you already know. Know what I mean?

I do have to tell you that Murphy has done very well taking a low dose of celexa, which is an anti-anxiety medication. Believe me, it does not 'cure' it all, but it has helped him (and us) a lot.

It is tough when your child is as smart or smarter than those who are testing them. Been there, done that with M's first therapist.

What does Kid's neurologist have to say about all of this? Our neurologist has been really helpful and thorough. I don't know if you ever see what I post on facebook (it is sort of my mini-blog) but Murph is having an MRI in July of his brain and spine. Don't really know why exactly (and have not heard back yet as to why).

Yeah, M's neuropsych was 5 hours long. Thankfully, the woman who did it was quite seasoned (though really overly fixated on his 'british accent'). Psychological and neuropsychological testing is one part 'real results', but a larger part subjective in how the tester interprets the results. You have to really trust the tester's expertise. Sadly, it does not seem that you had that experience. That bites.

Oh got to go so I can bitten by my puppy. Cute little big guy, but he has been really testing me. Why can't I have one thing in my life who is dumb and complacent;)??; June 28, 2011 at 9:03 AM
Mrs Furious said...: Julie,
She's been discharged from neuro (good) so we aren't going to have any feedback from that Dr. Unless she has more seizures or cyclical vomiting, we're done with that department. This appointment was just in the psych outpatient, so no neuro/psych testing or component. As for meds, everything they said in the end (psychologist & her overseeing psychiatrist) was weird (as in weirdly lame) and delivered in a wishy washy asking me a question kind of way... it was bizarre. Neither one wanted to bring up medication. Like "Is there anything else you were interested in?" (Seriously... I felt like is this 20 questions? I actually said "What are my choices?"... I had no idea what she was even trying to get at.) In the end I do agree that right now, we're managing her stress & triggers by being home, and it's not imperative until we increase those again. But the recommendation that she wait until she is back in school (which was the primary focus of the MD... back in school!... she was worried more about that than anything) was a bad one. IMO she would need to start adjusting to it BEFORE we put her back in a stressful situation... not go back, regress, than wait for an appointment to get reviewed for meds, than start them and wait for them to be in her system fully. When would that be... by Dec of that school year? Maybe? That's just setting her up to fail AGAIN.
But everything was delivered in a kind of valley girl way where everything sounds like a question instead of a statement. Not impressed... get some balls ladies and just tell me what you think, please.
We're going to try to get in with this veteran psychiatrist that my therapist originally recommended. I did not realize that this was a teaching clinic. As Mr F said "Yeah, I prefer to have a therapist I can see all year round."; June 28, 2011 at 11:03 AM
Julie said...: "Yeah, I prefer to have a therapist I can see all year round."
Yes, absolutely. Especially with a child...and a child who has freaking anxiety!

We went to a pediatric neurologist for Murphy for all of his 'behaviors' and not for an actual medical issue in the sense of a known and "able to be tested" medical issue. The neurologist is the one who suggested and prescribed the celexa for the anxiety.

Yeah, you need people with more balls...even if I don't agree with everything the specialists have suggested (like the "foreign accent syndrome' for Murphy), I can appreciate a person who has an opinion or diagnosis and has the info to back it up.

One reason why we did go with a neurologist was that there is a real shortage of Child Psychiatrists. Boston has more child psychiatrists than anywhere else in the US (according to one of the guru child psychiatrists out of Mass General Hospital that I saw speak) and it is still not enough and has HUGE waiting lists. I could not even get one to call me back. I had been trying for so long and then our appt with the neurologist came up before I could even get a call back (and it was a 5 month wait for THAT appt.)

I should send you a link to a story that was on NPR several months back. It was done by one of our local stations. Excellent and so true unfortunately.

Take care Furious family.; June 28, 2011 at 11:24 AM
Mrs Furious said...: Interesting, our neurologist wasn't interested in treating it, he definitely was referring us out. He thought to the OCD specialist that he knows, of course... as the person who saw us said... "she's the chair of our dept... I don't think she sees clients." And I knew, oh, yes, I get it.... of course, who did I think I was? ;)
Now what I think is interesting about this is that the neurologist (based on my reporting) considered to her to have "significant compulsions", my therapist (a psychologist who has specialized in children for 40 years) also feels she has significant compulsions... and thinks medication would be helpful. These bozos here all the same stuff (only they have 40 less years experience) and they have nothing to recommend or say. And I felt like ... I didn't come because I don't know what is going on... I came for an actual treatment plan! And, I'm outraged that they scheduled this whole long session w/ a therapist that is leaving next week. Why not just wait and get us in with the new people? No matter what, Kid would have to do this all over again immediately. Just irresponsible practice policy for an ANXIETY clinic. I mean, why have us come now, only to have to get put back on the waitlist for a new therapist now that this one is leaving? I was astounded. We left there not even knowing when we'll be called back. wtf?; June 28, 2011 at 11:41 AM
Julie said...: Just irresponsible practice policy for an ANXIETY clinic. I mean, why have us come now, only to have to get put back on the waitlist for a new therapist now that this one is leaving? I was astounded. We left there not even knowing when we'll be called back. wtf?
Yes, total bozos. WTF??; June 28, 2011 at 12:45 PM
Brenda said...: Oh, the eval... yeah, ours was 2 five hour days. Fun. I feel like I missed the boat on your post, but wanted to say I'm sorry it sucked and wasn't helpful for you. I do have to say, while it took us a while to get to the right place with the right people, it is worth the effort. Once we got a fabulous neuropsychiatrist in place, who did K's eval, she hooked us up with a therapist and a prescriber that she had a relationship with, and they all saw us within a matter of weeks.

Consistency is definitely key with anxiety kids, especially a therapist, so I can't believe the situation you describe! Poor Kid, and poor you, for enduring it. A teaching clinic sounds nice, but I probably wouldn't want anyone learning the ropes with my kid's brain in the balance. Ugh. Keep at it Mrs. F. Your commitment and persistence will pay off in the end. And Kid will be the better for it.

That being said, after the week I've had with my boy, I'm pretty much ready to just run away on a quest for normalcy...summer's change in routine = bad mojo at our house.; June 28, 2011 at 3:59 PM
Julie said...: That being said, after the week I've had with my boy, I'm pretty much ready to just run away on a quest for normalcy...summer's change in routine = bad mojo at our house.

Oh Gigs, YES! I know what you mean. Unfortunately;).; June 29, 2011 at 8:14 AM