Thanks, Shelby -- it's really terrifying. And I still cannot believe her mother didn't say anything about it to us. We would have known a whole week sooner if she had.
She doesn't watch a lot of TV, and when she does, it's only cartoons like "My Little Pony" and "Pound Puppies," and shows about cats and dogs on Animal Planet. On Youtube, it's the same thing. Her computer games are only The Sims Pets and things like that.
She's always had a penchant for the morbid. I remember when L and I were dating, she drew me a picture of dogs and when I asked what they were doing, she said they were howling because they were at a funeral for another dog. This, her significant separation anxiety (which only receeded a couple of years ago) and her Asperger's, which featured emotional dysregulation, sensory issues, and social skills problems, led to our getting her into therapy, where she'd been improving markedly.
She has a psychologist and a psychotherapist who is able to refer us to a psychiatrist. Because of her separation anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder, we'd considered putting her on SSRIs last year, but we were all worried about the side effects, and her anxieties improved so much with just talk therapy. Her emotional dysregulation seems to be gone, and she's very capable of modulating her emotions really appropriately. She's generally happy, and while she still occasionally talks about gore, it's in a totally age-appropriate way, if that makes sense. And her separation anxiety was much better too. Everything was so much better.
And then this, suddenly.
I just called the psychotherapist for an immediate referral to a psychiatrist, but I only got her voicemail. I'm going to be calling Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, too. Hopefully their neuropsychiatry unit has availability.
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She doesn't watch a lot of TV, and when she does, it's only cartoons like "My Little Pony" and "Pound Puppies," and shows about cats and dogs on Animal Planet. On Youtube, it's the same thing. Her computer games are only The Sims Pets and things like that.
She's always had a penchant for the morbid. I remember when L and I were dating, she drew me a picture of dogs and when I asked what they were doing, she said they were howling because they were at a funeral for another dog. This, her significant separation anxiety (which only receeded a couple of years ago) and her Asperger's, which featured emotional dysregulation, sensory issues, and social skills problems, led to our getting her into therapy, where she'd been improving markedly.
She has a psychologist and a psychotherapist who is able to refer us to a psychiatrist. Because of her separation anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder, we'd considered putting her on SSRIs last year, but we were all worried about the side effects, and her anxieties improved so much with just talk therapy. Her emotional dysregulation seems to be gone, and she's very capable of modulating her emotions really appropriately. She's generally happy, and while she still occasionally talks about gore, it's in a totally age-appropriate way, if that makes sense. And her separation anxiety was much better too. Everything was so much better.
And then this, suddenly.
I just called the psychotherapist for an immediate referral to a psychiatrist, but I only got her voicemail. I'm going to be calling Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, too. Hopefully their neuropsychiatry unit has availability.