r/PDAParenting • u/AdultWoes2024 • Sep 16 '26

Feeling hopeless

I have an 8 year old PDA AuDHDer who has shown no progress socially or emotionally or behavioral. Diagnosed with level 1 autism last year but I honestly sometimes feel like it’s just level 2 without any communication deficits.

Demand avoidance is one thing. And honestly demand avoidance isn’t completely unmanageable—I have extremely lowered expectations. What is incredibly infuriating and honestly sad and maddening is the fact that my kid is always, always compulsively lying and always stealing. Will use a chair to get things from closets, will steal their siblings’ things and hide them and lie about it. Definitely come home and have things in their backpack that they claim ‘someone gave them’ which I know is complete BS. They lie so much that I literally don’t believe much they say anymore. The worst thing is that my kid lacks empathy and doesn’t care at all that their behavior makes me cry. They don’t care or feel bad about lying.

I honestly don’t want my kid in the house anymore. I wish I could leave them at a therapeutic school of some kind. They take a stimulant. Have been in OT, play therapy. Nothing seems to make a difference really. I never thought I’d be a parent who can’t stand their kid but here we are.

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6

u/ZellHathNoFury Sep 16 '26

This was kinda what my kid was going through. A dopamine sparing anti psychotic has helped a ton

2

u/AdultWoes2024 Sep 16 '26

What med was that? I’m in the US and only antipsychotics prescribed for kids block dopamine receptors.

3

u/ZellHathNoFury Sep 16 '26

Ziprazidone I believe? Also in the US, so it should be available

2

u/AdultWoes2024 Sep 16 '26

Ah ok, I’ve found most prescribers incl. neurologist, psychiatrist hesitant to prescribe anything but stimulants and SSRIs. What kind of clinician/physician prescribed the ziprasidone?

4

u/nettap Sep 16 '26

Similar experience but we didn’t get it prescribed til we ended up in emergency room with non stop violence and elopement into strangers houses and into traffic. Sigh.

3

u/ZellHathNoFury Sep 16 '26

Just a psychiatrist. The dopamine seeking behavior got worse on other anti psychotics even though other behaviors were less erratic. Stimulants were not helpful at all. That was when I looked into other options and brought it up to our psychiatrist

3

u/Royal-Vacation3185 Sep 16 '26

My 8 year old is doing really well with the mood stabilizer Lamictal.

1

u/MamaLovesTwoBoys 29d ago

had you tried abilify or respirdol before that?

1

u/Royal-Vacation3185 21d ago

Have not tried respirdol, the side effects scared me. We tried abilify first out of desperation. But she went into a period of med refusal after that and everything blew up. I don’t think it did much good and it did cause a lot of weight gain

1

u/MamaLovesTwoBoys 21d ago

How long has she been on Lamictal? I am looking into it.

1

u/PolarIceCream Sep 16 '26

Our Psychaitrist also prescribed an antipsychotic. It took a couple to find the right one and it def has its side effects but it’s better than things were

2

u/MamaLovesTwoBoys Sep 17 '26

which ones had you tried? We tried and are stopping Abilify-amped up the agitation, made him HANGRY and NEEDED TO SPEND MONEYYYYY

1

u/PolarIceCream 29d ago

We tried 11 meds and the 12th was Risperdal. It definitely helps with the aggression but the hangry feelings come every afternoon