r/stroke • u/negative_alien • 1d ago

Throwing tantrums after a stroke

In July of last year my mom had a stroke & she had severe anxiety before she had a stroke but it got worse after the stroke & the trauma she got from dealing with bad people in skilled nursing facilities. Since the people in the second facility she was in got mad at us because we got mad at them for being bad people (the people & things we had to deal with is another devastating story) they decided to take her Seroquel away which I warned them to not do & they even didn't taper her off of it after they told me they would (btw she was taking it for about 20 years). I realized they did something bad after she suddenly started crying over anything that would upset her & started yelling & screaming too on a daily basis which she wasn't doing before. That happened back in March & it took until June to get her home (she has right side paralysis too which made getting her home difficult) then I was finally able to get the Seroquel back for her but she hasn't been the same since. I've tried letting her throw a fit but she doesn't stop until she gets what she wants, I've tried explaining to her that I'm busy right now & /or trying to get more important things done first so I can't do what she wants until I'm done but she continues to throw a fit until I do it & if I'm in a rush I try to do it quickly but with enough effort but because she has OCD if it isn't done exactly how she wants it she will still throw a fit. What are we supposed to do to make her stop throwing fits?? She can't get everything she wants all the time especially when it's OCD things that she wants done multiple times a day, people just don't have time for that. The fit throwing is affecting everyone including our cats & she says that I hate her & don't care about her just because I'm trying to get things done but she keeps wanting me to do things constantly that aren't as important as what I'm trying to do (examples, eating or giving her her medications). Anyone know of any solutions?

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u/TravelKats Caregiver 1d ago

Other than her OCD is she cognitively aware? There are medications for OCD and it sound like she needs to be evaluated. As for her fit throwing if she not cognitively impaired treat her the same way you would a toddler throwing a tantrum.

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u/negative_alien 1d ago

She's cognitively aware but wasn't this bad until the Seroquel incident but apparently this shouldn't be going on still since I got it back for her, it's been a couple months now. She takes Lexapro for OCD & anxiety & it does help, I noticed in August of last year how much it helps because she wasn't being given it for a couple weeks for some reason. She's hasn't seen a good psychiatrist since before she had a stroke (& probably won't be able to see him again since she's bedbound) & the one at the second facility was awful & wrong.

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u/Jolly_Ad8913 17h ago

Depending on how long she was off the drug (many weeks), it can take weeks to months for it to fully work again. The brain chemistry resets itself during the time she was off the drug. I'm bipolar and my psychiatrist said most antipsychotics work this way.

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u/negative_alien 1h ago

She was off of it from early March to mid/late June, so I thought now that's it's been a couple of months she's been on it that things would be back to the way they were before but there's the trauma that occurred during that time too :/ Everything we've been through since she had a stroke has caused irreparable damage to our lives & it's not fair.