The Problems with Social Service Providers
When Jan 13th, 2022 rolls around- less than a month, my grandson runs out of mental health services at Cooks Hospital.
In the state of Texas, there are no facilities and very few if any general or family practice Psychiatry that will treat teenage children who have schizophrenia and Autism. Most doctors skip 13 to 15 years of age. We have been trying to locate a doctor in the DFW area for two months. Finding a Psychotherapist is just as difficult.
It is h heartbreaking for single parents and grandparents of such a child. It seems that any services that we utilize have more roadblocks than help. MHMR is unproductive among potential patients to be serviced. They claim they will help with resources but they do not actually find any, but they do encourage the family to do the research themselves.
Cook’s children age out at 12 years. The Psychiatrist they have to not see children outside of the hospital setting. Pecan Valley services will continue writing the prescription for three months while the social worker and parent/guardians search for another Psychiatrist.
What is it like having a child with schizophrenia?
Does a child with schizophrenia hear voices inside their head? It is not like an external conversation with dialogue with two or three people in a discussion. Imagine a hundred people talking all at once carrying on a conversation with different topics. I can reference it to a sphere where lines of voices cross each other and intersect each other like a basket weave.
As a patient during a recent hospital stay, I was taken off my psychiatric medications for thirty-eight hours. It wasn’t a good decision on the doctor’s part or on me- the patient’s behalf. Paranoid thinking came on in full force, The voices would not stop. The hallucinations were intermittent. The faulty logic or stinking thinking was rampant.
For a child not understanding what is happening to them it is very frightening. They do not know that what is going on inside their brain is a chemically based misfire of the synapse. All they want is for it to stop. Aggression or Anger usually shows its ugly head or deep depression- either way, the voices do not stop or the cacophony of sounds. People talking externally only adds to the chaos.
The schizophrenic is not faking symptoms for attention-seeking. They do not want to be different from the normal non-schizophrenic brain. They do not want the behavior repercussions. They do not like themselves.
Where do we go from here?
We have already established a need for the 13 to 16, year market. We need to get child-psychiatrist on board with a program geared towards helping these severely Autistic children with Mental Health issues. We need an in-patient facility to accommodate said, children. We need outpatient programs with individual, family, and peer counseling available. We need medication management doctors. We need advocates for these children who are lost in an overwhelming broken system of medical care.
Author, Kat Challis 12/17/2021
Welcome to KatChallis.com' 