Re: 6-year-old schizophrenic child
Little Jani sounds an awful lot like this. Has anyone else read this book? I did, when it first came out, and still remember how much it affected me.
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Want-Live...6737237&sr=1-1
Like I said earlier, I've known of a few families who had kids like this. One was a woman I worked with many years ago; her daughter was 3 years old at the time, she had a son a year older, and was getting a divorce. A lot of people went, "Oh, yeah, typical man, runs off on his handicapped child" but that wasn't the case at all. They were IIRC both 19 when they got married, and the only reason they did was because she was pregnant. By her accounts, the divorce was amicable and a mutual decision, and what to do about this girl was what was holding it up. Her STBX was willing to take custody of the daughter, but he didn't want to split the kids up, and she just didn't want to do that. We actually worked in adjacent departments, and I left before this was settled. She said that they had divorced primarily over issues that they might (emphasize might - you just never know) have been able to work out had they not had this child.
They had ruled out pretty much every psychiatric disorder known to man, and tried her on every drug available at that time as well; most of them actually made her worse. They had looked into residential treatment (i.e. institutionalization) but you can't do that without a diagnosis. She once said she wished her daughter was retarded or in a wheelchair because then there would at least be something.
Before anyone brings mental health coverage, etc. into this, this was a situation that no amount of money would or could solve.
I have no idea how this family is doing now. Chances are, the girl is dead, by her own hand.
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