DD has been dishonest for personal gain. What to do?

[leonairs]

DD is 15 and just sat a recent GCSE she's taken early

My ex has told me she's said to him her mental illness isn't real, and she will 'discontinue' the therapy after she's finished A Levels. This came about when I asked him to talk to her about why she wasn't taking her tablets, I'd caught her a few times having not taking them. The tablet is Risperidone so not a risk free drug!

To clarify, she gets extra time and a small % too, I believe, due to extenuating circumstances.

Ex has told me this has all been a lie to get extra marks. He was a 'crafty' younger man and DD thought she could tell him and he'd approve - This idea of being safe to tell him probably came from the many tales of his misspent youth!

He told me he didn't really know what to say and I should speak to her. Trouble is, I don't know what to say either and find it all very hard to unpick. It isn't something google will have an answer to.

It all seems very calculated.

For clarification, she's a bright student who is described as being very 'quick and intelligent' by her history teacher for example. She is popular, seems well liked

What can I do about this? Where do I start

If you recognise me then Pm me I beg you before you say anything

Wow for someone to go to those extremes just to get a bit of extra exam time makes me think that they actually have got something wrong with them mentally, even if it’s not the actual thing she’s pretending to have. As a close family member of someone who ended up killing themselves due to a psychotic illness, I think what your daughter is doing is fucking disgusting and I hope she fails every one of her fucking exams.

What do you think OP? Would a personality disorder be more along the lines of what you see as fitting her patterns of behaviour and character? I agree that when you are ill with schizophrenia you are more likely to drop your meds but you are really not ok at that point and the illness will manifest itself in ways that cannot be mistaken post diagnosis. Doesn't sound like that is what is going on though does it. I feel for you and hope you can get to the bottom of what is going on.

As “a close family member” of someone with a psychotic illness, don’t you think you should be a bit more sympathetic to the fact that part of her psychosis may be believing she’s totally well?

@leonairs you need to speak to her consultant and her mental health team, as someone needs to get to the bottom of this

That was my immediate thought, but after reading all of OP’s posts that is obviously not the case.

@PinkSyCo I am really sorry that you lost someone in this way. I did too in exactly this way but I dont think your response is fair to the OP. Its not her fault and if you've been through this with a family member you'll know all about how judgemental others are to people with mental illnesses.

No idea, I don't know what a personality disorder is so I'd have to look it up and see if it seems to fit before I could comment

I’m not blaming OP, I’m blaming her daughter, who at 15 should no better!

Risperidone turned ds2 psychotic and is definitely not a drug to be messed with. Having said that if it was prescribed by a psychiatrist then presumably they have seen enough in her behaviour to warrant the risk. Bizarre though she thinks medication is needed for extra time in exams as this is totally not true.

To the point where a psychiatrist wanted her admitted on a voluntary basis ?

Don’t think it’s the medication specifically, but the diagnosis, and the medication supports that.

Critical thinking fail.

Yes, you absolutely do in some cases.

If, like the DD, someone says they have a mental illness but that their symptoms are only visual and auditory, how do you know whether that claim is true or false? You don't, you have to take the patient's word for it. And there's plenty of material online that tells of the sorts of things people see and hear when they are psychotic that can be used in a consultation.

To the point where a psychiatrist wanted her admitted on a voluntary basis ?

Well s/he obviously didn't believe it was serious enough for a sectioned admittance, and given that from what the OP has said even s/he wasn't entirely convinced, perhaps it was to get a better look at DD, observing her on a daily basis.

I don't know the DD, I don't know whether her claim is true or false. But it isn't as impossible to fake as some people are making out.

Living up to your name there

You are absolutely right. I used to work on an adolescent [sychiatric inpatient unit and saw teens faking just about everything - including psychosis. Most have some major stressors in life and maybe other factors that lead to them making up symptoms - the fabrications don't exist in a vaccuum but they absolutely do make up symptoms.

@leonairs you need to discuss this with your daughter's MH team, you won't get any answers here

I agree it would be surprising for a teenager to be able to trick a team of experienced doctors into giving her an anti-psychotic if not needed.

Doesn't mean it's impossible, and if it does that's all the more reason for her to be under evaluation to understand where this behaviour is coming from

I think the A level thing is a bit moot tbh - clearly she has something serious going on, and the side effects of risperidone are enough to qualifiy someone for extra time IMO.

It’s very common for people with mental illness to deny their illness. And to say they will stop taking meds. It makes them feel more in control.

Your ex makes a very odd inference from DD’s words.

It’s possible to fake anxiety or depression, although difficult for a 15 year old, who wouldn’t know all the symptoms and how they manifest (reading symptoms on Google doesn’t tell you anything), but psychosis would be very difficult to fake. And for what?

You and your ex seem to have a very strange attitude to her mental illness.

You know your daughter, although I can’t imagine a diagnosis of psychosis is easy to fake. And why go to that extreme to get some extra time on exams when she’s already bright. Doesn’t make sense. She also doesn’t want friends to know so she isn’t gaining anything from a diagnosis there.

However from how you’ve described her, it sounds quite sociopathic.

Massive amounts of naivety on here from people who believe that psychiatrists get the right diagnosis first time every time, particularly for kids.

OP speak to the medical team about your concerns and this new information and let them try and work out what’s going on.

Two very different things going on here:

1. Do some teenagers take advantage of the system to get extra time in exams? The answer to this is categorically yes. At some private schools which will remain nameless the majority of applicants to my university have a disability which allows extra time in exams. Far fewer state school applicants have a diagnosis made by a private psychiatrist of, eg, ADHD, allowing the student to use a computer and/or take extra time in exams. And is it wrong to do this? Yes, in my opinion. But when everyone around you is doing the same thing, it's not hard to see why students do it.

2. Do some parents of teenagers with schizophrenia, a devastating mental illness, refuse to accept their child's symptoms? Also, absolutely, yes, sometimes with catastrophic effects.

No one is prescribed anti-psychotics without very good reason and if you simply wanted more time in exams you wouldn't choose schizophrenia as a mental illness to fake. (Students who don't have ADHD also find prescription stimulants useful study aids, or a useful source of cash on campus, so there may be other reasons for chasing this particular diagnosis.)

Please consider getting some counselling for yourself to talk through your daughter's illness and her symptoms. I don't think this is a helpful line of thought to pursue.

Under 25s shouldn't be prescribed Risperidone at all!

It causes endocrine side effects like lactation and cessation of menstruation, along with reducing bone density.

The person who prescribed this has no idea what they're doing and she should come off it ASAP.

Crikey O'Riley at some of the answers on this thread. Lots of misinformation and generalisations. I personally would invest in good therapy for you OP and possibly your daughter. In real life.

This reads like a post by someone's judgy, jealous school 'friend,' not a mother.

Why? - the COMPLETE absence of the history that led to the underage girl needing to be TAKEN to a gp BY HER MOTHER, then a psychiatric evaluation ACCOMPANIED BY HER MOTHER and the prescribing and taking of medication OVERSEEN BY HER MOTHER not to mention the regular re-calibration of the medication levels needed by a qualified psychiatric nurse ACCOMPANIED BY HER MOTHER.

Risperidone has terrible side effects and is usually given to people who may or may not have delusions, one being that they are not ill. I think you need to support her here either way.

Wow, this is certainly a bad advert for giving children extra time in exams. When my DC had mild anxiety her tutor pushed me amazingly hard to seek an ADHD or autism diagnosis because “loads of parents are doing it to get extra time in the 11+ exam” I was really shocked.

OP I’m sorry that you’re in this situation. Either your daughter is very ill or trying to cheat her exams - both shitty situations and both very hard to deal with.

Can’t help from here except to say 😱😱😱😱 all I can suggest is really pressure her doctors on whether or not she should be on that drug. Ideally they’d say she doesn’t really need it.