ADHD teen - feeling helpless and exhausted

[rutabellsum]

Posting this again under this topic as I original location not very active...

My DS is 15 and was diagnosed with severe ADHD and ODD a few years ago. We always knew that there was something else going on rather than the usual "he's just a boy" observations. It all exploded when he transitioned to secondary, becoming completely overwhelmed with the new environment. A huge number of kids (1700 in our local comprehensive!), frequent change of classes, locations, teachers and teaching styles and being on time was simply beyond his ability. He just couldn't cope and it all come out as a violent phase, bursts of anger, frustration and extreme behaviour, which needless to say just got him into trouble daily with endless detentions and other punishments and a label that stuck hard. lt was horrendous.
The school was completely useless at managing the situation. In a hindsight, we were quite shocked that NO one at the school pointed out or suspected ADHD consider all the symptoms were there. They had no clue. It was only later that year (end of yr7) that we finally got to the right place and DS was properly diagnosis. (in reality, this was a very long, expensive and frustrating process... finding the right place and the right person who actually knew what to do was not straightforward).

DS is really struggling since. We moved him to a small independent school as of yr8 even though we had never budgeted for this, but needed to protect him from the ignorance and lack of resource and support in the state system that failed, humiliated him and crushed his self esteem.

He is doing better since and on meds, however on the academic side the challenge is immense and as he progresses through school, the challenge intensifies. DS has a very high ability. As part of our journey of getting to the bottom of his issues, we had an Ed Psyc assessment were he has scored way above average (just to add to our confusion). We always knew he is very inteligent with strong English and Maths skills. However, now school demands are ramping up to the final GCSE year with lots of exams on the doorstep. But DS has completely signed-off. His way of dealing with it is not dealing with it at all!

He is also extremely resentful of his condition and we can see that it hurts him to know how different he is and how he has no ability to control himself, his impulsivity, and extreme lack of executive functioning impacting every aspect of daily life. We worry this can easily build up to depression and other long-standing mental health issues.

His ODD was always a big issue but now it is at a new high! with adolescence, hormones, and physically being a big person he became completely uncontrollable, would not accept any help, want follow any instruction, completely non-compliant, does whatever the hell he wants, whenever he wants and of course, none of it is to do with school responsibilities.

DS completely recognise he is struggling and that his behaviour hurting him and recently agreed to see a therapist. The question is who?? And what type of therapy? It needs to be someone with lots of experience in treating adolescents with ADHD. We also feel we need a family therapy but can't pay for two separate things, plus not sure it's is the right approach.

Does anyone here can tell me where do I go to find the right therapy/therapists? Can anyone with a similar case can recommend someone in North London, or Hertfordshire maybe? We feel so stuck and hopeless. We are desperate for some kind of help but can't find it.

Sorry for the long story and thank you for reading this far.

This sounds similar to my daughter. She was fine in primary then boom. High school was a massive traumatic shock. School insisted her issues were behavioural even though she was showing signs of adhd. I would sit and fo homework with her, put it in her bag and remind her in the morning, she would still get detention for 'not doing homework'.
We had reports of her pacing the classroom, not having equipment, losing things, constantly late, scrabbling under chairs for thing she had dropped ect. She is also very impulsive.
She ended up with massive school based anxiety and total school refusal in year 9.
She is 16 now and was diagnosed with adhd at 14 and asd at 16. The asd has only become obvious in the last year or so.
Have you looked into the pda form of autism? It presents similarly to odd but is treated differently as it is anxiety based.
DD refuses to do lots of things, particularly if she is anxious. I wouldn't say she is overly defiant although it can appear this way. E.g she would point blank refuse to co-operate in certain situations at school if she was very anxious, she is mostly ok at home though, although getting her to appointments is a nightmare. Rewording things and giving her more choice helps.

@Foobydoo Thank you for your post. I have never heard of PDA but spent a bit of time reading about it just now. Wow! I am pretty shocked to discover this condition as it describes a lot of DS behaviour. It's interesting asd only diagnosed later with your DD. Very similar here. First adhd diagnosis age 13 and now, when things are becoming unbearable, I have returned to the paediatrician who diagnosed him for help and she also mentioned possible asd but want us to have further assessments which we are dreading as it is very expensive, but mainly because we fear she may be right!

It make sense pda starting to be a bigger issue later in life as life demands grow. But as a young child he didn't present these symptoms just defiant. I am still a bit shocked about the whole thing and just the thought of dealing with yet another condition, more reading, management, strategies, back and forth to drs etc...only this time from what I read so far there is no treatment??

How are you coping with this? Did you turn to therapy? Do you see psychiatrist for that? Any medication? Who did the original diagnosis of PDA? From what I read it's a relatively new thing and many professionals are still skeptic... sorry for bombarding you with questions.. I am so mentally exhausted of this whole thing and a bit overwhelmed right now x

Initially we saw a private child psychologist who couldn't really help as she thought something else was going on and suggested asd testing. At the time I was adamant it was adhd as I felt she fitted the profile.
I saw the g.p who referred us to a community paediatrician and they agreed to assess for adhd. We had problems though because at the time she was home educated and they need screening forms from school and her old school refused to do them!
I asked for a qb test and adhd was diagnosed after this.
I managed to get her back into a new school for year ten, they were much more supportive. DD was medicated for the adhd but unfortunately this led to the asd becoming more apparent. (This happens because adhd can cover up some of the asd traits).
I asked the paediatrician to screen for asd and school were supportive in this and she received that diagnosis two months ago.
She is off her medication now, (She hated it and only reluctantly took it on school days) and is presenting far more asd than adhd now.
We tried camhs but dd hated it and would not engage.
I have found a mixture of therapeutic parenting and lovebombing helpful as dd has very low self esteem, can't bear failure so won't attempt certain things and can't take criticism at all.
It is hard, I swing between wanting to give her a good talking too sometimes but grit my teeth and be as positive as I can as the former makes things worst.
She can be very difficult, it is her way or the highway but she is starting to see things from the point of view of others and does apologise freely for her outbursts now and tries in her own way.
She is definitely easier when demands are low though so I am expecting issues when she starts college in September.
Are you in the U.K? Have you considered going through the NHS, we found the process really good. The ADHD screening seemed to take ages due to her not being in school but the asd diagnosis only took about six months.
Have you spoken to the sendco at school to see what they think?