Hi
My partner's 15 year old son was diagnosed with ADHD some years ago and he has been medicated for this. However, recent events have made us contemplate that he may be psychopathic; we certainly feel that there is a possible dual diagnosis here. He no longer lives with us because of the domestic abuse he was engaging in e.g. being violent towards his elder sister - he has threatened to kill her several times i.e. has told her he will wait till she is asleep and then slit her throat. He has also punched our dog and shot at it with a BB gun. Things came to a head last September when we had a family holiday. For no reason at all he would goad his sister from the moment he got up. He threw her on the floor over a chess game: he was playing his sister's boyfriend and she said "I'll play the winner". When he lost the game he became violent towards her because he didn't want her to play. He also kicked her in the face in the pool and refused to apologise. One night he tried to assault her just because she turned a light on while she was having her dinner; he tried to throw her dinner over her and went to put a heavy metal chair in her face - he has done this before when my partner and I have been away and she now has a scar on her face as a result. He threatened to burn the villa down/burn our house down when we got home and to kill my cats by "breaking their necks". He is utterly defiant and won't do anything for anyone unless he perceives some personal benefit in it. We asked him to tidy away the glasses and plates he'd used and heard him throw them in the sink. He then told his mum he'd got an electric shock off the water and she should come and put her hands in herself and see. She thought it was strange and eventually noticed that there was a broken glass in the sink with an enormous jagged edge; if she'd have blindly started washing up she could have been seriously injured - you know how we all just stick a hand in a glass and start washing it? That particular incident really scared me and we began sleeping with the bedroom door locked after that. He threw away a whole box of his ADHD medication on holiday and became non-compliant in taking it; we literally had to stand over him to make sure he swallowed it. It was during this holiday that my partner and I decided he could no longer live with us. He also shoplifts, has smoked dope and has come home blind drunk before. Even as a small child he was violent towards other children on a regular basis. During a trip to the US last year he punched his sister full force in the face in front of other holidaymakers for no reason (his sister is a sweet girl). We went through his Facebook messages and found out he has been telling people the most awful lies; these lies are told to girl he fancies, I suspect in an attempt to manipulate their emotions to feel sorry for him. He has said that our dog has died and he is upset because the dog was his best friend: he hated our dog and was cruel to it; he said his auntie and cousin died from drug ODs: his auntie died of cancer, nursed by his mum and his cousin is alive and well. He adds random girls as friends on Facebook and tries to chat them all up at the same time, often getting caught out by them, and then becomes abusive if they dare to look at another boy (even though they are not in a relationship with him). He takes no responsibility for his actions, preferring to blame me for most things because his mum and I are in a gay relationship - he is using this scenario to gain sympathy, saying she told him she was gay and then moved me in 2 weeks later - this is not how it happened - and he had no problem with me until he was told to leave. He has vivid torture fantasies that he revels in and wants to join the army so he "can kill people". He's a bright lad but refuses to do school work and is failing everything as a result. My partner has tried everything to get help re his ADHD diagnosis and these recent discoveries re his behaviour and no-one will listen/take our concerns seriously. He's very good at playing the innocent and telling people what he thinks they want to hear. He hasn't tried to apologise at all since he went to live with his father, other than a letter where he had 1 line of apology and then 6 lines of all the stuff he wanted out of the house. Unfortunately, his father is very dysfunctional too: he is a violent alcoholic drug user and continues to harass my partner 11 years after their divorce. My partner's parents, particularly her mother, are also highly dysfunctional and homophobic and are siding with the ex-husband against us in everything. My partner and I are currently living apart because of the stress of all this and, as much as I understand her guilt in closing the door on her son, I am also very concerned that if she does meet up with him he will physically harm her. I wondered if any other mumsnet users had experienced anything like this with a child diagnosed with ADHD?