It must be a full moon or something.  This past Monday my older daughter overdosed on pills AGAIN.  This is the third O.D. on pills (she had alcohol poisoning before that).  At least this time they didn’t have to pump her stomach or intubate her, although maybe if they did she might have taken it a little more seriously.  At first she said she did it because she was depressed and none of her friends were talking to her.  Then she changed her tune and said she was just trying to “relax.”  She took about 10 Xanax and they also found opiates in her system which she says she doesn’t remember taking that day.  I found Tylenol with codeine in her room so that was probably it.  I also found in her purse a lighter, visine, tweezers, and someone else’s license (over 18 but under 21).  When I confronted her about those things she said they were for smoking cigarettes and weed.  She admitted to getting high a couple of times a week and she intends to keep doing so as she doesn’t think it is “that bad.” 

Meanwhile she just completed a full year of drug and alcohol counseling where she was (urine) tested every two weeks.  I asked her how she managed to pass those screenings and she laughed and said she just drank a lot of water.  She said she knows a lot of kids who know how to trick the tests for drug court.  She did tell me one friend she smokes with but wouldn’t admit any others.  The one friend is now in rehab.  I don’t know how she is getting the money for the weed.  I have to wonder that every time I drove her to a friend’s house and gave her a few bucks for food or whatever did she use it for weed.  I have to be suspicious of all of her friends now and I don’t want to be because there were a few girls I thought were nice people.  It’s more my own daughter that I don’t trust. 

I tried to talk to her about the thing with the pills.  I explained that one out of eight kids with bipolar disorder end up dying from suicide.  She’s already O.D.’d on pills three times and then the alcohol poisoning.  I don’t want the next time to be the last time.  She just doesn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation. 

Anyway, she was in pediatric ICU for 3 days and then transferred to an adolescent psych unit in a hospital two counties and 45 minutes away.  I’ve been there three times, counting the day she was admitted.  I didn’t go today… it’s just too much driving and takes the whole day up.  She called me saying she wants out, she doesn’t like the new meds they are trying on her.  She doesn’t like feeling “drugged.”  Should I laugh at that?  No, I better not.  She is not a patient person at all and needs to give her body a chance to adjust to the meds.  We don’t want her to feel like a zombie but we do want her moods stabilized.

Once she is ready to be discharged from this place we will have to look at substance abuse treatment facilities.  We’re not sure at this point if that will be day treatment or residential.  The social worker mentioned one residential facility upstate and I did look at their web site; they have a dual diagnosis program for people with substance abuse and psych problems that might work out well for her.  We discussed day treatment at a psych hospital near where we live.  She has gone to day treatment there for psych issues, never for drug treatment.  I don’t know if day treatment will be enough at this point.  I’m concerned that she will go to day treatment, and then come home, meet her friends and then get high.  I mean they will probably do drug testing but what will the consequences be if she tests positive, and will she care?  The residential place they were talking about was far away, where nobody knows her.  She would be removed from family, friends and anyone who could get her any drugs.  She would really have to tough it out.  I think at this point in her life that is what she needs.  The social worker said our insurance company would probably approve it, that it is on their list of approved providers.  I am going to talk to her about it again and try to steer her in that direction.