I read it when you linked to it on facebook. Captivating.

Wow, thanks for this. I read the LA Times article about this family (which I shared in a mefi thread), but hadn't seen this blog. Heartwrenching doesn't even begin to describe it.

oh my god... I can't even imagine how they must feel every day. My heart just breaks for them.

that's an amazing blog, thank you.

Yes .. I also read the LA Times article and then couldn't get that little girl and her family out of my thoughts. There is really no worse pain I've known than watching my child suffer, and what this poor kid is enduring is just beyond belief. Why does this stuff happen???

Good lord. I just read the about page; that poor family.

What kellydamnit said.

Yes, both captivating and heartbreaking.

My heart goes out to that little girl and the family who loves her. His posts about Blue Cross piss me right off. And the posts about trying to find a long-term care facility for her.

I know some parents with a teenage pedophile as their oldest son (oldest by the dad in the mixed family). He's broken and none of us can say why, exactly. He is 16 now and has been in trouble for the past few years. His targets are usually female and around the age of 4. That's just how he's wired is all we can figure. He can't live with his dad's family, because he crossed the gender line, after two rounds of live-in "treatment", and touched his little brother, who is 13, but small. He can't live with his mom, because his little sister lives there, and she is 11 now, and no one is really sure what maybe happened with her in the past because she isn't saying. So, the parents ended up being required by the court to send him out of state to another facility six hours away.

It tears all of them up. It's hard to watch.

Even harder still was having to have to ask questions of my kids, because they are friends of other kids in the family. "Did he ever touch you?" They said he didn't. But then, he used to be the older kid who would "safely" walk them to school when they were 5 and 6 years old. So agonizing on all fronts.

My only problem with the blog is that he seems to expect other people to be able to help him and to automatically know what to do about a problem that no one has ever dealt with before. Obviously, as he has stated in his disclaimer, he is speaking emotionally and not always rationally, and he is obviously in agonizing pain. But his statements that doctors, who have never need a case like hers, should know how to help her or that facilities, who are completely untrained for her one-of-a-kind situation, should just drop all their other work and take her, are a bit presumptuous. Again, I'm not discounting his pain in any way, but that's how his blog comes across to me sometimes. Maybe I'm just reading into it too much.

SEEN a case like hers.

Interesting story. I feel for the parents. I'm not convinced they've quite got the right diagnosis, but I'm not an expert. There's definitely an impulse/rage disorder going on there, and maybe some kind of autism, but I'm not sure about the schizophrenia. She seems able to relate to people and the world better than you generally see in children with schizophrenia (the schizophrenia tends to be very severe in childhood, from what I understand).

I remember in my child psychopathology class, there was a case study of a little boy who truly believed he was a superhero who could fly and used to keep throwing himself against the wall in his attempts. I also remember the children with schizophrenia, when asked to draw self-portraits, used to draw themselves floating above their bodies.

The fact that the father had to "push" the doctors into a diagnosis of schizophrenia is questionable, too. Of course, I can see how a differential diagnosis in young children can be difficult. I wonder if she has the tell-tale brain scan signs of adult schizophrenics, or if children with schizophrenia generally do. But again, I'm no expert, and I have no idea what it's like to raise a child with such severe problems.

The solution, I think, is a better understanding of how the brain works, medically and biologically. We just don't have a good enough understanding of the brain as an organ and how to "fix" it when things go wrong. There's still this tendency, I think, to think of severe mental illness as something other than physical/medical. We'd never let someone with liver or kidney disease (or alzheimers, for that matter) wander the streets untreated, but somehow it's okay to let someone with schizophrenia do so.

I'm glad you said that, Pips. I was thinking the same thing. My heart goes out to this family. I can't imagine how difficult this situation must be. But I would imagine that it is extremely difficult to pinpoint exactly what the problem is when a mind that age is growing and changing so rapidly. Since we aren't quite sure exactly how these medications work in small children, I wonder how they are able to differentiate which of her behaviors are caused by illness and what is a reaction to the medication, or the hospitalization or simply a reaction to being labeled as crazy. It's all so very sad and I hope that they are able to find a way to help Jani and find some peace as a family.

What Pips said.

And schizophrenia in children is NOW what ADD was in the late 80's to 90's and what recovered memories were in the late 70's early 80's. I am no expert but I am close to some schizophrenics and grew up with and around them. ymmv.

And I think any diagnosis of Schizophrenia in a person not yet out of puberty is wrong headed and any diagnosis of Schizophrenia in a person not yet in puberty is criminal and a cheep ass money grab.

Well, actually, from my studies, there is such a thing as childhood schizophrenia, it's just that it's usually a pretty clear (and severe) diagnosis, from what I know, so I was skeptical when the doctors were so reluctant.

With such rage in someone so young, I might wonder about early sexual abuse, too. It's not the only cause, of course, but it's common in such cases.

The inconsistent and chaotic parenting response he described to her emotional outbursts may have inadvertently worsened her condition as well. I'm not placing blame, just looking at the history.


I would worry about her on those strong, strong antipsychotics, though. If I was her doctor, I'd want to take her off everything (in the hospital, of course) and just watch her for awhile (perhaps they already did this). There's definitely something wrong, but again, I don't know about the schizophrenia. The "delusions" the father describes could be attributed to imaginative play in someone so young.

What do I know, though. I'm not a doctor, and I haven't even seen her in action, just read about her case. I do feel for the parents, though. I know they're doing their best in a very difficult situation.

I've been reading the archives and I feel so terribly conflicted and sad. It's perfectly understandable that the author would develop such an antagonistic, Us vs. Them viewpoint of the world, but it just makes me so sad as someone whose father struggled with a mysterious and debilitating illness. As someone who knows the kinds of people he's attacking. Often, their hands really are tied. The problem isn't Maryvale Residential Facility, the problem is the whole damn insurance system that often treats mental illness the same as a sinus infection.

Also what pips said.