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Maddi (my 17 year-old daughter) talks with me in very exacting detail about her days.  We have a fairly good relationship, even though she presents with all nine DSM-IV-TR qualifications of BPD, and she is prone to the dreaded Black/White "I love you/I hate you" mindset. of which I am the biggest target.

She is in dialectical behavior therapy with someone who trained under Marsha Linehan, because we are just plain lucky, for about six months now.  At first she was doing better, but now she seems more depressed than ever, and she has begun to experience a more intense hallucinatory set of symptoms.  This scares me.  She used to hear voices while in her room, she would tell me.  Mostly they would be in her closet or under her bed, which is one of those beds with drawers on it and a little door at the foot of the bed for under-bed storage, hobbit hole-style.  I figured that she would hear the voices from there because these two places are ubiquitous of all childhood fears -- you know, "There's something in my closet/under my bed." Now she says that she hears voices in the bathroom of her school.  (She attends an alternative school.)

As this hearing voices is increasing, she is also becoming more detached from society and seems more depressed.  When I considered her age, I realized that she is at an age when schizophrenia might develop.  I have read that BPD and schizophrenia have a higher comorbidity rate than normal, but I do not know much more than this. 

Does anyone have any advice or experiences of his or her own to share with us?  I do not want to be a hypochondriac, but I am genuinely worried, and Maddi is at the age where she has a privacy contract with her counselor; I cannot just ask her therapists and counselor what's going on.

Thanks so much.

how scary for you and your dd... .   I am sorry i don't have any experiences with this but one thing I thought of was... .   could it be any of the meds she is on? My dd had some pretty vivid dreams and were very scary on one med she was on. I would be concerned about this too... .   she is just 17... .   can you not talk with her therapist? I will send a hug your way... .    

While you may not be able to ask her therapists and counselor what's going on, there's nothing to prevent you from telling them what you are observing.

I am so sorry to hear of her suffering and yours.  I am a doting mother too and can totally understand your frustration at wanting your daughter to be happy and at peace and seeing her suffer so.

It seems to me that you should trust your intuition.  You should bring this to the attention of her therapist.  It would be more helpful if you would keep a journal of your observations, with just the facts... .   dates, times, observations of your daughter's demeanor (fearful of the voices, whose voice... .   friendly or scary etc.).  When you present the information factually to the doctor, without your interpretations or fears, it may seem more credible to them.

Such a journal will help you come to the right conclusion too. 

I sometimes hear my daughter talking in her room.  She has ADD which is well controlled with the mildest dose of the medication.  She frequently "tells" her dolls what she learnt in school that day, how to put lip gloss, how to properly comb her hair etc.  It seems to me that she uses this as a technique to more firmly embed whatever she has learnt, into her memory paths. 

So, factual observation during a 15-20 day period of time may help you detect a pattern that could be useful both to you as a parent and to the doctor.

In any case, voices and hallucinations are not to be taken lightly.

I will be praying for you both.  Sending lots of caring hugs your way.  God bless.

Hi maddismom,

you must be very scared. I am sorry that this is your situation.

Pallavirajsinghani has some very good advice for you that may help. Please stay in touch.

There is much support to be gained here from your peers, I have personally found it to be very good for me to read and response to the posts of others, as well as posting myself. I would like to encourage you to participate in our dialogue.

Cheers,

Vivek    

Hello Maddismom,

I wanted to respond to you as our family  has also dealt with audio/visual hallucinations in our daughter.  When she was 13 she told us that she was hearing voices and seeing shadow figures out of the corners of her eyes.  I was very frightened by this news and I too feared she was developing schizophrenia.  I began to research and found there were many possibilities for why this was happening.  One of the most plausible diagnoses was psychotic depression.  The depression need not be severe for the psychosis to be present.  The most important thing I did was not over react or label my daughter in case this was all an attempt to get negative attention and it just wouldn't be helpful to cause her more fear and anxiety by labeling her with yet another disorder... .   we just were not sure.

Soon after we learned about the psychotic features our daughter went into a therapuetic boarding school. Her T followed the same basic path of not overly addressing the psychosis and allowing my d to bring it up.  Through medication management and therapy the psychotic features subsided.  The antipsychotic she was already on was increased and that level has not changed in 3 years nor have the features returned.

I hope that your d has the same outcome.  One of the things I found out is that sometimes people with BPD suffer from psychosis... .   I believe it is more from the depression than the BPD... .   there is a high comorbidity rate of BPD and MDD (major depression).

lbjnltx

Hi Maddismom,

I have some experience with worry about schizophrenia in my child and I am sorry you are going through this with your D. 

I have a SS15 (dx Bipolar and on autism specturm- his mother has BPD/Bipolar as well) who became psychotic when he was 13. His was more of a gradual slide and he has more of the "negative" symptoms and it was hard to discern as he was very depressed and had typical black/white thinking due to his autistic dx. He has done well on a low dose of Abilify since he was hospitalized and also now in a more supportive school environment in the public high school.

Now my SS10 (dx emerging bipolar has many uDX BPD traits) unfortunately has begun to show signs of psychosis as well. It is dangerous in a child so young and he is also now on Abilify in addition to his Lamictal.

From all my reading, your D's symptoms, the more "positive" symptoms as they say, generally respond well to medicine and offer the better hope for recovery.

I would speak with her psychiatrist and see what can be done right away.

The longer you allow the psychosis to continue the harder it can be for a person to recover. I hope this sheds a little light.

At any rate, it is waaay to soon to start talking schizophrenia in my opinion as psychosis occurs often in other psychiatric conditions as LBJ says esp MDD and Bipolar and BPD.

Let us know how things go with her doctors.  

mamachelle