Our 15-year-old daughter suffers from depression and has some traits of Borderline Personality Disorder. She’s getting treatment from a psychiatrist and gets counseling from a psychologist. Progress has been slow, with lots of ups and downs.
Like many in her position, she has very low self-esteem, and has ditched her high-functioning friends and started to hang out with people with similar issues. We recently just found out that she has smoked pot 2-3 times over the summer, and got drunk for the first time at a party two Saturday nights ago.
Anyway, last night, I picked her up from her quasi-boyfriend’s house (I’ve never met him), and when she got in the car, she immediately said that the car stunk. That surprised me, because I was just about to tell her that she smelled of rotten eggs. It was quite a strong smell. I think she said what she said because she knew that she stunk, and this was her attempt to explain it away.
I know that in the cooking of meth, one can get a rotten egg smell. So, maybe she picked up that smell by hanging out at a meth house last night. But maybe her boyfriend smoked in her presence and/or or maybe my daughter smoked meth – and picked up the rotten egg smell that way.
Can smoking meth emit a rotten egg smell? Did my daughter smoke meth last night?
Needless to say, my wife and I are worried sick, and we will definitely make a “coaching call” to her therapist this morning.
That’s a difficult question to answer without going into a lot of details about her specific mental illness diagnosis. But I’ll just say that she has been making progress (she actually told us about these incidences, and did not hide them from us) and our therapist recommends that we validate that decision.
Or, short answer: She might run away from home if we try to restrict her movements. (Yes, it sucks to be us.)
But after last night, I’m inclined to crack down hard, and my wife and I will make some decisions based on our call to a her therapist this morning.
I don’t know about the odor of cooking meth per se, but IME, smoking meth is usually odorless (I am 8 years recovered meth addict). So, unless she was hanging out with a meth cook (IMO, somewhat unlikely) I don’t know what to tell you.
But yeah, I would meet all her friends and boyfriends and make the acquaintance of their parents before allowing her to go off with them.
ETA: How was she acting when she got home? Up all night, refused dinner? If someone is on meth, very hard to maintain normal sleeping and eating habits.
If neither of you noticed the smell until she entered your car, obviously she stepped in dog shit curbside just prior to climbing in.
Instead of trying to dig into her inner soul to find what kind of shit shes getting into, you may want to instead dig the shit off the inner sole of her Nikes.
Seconded. She’s 15 and you’re letting her hang out at her boyfriends house? Who you don’t even know? She’s probably thinking you don’t give a damn about what she does, at least that’s the message I’m getting. Might be time for a much shorter leash.
On a more serious note, good luck with the daughter. Meth is bad stuff, and hopefully she’s not into it. I second what Oakminster said. Did she seem nervous and “high energy”? Fidgety? Could be meth or coke, but it might be hard to tell with a moody teenager.
For something like this, it might be worth it to have her tested. That can be done relatively inexpensively, I think. When the results come back, you will know for sure one way or the other. Meth is absolutely nothing to take lightly. But if she didn’t use it, then “cracking down” may do more harm than good.
It’s pretty normal advice. Unless you are ready to send your kid to somewhere where they can be locked down, the risk is that they will run away, end up homeless with no support. Those kids end up a lot more dead than the ones who get to continue living at home. At some point, you need to let it happen, but not after smoking a little pot and drinking once.
Spiff, take her into a drug counseling center and have a full drug test run on her…with numbers. That will answer the meth question. Then give her more limited freedom…friends at your house or at the home of people where you know and trust the adults and she will be supervised. If her counselor doesn’t specialize in chemical abuse in teens, get another (complementary or replacement) counselor. If its complementary, sign paperwork so they can talk to each other. Set up a meeting at school and be honest with the staff…they can help watch for improvement or slipping.
And remember two things about teens…most of them believe they are invincible, and they have the ability to think ahead and measure consequences of a turnip…normal teenage girls think its a good idea to run away with their no good boyfriends and live happily ever after. Ones with mental health issues…!!!,
Read the eight symptoms on the list. Our daughter has all eight of them … in extreme.
So, again, sadly, we are in a rock and a hard place. If we prohibit her from seeing this BF who we have never met, she will do whatever it takes to see him anyway. That is ODD for you.
If you must chide me for my decisions regarding the controls I can and cannot put on my daughter, please do so only after reading the Wikipedia link.
Anyway, I did some Internet searching, too, on the odors involved in smoking meth, and it was a “maybe” on the question of whether it gives off a rotten egg smell. I guess I was looking for more insight from those who might have a more direct connection to the issue.