Hugh on Louis Theroux's Medicated Kids

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This isn't a new documentary. My husband and I rewatched it last night.

I felt so bad for this kid, Hugh. I wanted Louis to take him home with him. He could help him make documentaries for BBC2. I couldn't stand the mom, didn't care for the dad. Felt sorry for the sister. I hated the way the mom kept talking to Hugh like he was a baby. Like she read somewhere that aspies take things literally so now she thinks he doesn't understand anything.

I just watched this and I actually got the impression that the kid is a budding psychopath who's parents are in denial about how potentially dangerous he is. If he needs that much seroquel to manage his anger and impulsiveness already, at age 10--imagine how potentially violent he could be at 20 if he decides to stop taking it. That did not look or sound like autism to me at all. People are so afraid to label kids as antisocial/with psychopathic tendencies, but if it fits the kid's behaviour and thought patterns and it's not addressed properly it is a potential danger to anyone in that kid's life. Being afraid of stigmatising a child does not protect the child or anyone around them when a diagnosis of psychopathy is appropriate and needed to accurately address the child's behaviour, especially when that behaviour involves lots of anger and violence without constant heavy sedation.

That was actually my first impression as well when I watched it years ago. I had the opposite feeling this time. I don't know why. That's a good point, though. He was on a ton of anti-psychotics so we don't know what he was like off of them. I think anti-psychotics are supposed to do nothing if you're not psychotic but I could be wrong. I don't know much about those kinds of meds.

You're wrong. Anti-psychotics are dopamine receptor antagonists; a non-psychotic patient taking anti-psychotics is still going to have their dopamine receptors blocked. This results in sedation, increased appetite, a reduction / elimination of nausea and vomiting (in fact the main other use of dopamine receptor antagonists in medicine is as anti-emetics), anxiety, dysphoria, elevated prolactin levels, and extrapyramidal symptoms, regardless of whether or not the patient is psychotic.

In Hugh's case, I'd bet dollars to donuts that he's being drugged for the sake of the sedation.

Oh jeez. Thanks for correcting me. That sounds awful.

The parents said it wouldn't be fair to Hugh to try letting him come off of his meds, but really, didn't they mean it wasn't fair for them? Kids Hugh's age, both neurotypical and autistic, are SUPPOSED to do the things he was doing-fighting with his sister, refusing to shower every day, saying "I hate you." When they over-react and dope him up for it, it's like saying no feelings are acceptable, and all feelings are sick. How is he ever supposed to live in the world? It's not good for the sister, either. What would it be like to watch that? She should be learning to let things roll off her back and to work things out directly with Hugh. Instead she's learning that he's sick and wrong and she has to watch what she says to keep him from going crazy.-

Precisely.

I'm not judging on the "medicate/don't medicate" issue. I refuse. If there were a pill that would allow me to have normal executive functioning, reduced anxiety about any kind of task that involves interacting with people, and "normal" social and emotional reactions, I would take it even if the black box warning said it would take 15 years off my life by killing me slowly. IN. A. HEARTBEAT.

If my ADHD kid starts performing waaaay below his potential, or develops serious issues with impulse control again, and looks at me and says, "Mommy, I'm trying but I just can't," I'm going to look him in the eye and ask if he wants to try meds. And if he says, "Yes," then I'm going to medicate. End of line.

I refuse to judge other parents for doing what they think they have to do. At least, without knowing them personally.

From the first 5 minutes of the video, I get the impression that that guy had already made up judgments.

Living in the Pittsburgh area, I can toss out a few observations about the place and the people:

1) People here want everything to be easy, emotionless, and convenient.

2) Image crafting is the local past-time. EVERYBODY does it. Just about everybody wants to appear to have perfect homes, perfect families, perfect kids, perfect marriages, perfect careers, gaggingly perfect lives. It's really easy to avoid making friends here. I've been here since 2012; I can count the number of people I've met that I can tolerate for more than a few minutes on my fingers.

3) Western Psychiatric has a locally horrible reputation. It's the place you DO NOT want to end up. Their motto is "Drug 'em, bill 'em, and forget 'em."

I will also add that, while his parents seem to be typical gag-me-with-a-spoon-Pittsburghers, I don't see Hugh displaying the behaviors (or lack thereof) of a dangerously overmedicated kid. I see him acting, more or less, like a normal tweenager-- on all those drugs. Which suggests to me that there probably are chemical issues that are being, more or less anyway, appropriately controlled.

OTOH, I kind of want to choke Theroux. I'm not a real big fan of throwing pills at every pimple and unpretty emotion, but his bias and agenda are so clear I want to slap him. f**k that s**t. Kids' lives are too important to play politics with.

We didn't really get to see what Hugh was like 'off' medication. However he struck me as quite normal considering the Asperger's. In a way it seemed like he had spent such a significant part of his life being told he was bad and with people having such low expectations that he had just got to a stage where he had stopped trying and started acting up to those negative expectations.

I think the medication is more for the adult's benefit than the child; it is about making the child compliant and easy to manage with little knowledge or concern as to if the drugs are changing the child's inner experience for the better. They talk about making it possible for the children to engage in school, but my question is why not look at alternatives to that school? Why medicate your child to 'fit in', it is like trying to force a square peg into a round hole, it is really not for the child's benefit.

Towards the end Louis talks about the medication and the mother acknowledges a lot of his issues are down to Asperger's and "jokes" she would medicate that if she could. For me this is the key part of the program - one throw away line highlights their attitude (and probably society's attitude too) - they would try to medicate a fundamental part of his personality and to totally change who he is as it would benefit them.

I think the whole idea of medicating young children is really screwed up. For example the 6 year old on SSRI celexa.... for basically throwing temper tantrums.... ODD is such a ridiculous diagnosis anyway.

That's Louis' schitck. He's like, quietly judgmental. If you were eating a bowl of cereal, he'd stand there and look at you and you'd suddenly wonder if you were doing it wrong.

He's autistic as well. It looks like he identifies with Hugh. I think he "came out" not too long after this episode.

Thanks for all this info. I'm often curious for information from real people who live in the real places that documentaries were filmed.

Ohh yeah! That part got me too! What if I wanted to medicate the race out of my kid? Or if I wanted a little girl so I changed his gender as a baby? <--which really happened to someone!

Gee that's pretty ironic, I'm in the UK and according to a message on the video my country has been blocked by the BBC from watching it.

For anyone else who experiences the same problem the video can also be found here...

Medicating Kids on Vimeo

ODD is not at all a "ridiculous diagnosis": it is a precursor to antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy, diagnoses which clinicians are wary of applying to children (understandably so). A valid diagnosis of ODD helps parents get their children the help they need before they become entrenched in their antisocial and violent behaviors, so they can learn that developing empathy and non-violent ways to deal with stress and emotional upsets is in their own best interest, otherwise they will likely end up in the criminal justice system. Yes, children can be budding psychopaths, and ODD is the most common diagnosis attached to these often violent and callous/nonempathetic children. It's not ridiculous, it is very serious business and should not be ignored when applied to a child--to ignore regular violent and callous behavior in antisocial children is what is ridiculous, and dangerous.

Having just watched it the foremost thought in my mind was Chemical Child Abuse. It seemed to me that drugs were being doled out for the benefit of hypochondriac ineffectual parents and not for the benefit of kids who were being turned into zombified drug addicts. Stepford is real and those unfortunate kids live in it. Budding psychopath? Says who? Away from his parents Hugh came across as a perfectly ordinary 10 year old Aspey.

At the edges ODD pathologizes non-conformity combined with poor impulse control and/or poor parenting. How can they even diagnose ODD in a child that has ASD and possibly depression/anxiety? It is natural for someone with ASD to resist authority if they are being asked to do something that is not logical or is over stimulating or whatever.

I fear ODD is yet another over used label psychiatrists can place on "difficult" children to justify a chemical cosh - often in the form of so called "atypical" anti-psychotics that come with a whole host of side-effects, some of which are permanent or even life threatening.

The psychiatrist in the program was questioned by Louis and pretty much admitted he is MORE likely to medicate children from screwed up backgrounds because the parents are less likely to follow through on behavioral therapies and environmental changes that could address the 'illness'. I mean how f****d up is that, professionals are happy to medicate the s**t out of small children because they have challenging personalities and the parents aren't up to the job.

In relation to ADHD the mother of the teenage girl in the program seemed to justify medicating her daughter because when she is on medication "she is my best friend" and "I enjoy her on medication", but not when off it. Did you notice the way the mother talked down to her son who had come off meds as well? He was saying how he was doing well at his job as a chef and how he felt a lot better off meds, how he could communicate betters, etc..... well the mother jumped right in to remind him of some challenges he had initially with his job, totally tried to slap him down

I would bet money that the mother was the psychologically unwell person in that family yet she is the one reporting the symptoms to the professionals and having her children drugged.

I know a lot of people here have had bad experiences with poorly trained/under-educated clinicians, but I feel like that is creating an anti-psychology bias that is preventing people from being properly informed on issues like behavioral problems in children, and that not all of them are caused by bad parenting. There is such a thing as a child born with a mis-wired brain that causes them to not respond to the emotions of others, to not care about rules, and to enjoy cruelty, rather than having social problems mostly due to miscommunication and misunderstanding like happens with autistic children. Such a child could benefit with a diagnosis of ODD because they can be taught that cognitively developing empathy and their conscience can help keep them out of jail in the future and help them to have some kind of life that doesn't involve violence and abusing other people. It's only if such children are reached at a young age and some intervention is offered that they hace a chance to grow into anything other than a malignantly narcissistic/psychopathic adult. It's not always the case of children being over-medicated or misdiagnosed. I'm not saying that over-medicating children is not a problem (I actually think it is)--I just think a lot of (perhaps understandable) prejudice against clinicians/psychology/psychiatry is feeding into these discussions in a way that isn't productive or helpful to solving the problem.