Dealing with oppositional defiance disorder

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I am 20 y.o. living at home with my mother, and my younger siblings (5 total). All of us (children) have one form of psychological disability - I'm diagnosed with AS*, at least one has bi-polar, one has a napoleon complex, at least one has ad(h)d, and the one that I am focusing on at the moment, has been diagnosed with ODD. Some of my siblings have more than one diagnosis.

I was in a counselor's office earlier today with the one with ODD (let's call her "Kayla"), and needless to say, things have become quite tense around the house with myself and Jess, more at each other's throats than living in harmony.

Back story - Myself and she were best of friends several years ago; I was 14-16 and she was maybe 10. We would play board games together, go on bike rides together, talk about things without conflict, etc. I went into 11th grade, and suddenly everything changed. No more games, no more bike rides, no more peaceful talking.

Back on topic. In the office, the counselor - who is technically assigned to Kayla - read the definition of the disorder, word for word, and everything she said, in my mind, matched Kayla's behavior perfectly.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency ... 001537.htm

While everything was being read from the book the counselor had (which was similar to what is in the link), Kayla had no sort of emotion stating that any of that was untrue. Everything has to be done her way, or not done at all, having hell to pay for it otherwise. It was mentioned in the therapy session that I ask/tell her to do things, and I confirmed the statement of me "not saying it pleasantly" by saying that I have lost it, and that I am at wits end.

My question is this: How in the world do I deal with this behavior? Kayla is only 15, and she knows that I cannot legally "throw the first punch", and she uses that to her advantage, knowing there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Before the suggestion of "out of sight, out of mind" is given, I have tried that. I have agreed (per the counselor's instructions) to leave things alone, yet Kayla cannot seem to get enough of tearing our family apart, piece by piece. Any ideas would be more than welcome.



*I saw somewhere that the psychological experts are removing Asperger's Syndrome as a separate diagnosis, and are just putting it in with all the other things on the Autistic spectrum. Any ideas as to why?

Re: removal of Asperger's from DSM-V. There are two schools of thought on why this occurred.

1. American Psychiatric Association President Dilip Jeste, M.D., stated in his letter that the "goal of the DSM-5 process" was to "develop a scientifically based manual of psychiatric diagnosis that is useful for clinicians and our patients." Jeste acknowledged in his letter the "risks of changing categories and criteria," but maintained that doing so was necessary due to the emergence of "a wealth of new studies on epidemiology, neurobiology, psychopathology, and treatment of various mental illnesses" that changed the way that the APA now looks at certain disorders and diagnostics.

The goal of the change, according to the Huffington Post, was to "simplify diagnosis."

2. The 2nd school believes that the federal government simply wants to reduce the number of diagnoses so they won't have to pay for Autism cares. This helps to reduce their overall budget and lower the debt ceiling to increase their credit rating.

I had to deal once with a family who all seemed to have this. They would argue aggressively with their employees, contractors, myself and any other people they had to deal with. They only wanted their way and if you still disagreed, they would turn to passive resistance.

I don't know what causes it, but maybe its tied to stress. Also maybe there is a link to Narcissism?

Simplest way to deal with them is not to argue and agree with them, but of course this is not always possible. I found often they need a lot of extra attention, help and supervision in order to get them to cooperate on something. Maybe its just severe attention seeking..

I have ODD and I can't really help in the ways of dealing with your friend. I only know my "triggers", at least a couple of them. I was abused a lot as a kid and was never allowed to talk back or even defend myself verbally or physically. I was always constrained by my parents and whipped into shape. In school, my teachers would try these types of things with me and something in me just triggers. It's like "I get enough of this s**t at home and you're REALLY going to pull this on me HERE! THE ONE PLACE I CAN BE AWAY FROM THEM?" If you can imagine a feeling from that sentence I suppose it would be outrage, frustration, overall being fed up. Once I'm fired up, it's very hard to get myself to cool down. In my eyes, this person is an enemy now. I don't care what it takes, I want this person to know not to mess with me, not to talk to me, not to even so much as give me a dirty look. So what did I do in these instances? I would fight, verbally abuse, maybe threaten their life with an object. They would call the cops on me, cops only see the side of the person who called them and don't understand how I feel and I'm too fired up to help them see. They take me down, I now have a seething hatred of not only my teacher/s but police men. Depending on the situation I'll feel incredibly resentful after or feel proud that I shoved that a**hole's foot in their mouth.

It's so horrible, I still struggle with it today so I isolate myself from society heavily. I can't tell you how to diffuse it, but if you can avoid it; I recommend you do. Try to get her to see you as an equal, friend, comforting person. Rather then some authoritive father figure whom is looking out for her best interest. You get her fired up, you'll only be visualized as everything she hates.

Some interesting insight, to say the least. I hate to give a one-sentence reply, though I don't know of what else to say.
She is part of my family, adopted at 9 months old from China, when I was 8.
I'm not sure if you're asking me to agree with everything she says/thinks/wants to happen, though if that is the case, I find it incredibly difficult to let something slide past me, that I know is wrong, that is (somewhat) my business. The other side of this is if I am at a library, or any public place, and a child is misbehaving, I will hold my tongue and let their parents deal with it.

everything I've heard about how to deal with ODD is to pick your battles. if what kaylee is doing won't end someone up in the ER or with a bill they can't pay, let her do it. she'll learn that you're not "the enemy" and that when you speak, it's important.

Yes for people with this, they just respond very negatively to authoritative behaviour or any sort of hostility. Arguing with them only fans the flames. You have to present your point of view in a way that doesn't appear to be forceful or prescriptive, if you can get them to listen. This goes for dealing with just about anybody as well.

Have you heard of Pathological Demand Avoidance?

I mention because pretty much every PDAer would meet criteria for ODD, and many PDA kids have siblings who are non-PDA autistic. So whenever I hear of a person who is on the spectrum or related to someone on the spectrum and shows ODD tendencies, I think of PDA as a possibility.

If you follow the link I provided above, it has a detailed description of the condition, as well as advice about how to manage it.

No, that's one of my younger brothers.
*sigh*
Also a completely different topic. He belongs in a psych. ward, and has been, for 3 short-term stays (3 days). But what does the gov't do? They put him in foster care, where he receives allowance, all the "cool" clothes he wants (he thinks he's king-of-the-hill, I've been saying he's gonna get his teeth knocked down his throat one of these days), gets video games, gets a Hummer (which isn't that big of a deal, admittedly, but at home, we have a large van, that is certainly not "cool"). Because of this, I highly doubt he will "flip" any time soon. Why would he? He has all the reason not to. This being said, the foster parents gave him a winter coat with Eeyore on it, and he did not say a word. If that were to happen at our house, half the family would surely be dead. All this tells me that he is, in fact, in control of his body/mind/emotions, and that he chooses when to react badly.

I've read the best approach for ODD in children (not adolescents) is always praising them for what they did well and exactly telling them what they did well and encouraging them to do so in the future.
I don't know if that's of any use in adolescence though.