ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — His mother is direct and matter-of-fact about her son over the phone.
Severe anxiety. Depression. Voices and visions in his head. Suicidal at age 4.
I, too, have a 4-year-old child. I wonder, is that even possible?
Jennifer Cristini is calm and methodical in our first phone conversation. She says it's from years of repeating these same symptoms and stories to doctors, teachers, neighbors and friends.
I imagine their reaction must be similar to mine: dismay, sadness and helplessness.
"But there's no sympathy," says Cristini.
It's hard to imagine how anyone cannot be sympathetic when they first meet 10-year-old Giovanni Cristini, or Gianni, as his family has called him since he was adopted at birth.
He looks younger than 10, with cherubic cheeks and freckles dotting his nose. His adult teeth are too large for his face, which breaks widely into a smile when you talk about his favorite Pokemon, Pikachu. His hair is curly and a little unruly from recess with his friends.
Do you know what you have? "I have bipolar," Gianni says to me, looking down and rocking. He has a little nervous energy and hard time focusing. But like many children his age, he just wants to please.
I can feel his mom, who is standing several feet away from us, flinch. She doesn't like coarse language from her children.
Gianni says the word loudly, his tone serious and adult. He wants me to understand: "They're just not friendly," he stresses, emphasizing every word.
I know he's telling me the truth, but it's still hard to believe — maybe because he's so young and innocent-looking. It's hard to imagine terrifying demons in a child this small.
Then Cristini hands me a thumb drive with some home video. She couldn't possibly capture every episode. These are just a few from the last few years.
Gianni is younger in the video, maybe 7 years old. He looks even smaller but the sound coming out of him is the bloodcurdling screams of horror movies. It is sheer terror coming out of a pint-sized human.
"They're not going!" Gianni screams on the video, his arm extended at the ghosts in front of him.
Gianni's father lays his body over his son. The weight and pressure calm him, he explains to me.
You can hear his mother's voice, even and calm on the video as she coaxes Gianni to practice his breathing.
"I'm just trying to get the fire in his brain out," she says.
Cristini is as calm with me as her voice is on the video. She is statuesque, with the sort of remarkable beauty that opens doors and others assume reflects a life of ease. It hides the amount of practice she's had dealing with her child's psychotic rages.
Gianni has been with the Cristinis — Jennifer and her husband, Vittorio — since he was born. Jennifer Cristini carried him out of the hospital in her arms, as ecstatic as if she'd carried and birthed him herself. Gianni may be adopted, but there is no question that he is a Cristini, down to the Italian first name his father — a Rome native — gave him.
The Cristinis were like any new parents, nervous and a little overprotective of their first child. They rejoiced when he walked at 10 months. He's ahead of the curve, thought his mother proudly. With curly hair, his eyes brown and wide, the little boy was perfect in every way to his parents.
But when her son was as young as 18 months, Jennifer Cristini began looking up childhood behavior regularly on the Web.
Like most new mothers, she wasn't sure if the behavior her son was exhibiting was normal. Most mothers only look here and there out of a brief moment of anxiety. But it was all Cristini researched on the Web.
Her beautiful boy was obsessive about toys and clothing. He demanded the same shirt every morning and threw a tantrum if it wasn't ready. And it wasn't just crying; it was like the end of his world. They didn't ever stop; they just kept getting worse.
When Gianni stopped sleeping because of his rages, his mother was terrified. All the parenting books said sleep was as important as nutrition. Why wouldn't he sleep?
And these weren't night terrors that kept her boy up at night. His parents were terrified of sleeping themselves.
The Cristinis' pediatrician sent him to a specialist. The waiting list was a year.
The doctors first thought Gianni might be on the autism spectrum, although he didn't quite fit the profile. Cristini still leapt at the diagnosis, because it allowed her to make an appointment with another specialist.
When he was almost 5 years old, a doctor prescribed him an antidepressant. The doctor didn't know what was wrong with Gianni and thought maybe it was an attention problem or a depression issue.
The drug wasn't tested on children, because of the obvious ethical complications. Cristini was nervous.
She watched Gianni take the pill. It took only an hour for her to realize what a terrible mistake it was.
The doctor's office suggested another specialist. And then another waiting list.
There was a doctor who warned Cristini her son wouldn't amount to much so she should just get used to it.
Then there was the doctor who prescribed Gianni a drug even though he'd never seen him in person.
It is little wonder Cristini has a gallon-sized plastic bag of prescription bottles, all with Gianni's name on them. Many of the bottles still have pills in them.
"You try a medicine and it works for one day, or two days, maybe a week, and then it stops working," says Cristini, her frustration visible as she holds up the bottles.
The Cristinis blame an entire culture and medical field that lacks research or compassion toward children with mental illness.
Despite the numbers, public schools struggle to cope with mentally ill children. Gianni attends Pathways Academy, a rare private institution in Albuquerque that accepts mentally ill children. At this small school, being bipolar or schizophrenic doesn't make you too dangerous to educate.
Pathways was started 11 years ago by a parent frustrated by the lack of resources in public schools for her two special-needs children.
The school is a lifesaver for the Cristinis, who want desperately for Gianni to socialize with other children.
Vittorio Cristini, a scientist in cancer research, says a school infrastructure for mentally ill children is more important to him than any cure. "Gianni needs a place where he can thrive," he says.
Like most scientists, he is a rational man. He understands the biology of his son's illness. You're almost distracted by the rolling Italian accent covering every word, until the seriousness of his words land.
But with every day that passes, Gianni grows stronger while his parents grow older.
He has frightened his father and mother. "He's threatened to kill us. He says 'I want you dead, I want to kill you. I want you out of my life.' And he comes after us," says Jennifer Cristini. She's heard it so often that she can't say how many times her son has screamed those threats at her.
The parents worry about protecting their other two children, 5-year-old Tizita and 7-year-old Gabriella. They both know their brother has been diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenic affective disorder. At least, that's the current diagnosis.
Tizita grabbed me by the hand and took me to her room, filled with the telltale dollhouse and pink blankets of a little girl.
Her brother's room is next door and she loves to run into his room. But when Gianni is in the middle of a psychotic rage, "sometimes I come in my room and hide," she says.
"He isn't getting better," says Jennifer Cristini. "We see his mental illness getting worse every year. You hope for everything but you have to be realistic.
She says she wants CNN to come into her home and share her family's personal story so other parents don't feel alone. She wants pediatricians, schools and her community to change.
Cause he don't know duh baby daddy….
By no means am am I doctor of any sort, but reading this I feel as if I should bring up the fact that a mental illness may not be playing a part in this situation. I'm not saying that it isn't possible, but maybe try a different path. Spirits and/or demons tend to feel a childs fear. When the voices come tell him to not fear them, breathe, imagine a bubble around himself and nothing can get inside his bubble, and then to tell the voices to go away and leave him alone.. When it comes to things like this we tend to look past the fact that when people hear voices that it may not be a mental illness and it could be real, we are just so quick to label people and children with an illness because we understand more about it and can explain it better than if we were to say they can hear ghosts..
The system will support him and try to fix him and then he'll grow up to be a mass murderer because he forgot to take his medicine. Get rid of him now.
Such a sad situation. I fear for the safety of this family. They might have to check into getting him hospitalized. I know that's probably the last thing they want but they have to keep the 2 other children safe. Praying for a complete healing for this little boy.
A friend pod mine was having severe behavioral issues with her child. The doctor wanted to prescribe drugs….she refused and chose to change his diet. I don't remember the name of it…..its a Jewish last name….diet.
I'm appalled at the ridiculousness of some of the comments. I am a psychiatric nurse and the mother of a child that I took in after being severely abused and neglected by his alcoholic, drug addicted "mother". Needless to say, this child had issues. Let's see, after a month in a children's psychiatric facility this child was diagnosed with ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and bipolar disorder. Many years, many thousands of dollars, many medications and many hours of psychotherapy and behavioral therapy later, this child is living a normal life. I remember all too well the psychiatric breaks and the other kids running for cover. I remember the suicidal and homicidal threats. I remember the multitude of bruises I was covered in.
Though our experience was different in the birth circumstances and it doesn't sound as if he was subjected to what my son was, the result was the same. Organic changes in the brain chemistry causing psychiatric symptoms. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder are disorders involving neurotransmitters in the brain, mostly dopamine or serotonin and/or norepinephrine. I wish I could reach out to this family and give them hope … or at least a sounding board. Mental Health Funding is being slashed at a federal and state level to the point that it's taking months to get appointments unless you're have good insurance and can go to a private psychiatry office. Even with insurance, treatment is expensive. Also, doctors have to be very careful with children utilizing these powerful drugs that really aren't made for kids and aren't always predictable in kids.
They have a long way to go. Hopefully he will have a good outcome like my son. But if not, hopefully they can get him connected with good mental health management to keep him as stable as possible. My heart goes out to this family and others like them. They didn't ask for this and certainly this child didn't ask for it.


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Castiarina maculicollis es una especie de escarabajo del género Castiarina, familia Buprestidae. Fue descrita científicamente por Carter en 1916.

Referencias

maculicollis

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