Parents fear for young daughter's safety as her behavior changes dramatically: 20/20 Jul 20 Part 1

imagine that this is your house imagine that it is your family in the middle of a crisis I kept thinking what is happening with my son explosive erratic

behavior

developing a Jekyll and Hyde transformation overnight when he was four years old it was just swings very dramatic and unnecessary for the situation she was throwing tantrums for an hour. There have been times when I was there for an hour and a half, two hours. Alexia Bear hasn't always been so volatile. Her mother Vanessa, a special needs teacher. Her father, Brian, an accountant and older. Sister Kyla welcomed a very typical little girl to her loving home outside of Chicago.

This is her shortly after she was born and you can even see that she is a happy baby, you know, always laughing, smiling, what kind of pre-K student she was. she came home telling us it was great I love my teachers I love school you know listing every friend in the classroom she was on the right path she was even advanced in different areas she was just a 4 year old on the right path until the winter of 2014 when, as always, the petri dish of germs also known as preschool claimed its first victim and that's when her mother says Alexia's simple sore throat became sinister, that she didn't really want to wake up from a nap and had a mild fever and what did the doctor say, no big deal, just regular strep throat, a typical course of antibiotics got the strap working quickly but interestingly, at the same time the infection went away, too Little Alexia's cheerful character did it and for how long. until she saw a change, it was less than two days later, it was defiance and OCD, she suddenly seemed angry.

It hits overnight, yes, a lot of screaming, a lot of hitting and kicking. Alarmed adults, teachers isolating Alexia from the other preschoolers even resorting to using bookshelves as barricades, took these chilling images of a classroom in chaos. Furniture was tipping over toy bins being thrown or thrown at people when we were trying to keep her safe in a secluded area she just kept lifting it and lifting it they had to call the social worker this environmentalist what's going on in your mind a lot of guilt and guilt you know personal guilt about what I'm doing wrong and how we can help the principal AJ McCree says the prevailing wisdom about a child suddenly behaving badly usually means there are problems at home, but he says Alexia was an anomaly, when someone

changes

their temperament, we look to see something changing in the home, whether it's the

parents

separating, you know any violence that they may be exposed to like that and it just didn't seem to be the case with this family this just doesn't make sense you're a teacher. special needs you specialize exactly in de-escalation and yet your child is out of control yes and I don't know how to de-escalate my own child, but things would become more dire when the prolonged tantrums turned into threats to her family and herself.

At one point the four year old even talked about suicide and told my six year old

daughter

that you have to stay in your room because I don't know what your sister is capable of, it was heartbreaking and she knew it the whole time, You know, she had told me that something was wrong with Alexia's brain, she knew it, so in a strange way, she wasn't even blaming her snow, you know she was. this connection and she was telling me like something had happened because she this is not my sister, I mean, Trey Alexia herself knew something was wrong: what are you doing?

She cried and said mommy, why can't I be good? I just want to be good and You know, that broke my heart and you had started recording episodes, yeah, why he wasn't home much so I didn't see him and you know a lot of times it was like I was writing him off at first. working 50 60 hours a week I can't be on the phone with you for an hour talking to you every day help you deal with these situations like before I really recognized what it was that it wasn't something she could deal with alone three months of relentless emotional distress and then a simple run for smoothies becomes the final straw.

Can I have three small shamrock shakes? Vanessa takes her

daughter

s to a seemingly routine stop for a midweek treat until Alexia insists on a few seconds, she said Mommy, give me your smoothie and I'll. She said no and then she counted one, two, three and then I heard a click. The girl unbuckles her car seat and starts rummaging through her mother's purse. As I raised my head, she was stabbing me in the eye with my mascara wand. I was afraid. I was afraid. for our

safety

, this is not normal, you know, four year olds don't unbuckle their seatbelt in the car to stab their mom in the eye with a mascara wand over a smoothie, you weren't sure you could do it. . getting home I wasn't safe no I didn't feel like I was safe that Kyla was safe or that Alexia was even safe from herself with no options the desperate

parents

finally did what to them had been unthinkable you had to put your four-year-old Yes, in a psychiatric ward, the hardest nine days of my life, we could only see her for an hour a day.

She was allowed to call us once a day. I know how we made those phone calls she received on Wednesday and she cried all the time. For me, you know why you left me. I need you, I need you to come back after those unbearable nine days in the psychiatric ward. She just had a lot of prescription psychiatric medications to show for it. Did the drugs work? No, no, they made her feel like. a shell of her person when she was taking this medication, all that happiness disappeared when 2020 continues, someone else suffers from the same strange illness and it's all on a home video too, but unlike Alexia, this girl suffers in silence, which Is it the connection we had?

Neuropsychological evaluation was performed. She asked them if there is anything else they think she should know. When I said, well, she also had strep right before all this happened and she stopped typing on our computer. She turned around, looked at him and said, Are you serious? Hello everyone, George. Stephanopoulos here, thanks for visiting the ABC News YouTube channel. For more video highlights from the show and live event coverage, click right here to subscribe to our channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching