Bipolar Children

Bipolar and a Missed Dose of Meds

Our granddaughter, Allison, usually spend a few nights a week with us, as her mother works those nights. Since she is not here on a regular basis, it is a different schedule for me. I know the importance of all the schedules we must keep while she is with us, and know well what I will cause if I forget things. Her medicines are the most important and not so difficult to remember. Luckily, she has only one medication to take in the morning and one before bedtime. Last Thursday, we got up as usual to get ready for the bus, and found that school was delayed two hours due to flooding in the area. She wanted to play on the computer and the first thing I knew the bus was coming and we had to hurry. Out the door I sent her , and about 2:00 in the afternoon, I realized we had forgotten the morning meds. Oh boy! I immediately confessed to my daughter, and she said, “Well, I ‘m glad you have her tonight!”. Allison is ten, in the fifth grade, and does very well in school, but needs some help with homework, usually more prodding than help. She emerged from the bus skipping and was singing by the time she reached the door. She was in a wonderful mood in her mind, but you can’t imagine the confusion our evening held. She had so much homework, that we started at 4:30 and because of her lack of concentration, it was 7:45 by the time she was finished. She couldn’t quit singing and the laughter was constant, and she really didn’t know what she was laughing about. Just everything was hysterical! She was hiding and jumping out to scare us, had all of her toy dinosaurs out and was playacting with them, making all of the funny noises she could come up with, humming, talking nonstop, all with an uncontrollable surge of energy. All the while we were trying to get homework finished. Bedtime came and of course she was not ready, and it looked like it could be a long time before she would be. I had to go to sleep, so I left her playing in her room. At 2:30 in the morning the hall and bath lights were on and she was just getting tired. She did finally go to sleep, and luckily school was cancelled for Friday, again due to flooding. It would have been possible to get her up and going if we had needed to, although she would have had a very slow day. This is just one example of what it is like to be bipolar and miss a dose of meds.

Bipolar and Impulsive Spending

The day before New Year’s Eve, my daughter, went out and had hair extensions put in her hair. She was only able to keep them in for three days because the metal clips used to attach each extension was making her head itch??!! As close as I can figure they must have cost at least five hundred dollars to buy and have attached. Now, they are in a box on the floor of her closet unable to be used. The only reason I give this price is that I later ran into the hair stylist and she made the comment that she could have taken a little trip to the city for the price Brandy paid. What!! Now it could have been more or less, it really doesn’t matter, and I am not sure I want to know the real cost. What really matters is that she didn’t have gas money to get to work the next day. This is a real problem of a bipolar person who is suffering from mania. Brandy spends wildly with no thought of tomorrow, and this doesn’t happen just once in a while, it happens on a daily basis. She spends whatever is in her pocket, or in mine, or whatever she can borrow from a friend. She is the same as a drug addict, except instead of illegal drugs, she buys legal products. She loves to shop and anyplace will do. If the product is one she desires, she buys one in every color or size. She once handed down some jeans to me and there were nine pair just alike, except there were 3 pair each in size six, eight, and ten. Her excuse was that she really liked them and didn’t know what her weight might do, and was afraid they would be discontinued. They all still had the price tags on. The last time she moved, she was cleaning out a dresser drawer, and threw away four brand new containers of deodorant. I gathered them up, as I am not that picky, but her excuse was she didn’t care for the scent!!?? Why would you buy four and not know if you liked the scent? That is the way she is though, and one of her favorite places to shop is Sam’s Club, because everything comes in large quantities. I say, “that is the way she is”, but the reality is that she is severely bipolar, and impulsive spending is one of the symptoms.

A Bipolar Life with Cloth Napkins (My secret reason)

I truly do love naking cloth napkins because they are pretty and they make me feel special, but there is one more reason why I love making cloth napkins. They give me a reason to keep going, and they give me peace of mind and make me feel happy. Happy, because if I am not involved in doing something fun and creative, my mind sinks to a really low spot. Why, you ask, because I happen to live in a very Bipolar world. I don’t know from one day to the next what is going to happen. What I think is going to happen, probably will be something else in a short time. My husband and I have found that any time we can achieve peace, we take it and run. Cloth Napkins (My secret reason)

For any family, managing a life filled with Bipolar Disorder, is extremely tough. The illness creates havoc for everyone, not just the person who has been diagnosed. It will disrupt all areas of your day to day existence, including family life, work routine, school attendance, sleep, and friendships. Even though before the diagnosis, your life was a mess, at least now you have the chance to know why it has been as it is. Just understanding what anyone is going through is very hard as there are many different variations of this illness. All three of my children have been diagnosed as well as my granddaughter, myself and my niece. We all suffer from varying degrees of depression and mania. It was a blessing to know what was wrong with our family, but then came the time to understand why. I purchased every book that I could get my hands on to read, I searched the Internet and scoured the library for any information. So many of the books and articles I found were written for professionals, not for the ordinary, medically uneducated person. At last I found what I consider to be my set of “bibles”, my guides to all of my questions. Top Three Books for Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar Disorder Symptoms in Children

First off, I am not a doctor, I am a member of a very bipolar family. My father, my brother, a niece, myself, my three children and a ten year old granddaughter have all been diagnosed as bipolar. I have seen most all sides of Bipolar Disorder and only want to spread the word so more people can receive the proper treatment before it is to late. I do not intend to diagnose or teach you to diagnose, but to help you look carefully at the symptoms that I have witnessed . If you can relate some of these issues to your child, then you need to seek professional guidance. In the article “Bipolar Symptoms” the symptoms of adults with this disorder were discussed. Now let’s talk about children with Bipolar Disorder, because the symptoms they exhibit are somewhat different. It wasn’t until a good friend gave me the book “The Bipolar Child” by Demitri Papolos, M.D., and Janice Papolos, that I really understood. A child will show many signs that to other parents or persons might just look like a huge behavioral problem or a case of bad parenting. It is so easy for any of us to watch as a child throws a tantrum in the mall and deduce that the parent just hasn’t taught that child the word “no”. With a child suffering from bipolar disorder, the word “no” almost always triggers a major rage, a storm of the greatest proportion, with kicking, biting, hitting, screaming, throwing things, and this could go on for hours. A parent of a child like that does not want to say “no”. It isn’t worth it unless it is an incident that could possibly cause that child great harm. There is a wonderful book on the market that can sometimes help a parent deal with these rages titled “The Explosive Child” by Ross W. Greene, a well-known parenting expert. He shows you how to sort out the triggers into three baskets, A: zero tolerance, B: work together, and C: let is slide. It is a remarkable book that teaches parents and the child to work on the problems and come up with solutions that everyone can live with. Continue Reading Bipolar Disorder Symptoms in Children

Bipolar Symptoms

Bipolar Disorder is a serious and chronic illness, with a high risk of suicide. It is a mood disorder that is often misdiagnosed as depression, and if antidepressants or stimulants are prescribed, they can worsen the illness not make it better. Bipolar Disorder, also known as Manic-depression, has been around for a long time, and more common in adults that any other age group. Recently though more people are being diagnosed at a younger age, even as young as four or five years. There is a lot of skepticism that a diagnosis at that young of an age can be accurate. The symptoms of the illness in adults is different than it portrays in young children.

In adults, one of the early signs might be hypomania. The person will exhibit a very high level of energy, excessive irritability, impulsive behavior, and an unusual amount of moodiness. In this state, the individual will feel really good, sleep very little, talk a lot, think they can do no wrong, and have almost a God-like attitude. They will feel beautiful and smart, and because of these wonderful feelings, they will often deny that anything is wrong. Another early sign is drug or alcohol abuse. The person may feel that something isn’t quite right and they try anything to make these feeling go away. In these cases the symptoms only worsen as time goes by unless treatment is started. Continue Reading Bipolar Symptoms

Bipolar Disorder in Children

Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder, commonly known as manic-depression. It has only been recently that this illness has been an acceptable diagnosis in children. For the most part children were labeled as problem children and more often than not the parents were just accused of bad parenting. There are a lot of childhood psychiatric illnesses that have freely been recognized for years, such as ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Tourette’s syndrome, and it is often that Bipolar Disorder is overlooked because of the mixed signals of these other childhood illnesses.

Children don’t exhibit the same bipolar symptoms as those that we commonly think of in relation to adults. In children it seems that they all have several traits in common. They are all oppositional, you say yes, they say no, and them the rage starts. They can go on for hours with screaming and wailing. Nothing stopped it. I learned on my own that it was just best to let them get it out and watch that they were not hurting themselves. This was all before I had ever hear of Bipolar Disorder or any other disorder for that matter. I just thought we had behavioral problems and that I was a bad parent. It is easy to look back now and see what was going on. Most children with BP just can’t switch gears easily, meaning that you can’t just expect them to drop whatever they are doing to go to the mall, the store, school or even the bath. They need time to prepare for it. We still give our granddaughter a count down of sorts. A half hour, fifteen minutes, ten minutes, whatever is necessary and then by the time the countdown ends, she is as ready as she can be. Continue Reading Bipolar Disorder in Children

The Storm in my Brain
There is a terrific little booklet that was given to me by my granddaughter Katelun’s psychiatrist. The title is “The Storm in my Brain” and you can view and download it online. If you even think you have a child with this problem, it is well worth the read. The booklet gives great tips for the child, for the parent and also for the child’s teacher. We gave a copy of it to Katelun’s teacher and she was so eager to cooperate. The booklet is written for children to help them with their questions and concerns. It explains a lot of feelings to the child that they might not have understood before. It tells them what a mood disorder is and how it might possibly make them feel. It tells them how they will feel as they are getting better and plainly describes to the child in terms that they can understand, what depression is, what mania is, and how to ask for help when they feel the storm coming on. Continue reading tips for bipolar kids