About our Daughter

I am mother to four wonderful daughters, ages 17, 19, 21, and 23, and wife to the greatest husband on earth. God has given us a special child to raise one who was diagnosed with early-onset bipolar disorder at the age of seven, though she showed signs of it from the age of fifteen months. She also has ADHD, Sensory Integration Disorder (sensory seeking), Dyslexia, and Non-Verbal Learning Disorder-NOS, all typical comorbidities for a bipolar child. In spite of the trials, she enjoys lacrosse, running (finished her first marathon in October of 2014!), and reading and writing her own books. I will share with you the many joys and sorrows we have faced and will face in the future with the hope that you may find better understanding about this mental illness caused by both chemical and structural abnormalities in the brain. I desire that you will be encouraged by this blog if you are also dealing with a bipolar child. Thank you for reading and sharing in our journey.

How Did You Know She Was Bipolar So Young?

I wrote a long explanation of how we came to this bipolar diagnosis in a child so young under my post of March 19th of 2009. If your child or a child you know bears similarities, please seek out a good psychiatrist and don't wait for "things to get better." Often they will simply get worse, and the longer a child is unmedicated, the more damage their brain can accrue. Early diagnoses and treatment are key to providing these children with a chance at a successful life later as a teen and an adult.
Never change, start or stop a medication without the approval of your child's physician!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Christmas Cards

Do you send Christmas cards, with an annual letter, maybe including a family photo every year? We used to, until our lives became so chaotic starting back around the time Caroline was four years old or so that I would start the task, and never finish it. I have several boxes upstairs of hundreds of prints of annual family photos, in envelopes, never addressed, some with stamps, some with the family letter, but all never sent. My dear friend Wendy who also has a bipolar/Aspergers child said she has the same stack of years of Christmas cards and photos, also never sent. We laughed and said we should send them all out this year with each of the old photos so everyone could see our good intentions. Last year I finally had it with my own lack of communication with my close friends of years past and individually wrote to each of them, with the most recent family photo enclosed. It felt SO GOOD to finally accomplish something that had been just too hard to do. And honestly, I was reaching out because we had experienced one nightmare after another regarding Caroline that year, and I was at such a low point. I received some wonderful replies and was thankful that my friends were forgiving of my silence over the last seven years. I wonder if I will be able to accomplish this task this year. We still need that family photo, which no one ever thinks is a good picture of them. Who cares, it is just a way of saying "Hey, look, we are still alive, the kids are growing, and we love you!"

2 comments:

Andrea said...

I can SO relate. I have addressed cards from when postage was less than 30 cents! Last year we did a Christmas blog and emailed friends to tell them to check it. This year, I am wondering if Facebook will suffice?:)

Miz Kizzle said...

Good for you. Many people use the annual Christmas card/photo as an opportunity to brag about their allegedly stellar children, their fabulous accomplishments and the family's world travels. Those kinds of communications are pathetic and boring. They don't fool anybody.
It's much more refreshing to get a family photo and a few highlights of what the year was like.
My husband and I are seriously thinking of donning ragged clothing, blackening our front teeth and posing with the kids for the annual brag photo in front of a tumbledown shack.