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, February 9, 2010

New Resources Added, Having "The Talk"

I added some links to a few more resources near and dear to my heart. One is to Young Life, an organization that my husband used to work for, and I volunteered with after college. YL has been around since 1939 reaching out to teenagers around the country and around the world. They even have a ministry to disabled and special needs teens called Caperneum. Check them out! They have the BEST summer camps in the nation!

Focus on the Family offers wonderful resources for families, including single parents, in all areas, including marriage, parenting, finances, addictions, etc. They offer phone counseling as well.

Many bipolar kids struggle with hypersexuality, and we have had to have lots of frank discussions in this area. We have used Preparing Your Daughter for Every Woman's Battle, and Preparing For Adolescence with our bp daughter, as well as Passport to Purity ( there is a book for just boys too, Preparing Your Son For Every Man's Battle.) I highly recommend doing what is suggested in these books and CDs, which is taking your daughter or son away for a special weekend to listen to the CDs and talk about all of the changes coming up, and about God's wonderful plan for sexuality, and the temptations they will encounter. I have done this with each of our three oldest, in varying degrees of depth depending on their age, but it has been a great bonding time for us. Don't leave anything to chance, or any stone uncovered if you want them to trust you later! We have seen positive results from starting these discussion while they were in their tweens.


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1 comment:

Andrea said...

hi megan, i am catching up on your recent posts. i have just becoming aware of Capernaum and hoping to start a group here in san diego. do you have a club there that your daughter attends? what has worked best? any tips for me. I figure we need 3 leaders to start so that's what we're praying for...

March 23, 2010 at 12:14 PM

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