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!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Weary

This new schedule is killing me.  I am not sure I like the different schedules and pick up times every day for school.  I don't know if I would do this again next year (or even next semester).  It is early in the year, I know, but the amount of driving I am doing between home and school and school and appointments and home and sports and ballet is unbelievable!!  I spend my life in the car and it is stressing me out more than ever.  I have no time to do laundry, clean, organize, etc. so my house is looking worse and worse.  And the girls don't really have time to help that much because of homework and sports and tutoring sessions and  babysitting and church stuff too.  If we stay here and like this school enough, we just need to move next door to it and find a closer ballet studio or something.  Or find a different small, affordable school they can all go to for the same amount of time every day! And I am trying to faithfully work out at the gym three or four days a week.  Just too much for one Mom!  I had a big boo-hoo session today telling my husband how much I don't like my life right now.  Poor guy.  No job and he has to hear his wife complain about the whole world today.  I can't even imagine myself working even part time right now because I have a full time job just managing the house and kids!  I don't know how moms with more than one kid manage a full-time job and everything else.  I couldn't do it.  At all.

Caroline seems kind of down, and I think the Seroquel increase might be to blame.  She seemed sunnier before the increase, so we may need to go back down again to 600 mg.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Boy can I relate. I started crying in church on Sunday and couldn't stop. Some days, it's just tough being a mom!

September 14, 2011 at 7:15 PM

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