BIPOLAR DISORDER
ADHD (ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER)
ODD (OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER)
ANXIETY
Saturday, October 15, 2011
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Well everything he could pick up was thrown at me. He screamed he yelled and I sat helpless in the corner while he threw things at me. Once he ran out of things to throw I went over to him and picked him up and sat with him on the couch and cried as I tried to calm him down. I told him everything would be alright. I knew I couldn’t help him but I tried. It is the hardest thing to do is see your baby boy so out of control that there is nothing you can do but sit and hold him and cry with him. He had this look in his eyes. I knew that wasn’t my baby… I stopped the medicine right away. We stayed medicine free until he turned 6 yrs old in kindergarten.
So here comes kindergarten. Ahhh the year of hell as I refer to it. I was prepared so I thought. I had a packet from his preschool teachers with what worked and what didn’t work. I gave it to his teacher and made suggestions. His behavior got worse. We got a case manager at his pdoc who helped us get a BSC and TSS. His doctors had been recommending wrap around but no agency would help us until we got an advocate. I love her. Lauren is her name and we still have her. She has been really useful right now but more on that later.
He was suspended from school and the bus numerous times. Lets just say the week before Christmas break was a 3 day week. Ben was suspended on Monday and Wednesday of that week. I remember one time I got a call from the school to pick ben up. They were like “mrs betts your son took off his pants in the boys bathroom and preceded to hit another child with them” I laughed the whole way to school. I mean who does that??? My son. When I asked him why he did it he told me that the boy made fun of his pants. Ahhhhh makes sense (shaking head) um not really.
1st grade was better. We still had problems but not as many. His teacher was a gift sent from heaven. While everyone else in the school thought she was a mean witch my son and her got along well. He had problems focusing and paying attention but we had the TSS in school and at home. They have helped work wonders with Ben. Miss Nancy is his tss and Miss Tina is his BSC, I really believe having them has helped us all. Looking back at the progress he has made I am amazed,
Now he is in 2nd grade. This year is not starting off so good. This summer we ended up switching to vyvanse and that had the same effect as adderall. He has been extremely aggressive and just overall nasty. It isn’t my child. He has been hospitalized twice now and is in the hospital as I am typing this. The first time we got an additional dx of Anxiety and depression. I had to put him in the hospital because he threatened to hurt himself. They started him on meds that made him worse. When we got out of the hospital and went to school the first day he fell asleep and no one could wake him. So we took him to the ER to make sure he was okay. The next day he had a complete meltdown. Im talking major meltdown at school. The school had went into lockdown because of his behaviors. We had to call 911 and rush him to the Pysch ER which after 9 hours they told us we could take him home. Um really?? My child threatened to hurt numerous people and we can just take him home. Well that lasted 4 days to when he went into a meltdown at home threatening to hurt his father and me. I was trying to give him his meds when I heard “I’m going to kill him.” Looked over and he had a knife to his throat. I had to call 911. Well they kept him this time. Now we have a dx of “at risk” for bipolar disorder. He was on Zoloft started at the 1st hospital, that made him manic.
To be continued.....
From the beginning
I’m Kelly. I am 30 yrs old. At 12 yrs old I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. At 23 yrs old I was diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder, better known as, Bipolar II disorder. All those years, I wasn’t really going crazy I was already there. I am married and have two children, Ben who is 7 yrs old, and Cece who is 9 yrs old.
I am writing this blog to help me deal with my son’s conditions and if I can help anyone else, that would be great. This may be heard to read at times but this is what I live through and how I feel. If anyone is offended I am sorry but the truth is ugly sometimes. Living with it also sucks. We take things minute by minute because day by day is too much time for things to change. Anyone who knows anything about Bipolar disorder will agree. Minute by minute it is…
Ben was a very happy, calm baby. Until he was 9 months old that is. At 9 months old he got up and ran across the room. Literally ran did not walk did not stop to pass go. HE RAN, After his older sister to be exact. He never even really crawled. He did a military crawl for a month or so but never on his hands and knees. He never really had a 1st step he had many…..
Ben struggled with sitting still and getting into everything. He was very aggressive and seemed to love it when he hurt someone. If ignored he would go and get something BIGGER and heavier to hit you with until you screamed “Ouch”.
Pain didn’t seem to bother him/ He had burned his hands on the stove and would go right back to trying to touch the stove. We had many visits to the ER with him, so many that the doctors knew us. That is not always a good thing. LOL. I was worried about taking him to the ER so often. I was worried that they would call CYS on us like we were abusing our child. Luckily we had the paper trail behind us saying he was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD but even know the worry is still there. I hate that my child hurts himself. I hate that there is nothing I can do to help him stop it.
At 2 yrs 9 months, we took him to the local children’s hospital’s child development unit. There we were told 2 things:
1.) He couldn’t be screened or tested for autism because he wouldn’t cooperate. (duh that’s why we were there) and
2.) He was too young to be officially diagnosed with ADHD so we got a dx’ed with pre-ADHD.
At 4 yrs old he was officially dx’ed with ADHD and ODD. We were referred to our local universities psychology center. We worked with them they didn’t seem to help. I mean he couldn’t sit still long enough to listen to us so how could they help/ We were against medicating him, but after dealing with his impulsive behavior for so long we caved in. We decided to try Adderall.
Too be continued
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