Jake's Story

I figured in order for me to tell you about all things Bipolar, I better start off with telling you about Jake and the journey we have had to endure to get us to where we are today.

Jake is an only child and is growing up in a broken family. He lives with me full time and spends time with his dad on the weekends, holidays and extended visits in the summer. (Most people would stop me right here and say that these may be the reasons for his Bipolar, nature vs nurture and all).. He was a very happy and easy baby and hit all of his developmental milestones early or on time. During his toddler years, we hit the terrible 2's and I guess that's where things started to get noticed. He never grew out of them. At 3/4 years old, he was acting out and being aggressive towards piers ( more so than normal and for no apparent reason). After being kicked out of 2-3 day care centers for hurting students/teachers, we finally found one where the Director was able to step up and talk to me one day that my child may have a problem. So we took our first steps down this long road and started looking into having him tested/evaluated. I did some research on the doctors in the area and asked for recommendations and I finally decided on our first doctor. He was tested and at 4 years old was diagnosed with ADHD and a few other non-specified disorders. He would fit certain criteria for a few different ones but not enough to actually be classified with the diagnosis.
Over the next 4 years, we would switch doctors 3-4 more times, each time they would either change or add to the diagnosis. We heard ODD, Aspbergers, OCD, and a few others. I felt at times that we were just throwing darts on a dart board and going with whatever diagnosis we landed on for that day. Of course, along with the changes in diagnosis, came the changes in medicines. I can't even honestly tell you how many we have tried. There are some great ones out there and we have had luck with a few working for a good amount of time. Then he builds up a tolerance for them and they stop working. Or the other med issue we had was that he has spent a lot of time on more than 1 at a time and we came to find out that some of the combo's were either contradicting each other & not working at all or they were actually making him worse. Not to mention family and friends who don't really buy into the whole psychology thing with kids and that these kids just act this way from being spoiled or raised incorrectly. We had to deal with that for a long time and had several people who would not accept his diagnosis or be a part of his treatment. Others even blamed me.
Once it was time for school, he was tested and evaluated by the school and was placed in ED classes and an IEP was put in place. He is a very bright student but school has constantly been a struggle for him/us. He was always in trouble, spending time in isolation or being suspended. In second grade he was hospitalized for 10 days and in 3rd grade he was arrested for assaulting a teacher. We were really not seeing any improvement in the behavior and could not keep it under control. Plus always being in trouble or isolated upset him which would also cause more anger problems to surface. He has a hard time making and keeping friends and spends a lot of time playing by himself.
At age 8, after he was hospitalized, we had him reevaluated and this time the tests lead us to the Bipolar/ADHD/Anxiety/ODD Diagnosis. New meds, therapy and treatment to follow. Now we started focusing on social skills, how to control and handle anger and positive ways to express it. He was retaining all of the information from therapy and was able to learn these things, but there was still a problem. In the middle of a Rage, he seemed to forget everything he learned. We couldn't tell what his triggers were, what was setting him off and they always changed.
Over the next few years, we have stayed on course with the Bipolar treatment and meds and working on the social skills & anger management. We have had good days and bad ones. I can say that a few years ago, we would have episodes that lasted several hours/days and now we can go days without any episodes. When we do have them, they are very short and he is able to come out of them on his own. The one thing however is that he is getting older and stronger. Even though the episodes are short his level of aggression and destruction is very high. He has destroyed property in school and at home. Broken lamps, picture frames, remote controls, radios, clocks, etc. If he can pick it up, he will break it. There have been holes put in walls, blinds ripped out of windows and even a rear view mirror ripped out of a car.
Over the summer we moved into a new house which allowed him to change schools. So far we are very happy with the new house and neighborhood. In the old neighborhood the kids were all older than he was and used his diagnosis against him. They would intentionally anger him to set him off. One of them also broke into our home and stole all of his electronics. He hasn't made many friends in the new neighborhood or at school yet but he is trying. The new school is giving him a chance to prove himself and for him to have the chance to make right choices. But the choices are his to make (to a point). His last school basically just kept him locked up all the time in a room with 7 other kids just like him. In my opinion, this was a bad idea because they all fed off each other and did not have a chance to thrive in a normal environment. In his new school he has only been in the ED room for a little while for 1 day so far, the rest of the time he has been in regular classes all day long. I think that once things settle down and he is used to being back at school (he is still on summer mode a little bit) that this will be a very good fit for him and will give them the opportunity to be a huge success. I am so proud how hard he really is trying and hope that as he continues to grow and age, that he will be able to either overcome this all together or at least keep it under control. We still have a long road ahead of us but for right now, the road is smooth, the roadblocks are minimum and the speed seems pretty constant. But the thing about Bipolar, and the one thing we both know, that could change at any moment and we will just have to find a way around the roadblocks and deal with the bumps in the road as part of life.
I was blessed to be the mother of this wonderful child and I would not change a thing. Someone had enough faith in me to know that I was the right one for this job. Best job I'll ever have and one that I will never quit doing.

Stay tuned!