My Bipolar Child: a whole new world

Since I launched this site I have not written about adoption and my family much. I think some of you are probably missing out on the joys that our new son has brought to our lives and many more of you are losing out on the lessons we are learning from the trials our older son brings to us each day.

Our oldest AJ is a very complicated child, one who from infancy probably baffled the Russian physicians. I know that he has confused just about every physician he has seen in the States. Hell, he confuses me and I live with him. In fact, I often don’t know which AJ will be joining me in the morning…will he be complacent, angry, frustrated, giddy, sad or anxious?

Or will he just be?

I write about my son often because there are parents everywhere in the same battles against childhood mental illnesses and families across the country still reeling from the aftereffects of institutional life. Will my son ever be able to grasp that I write about his medical and emotional issues and not just about adoption? I don’t know, but at this point in his life I feel that sharing his journey benefits too many families to not share.

So, what, you ask, is such a big deal?

Since Gus joined our family, AJ has been a mess. Then again, he has always been somewhat of a jumble, right? Sure. But this time I mean really a mess…manic, crazy, sleepless, aggressive  and unpredictably violent. A whirlwind of highs and lows.

We don’t take his behaviors lightly and we always, always act quickly.

We initially increased his Risperdal, an anti-psychotic that he started last year, but that did very little, so we returned to the list of current diagnoses and chose one to  treat (well, the psychiatrist did). We tried ADHD medications next.

Wrong choice.

Apparently in children with neurological issues like AJ’s, stimulants tend to work well; however, when the neurological issue is misdiagnosed, the stimulant will  backfire and have negative side effects.

Example: 65 percent of the children in our study had hypomanic, manic and aggressive reactions to stimulant medications.

On two different stimulants, AJ suffered from insomnia, aggression, anxiety, compulsive behaviors, paranoia and racing thoughts.  What is interesting is that studies show the same reactions in children similar to my son.

After seeing these reactions I started doing my own research (well, you know me…I did it before) and came to the early conclusion that we needed something other than a stimulant.  And we needed to find out if AJ was,  in fact, expressing bipolar behaviors.

I purchased two books: The Bipolar Child: The Definitive and Reassuring Guide to Childhood’s Most Misunderstood Disorder — Third Edition and Parenting a Bipolar Child: What to Do & Why.

As I silently flipped through the pages of information in the two books yesterday my heart sank into the depths of every part of me. It was so clear, so obvious. So painful.

So, so, so true.