Summer Guest Post #5 by Heather of Wearing Some1 Else's Shoes
"Sometimes you just
want to cry." my 13 year old Mikayla
said this to me this morning when I was doing my morning chores. I can't imagine
how she must feel. Hormones are surfacing for her. Plus Mikayla was diagnosed
with the last year with bipolar and mild Asperger’s. Being a teenage girl is
hard enough especially with body changes and your period starting and now she
has to understand her moods aren't the cause, but her bipolar and her
awkwardness is her Asperger’s. We don't use the word normal in this house since
no one on this planet is. But most of all since my beautiful child is struggling
to find normal I will not put a bar up for her to not be able to reach it. I
couldn't reach normalcy if I wanted, after all I am a mother of three kids. 13,
3, 7 months. Mikayla, My 13 year old is the brightest star in my sky. That is
what I tell her and that is the truth. She lights my world up. After she was
diagnosed it was as if someone turned a light switch on and I wasn't in the dark
anymore I now understood why she was the way she was as a child. She wouldn't
talk to anyone without me going up to them and making them her friend.
She had no imaginative
play. She would not try to learn how to do things like ride a bike or
roller-skate. She just learned how to ride a bike last year. She smiles at
awkward moments and laughs inappropriately. She doesn't understand jokes. She
has hygiene issues. She would have outbursts that were extreme over something so
small. I never really focused on all of these things till I had my middle child.
They are very much different as children are but this is different.
My middle
child, Emerald, has an extremely active imagination which makes me giggle when
she is playing. Emerald is 3 and is fearless. Whereas Mikayla is afraid of
everything and has to be forced to try new things. I am not comparing children
only giving a reference so you can see how I started to notice a difference in
her. I knew throughout her childhood that there was something going but could
never put my finger on it. Until last year in October when she told me she had a
plan to kill herself, this was after she had a screaming fit for hours. I
immediately took this serious and called hospitals to get her accessed. I had to
wait a few days and then she was accessed and put in inpatient. I did not like
that hospital but I had no choice since other hospitals were full to capacity.
She was then evaluated
and had testing to confirm their diagnosis of Bipolar and then she was put on
medication. For a while it was good and things were back to the way they were
before. (She has a counselor who comes to the house twice a week and does
intensive therapy with her to make sure she doesn’t have suicidal tendencies,
self-harm or homicidal thoughts).( I know I probably scared you with homicidal
thoughts, but she was planning my death last year and had been extremely
aggressive with me on a number of occasions.) Then June during counseling she
tells her counselor and myself that she attempted suicide and
trying choking herself. I was terrified. It was during the day when I was home
doing my chores. We took that seriously and she was put into inpatient again.
This time to a better hospital and they upped her medication, re-evaluated her
and diagnosed her with Bipolar again plus mild Asperger’s. They helped her out
so much in the two weeks she was there plus they did two weeks of outpatient to
teach her skills like how to stop negative thoughts. I loved how much she was
learning and how excited she was about it. It has been a hard time for her and
our family but it is getting easier. And we have a great team working with us.
I am very happy that
we found the light in the dark tunnel so that we could communicate better and
understand her more. I am so grateful for her. She is a great artist and a
loving child. It makes me sad that she is having a day where she wants to cry.
But I know that is her bipolar and sometimes she just feels that way. After
talking with her she feels better.
Heather has a Blog and a Facebook Page
