Posts tagged ‘BPD’

Just got back from my son’s “graduation”. As most parents know it is not a real graduation; kids now take part in these end of the school year celebrations as they get promoted to the next level. My son, Max, is now going into the third grade, and sixth grade reading. Yep, they tell me he is an excellent reader. Could have fooled me; he never cracks a book at home.

It was a nice ceremony which was held in the gym/auditorium/cafeteria; and lots of cakes for me to enjoy afterwards. Kids got their grade certificates and awards for different things. My little engineer got an award for all the awesome things he can make with paper, cardboard, staples, and duct tape. His teacher told us that just yesterday he made an electric guitar and amplifier for the band he and his classmates put together. He has it in his head that he is going to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) after high school.

This is a special school for kids like Max who have disorders such as bpd, odd, ocd, autism, etc. He gets picked up by a van that takes him to the school a hour away every day. Unlike regular schools these know how to handle him. In the local schools Max was always being suspended because he never could handle transitions well. He would have an outburst and four teachers would tackle him to hold him down. The same boy my 5′4″, 113 lbs disabled wife can settle down without all the extra artillery.

This school has a “quiet” room; kids that cannot control themselves spend time in there. In a year and a half Max has never been in that room. He does have bad days but he doesn’t ever want to spend time in there so he controls himself. Just today his teacher was telling us that she knows when he is angry with her because he will seethe but he won’t yell, scream, or get physical. She says she tells him that it is alright for him to be angry but she is proud of him for not expressing it. And as my wife says, he saves it until he gets home. We get the brunt of it.

Other kids have different issues and do spend time in that room; lots of it.

Then there are the kids that we can’t read. One little girl goes to school with Max on the same van. She seems very sweet. She calls me daddy and my wife mummy. She would love to spend time at our house and she is always hugging my wife. We don’t know what her issues are though she apparently doesn’t have parents and lives in a group home. My wife would adopt her in a minute but because she is disabled and Max has so many issues it would be difficult to take on another child.

And then there is Bobby, Max’s best friend. We haven’t figured out why he is there yet. He comes across as very easy going. Even when Max is having a melt down he will look at him and say “cut it out”; then one of two things happens. Max will either calm down or will accelerate. If he explodes Bobby doesn’t know what to do about it except ask to go home.

The boys love to play at our house. Bobby lives in an apartment complex for seniors that consists of just buildings and parking lots, no play areas. If Max goes there they spend all their time in the living room watching television. We dropped him off last night at dinnertime and he was calling us to come get him before we had even gotten home.

We are thinking that on top of everything else he might be claustrophobic. It is a small apartment and very dark. They keep the shades drawn and it smells of stale tobacco smoke. They can’t make any noise because they are the only kids in this huge apartment complex which is strictly for elderly folks. Generally there isn’t any supervision. Bobby’s mom works constantly and his stepdad just locks himself in his room and leaves the boys to their own devices, that is, the TV. At least at our house they can be outside and free.

So back at the graduation, there were lots of kids with a lot of disorders. I’ve heard complaints that some of these schools are spending so much time managing the disorders they really don’t have time to keep the kids up to their grade level. Parents definitely have to keep an eye on what is happening and make sure their kids are getting what they need. Max will be starting the MCAS training in third grade so we will be able to see if his school is keeping up.

But today all you could see were happy and excited children. It was a fun time and yes, dad ate a lot of those cakes. Don’t tell my wife!

In a previous post I introduced my friend Rob.  He is a recovering alcoholic who a doctor discovered had bipolar disorder and had been self medicating with alcohol and drugs for years.  He started drinking at 12 years old and is now in his mid forties.

Though his new medications for his disorder had been helping him I ended that last post saying that he was back in the hospital again.  I said I didn’t know when he was coming out but when he did I hoped that he would finally be able to accomplish his goals.

He lasted in the hospital for maybe two weeks and then checked himself out.  I didn’t know you could do that when you are going through a detox program but apparently you can.

The big question is: Why did he leave early?  I thought initially it was because he was either fed up with being in all these detox centers over the years or he had done something that caused him to be kicked out.  But it turns out that neither is the case.  Apparently he has been in contact with a woman through email that he has never met.  She was originally involved with a friend of his who had moved out west.

She and the friend had broken up and Rob decided to correspond with her.  They have spoken on the phone and swapped pictures but as yet have never met.  It has been perhaps a month now and the two of them have decided to move in together.  He bought a plane ticket and will be flying out there this Wednesday.

Since he left detox he has been living with his parents in a cramped two room apartment.  When he went into the hospital he lost the place he was living in.  Last week he and I drove down to where he was living and picked up his belongings.  We then stuffed his clothes, an air conditioner, and a bike, among other things, into his parents’ place.

During the ride I planned on talking to him about his trip.  He is throwing everything away: his schooling, his sponsor, his friends, and his family for a woman he has never met.  Before I could bring up the subject though he got very angry about some very innocuous thing and I thought he was going to become violent.  I decided not to bring up the subject.

This passed Saturday I had breakfast with his dad who has been a recovering alcoholic for 37 years.  I asked him why his son hadn’t joined us.  It seems Rob was asleep on the couch when dad left.  He shook his head; Rob is drinking again.  He said that before Rob got his bike his dad had some control over what he was doing.  I’m not sure how much control he had; his son is 47 years old after all.  The drinking became more pronounced when the bike showed up.  Now he is able to get to package stores and pick up bottles whenever he wants to.  Rob doesn’t have a driver’s license.

His dad made a sad comment, “His plane leaves on Wednesday.  I can’t wait for him to be gone.  I hope he never comes back.”

Does he mean this?  I can’t speak for him but I don’t think so.  Dad has worked hard for so many years to help his son.  He even opened his apartment up to him when Rob left the hospital.  And Dad understands the disease since he has it himself.

Rob’s sister is another story.  She is very angry with him for drinking again and doesn’t want anything more to do with him.  She cannot understand why Rob is unable to stop.  Perhaps she thinks it was easy for her dad to stop so it should be just as easy for her brother.  I don’t know but I know she has written him off.

I wish him well with his new woman and whatever he does with his alcohol.  I know I’ll miss him and my 8 year old son Max will miss him too; they are buddies.

I was talking to my therapist this morning.  I said “My family is unhappy.  My wife is unhappy.  My son is unhappy.”  In a quiet voice I followed that with, “and I’m unhappy”.  He had to get his hearing aids because he heard the first two statements but missed the third and thought maybe he just hadn’t heard it.  He got it the second time.

The three of us had a bit of trouble last night and I had been thinking about it on the trip to his office.  Why is everyone unhappy?

Before I get to that I want to mention the run in I had with a policeman this morning.  I was traveling down a main road that had breakdown lanes on each side.  I came to a point where there were trucks and backhoes working in the one on my side.  And of course there was the obligatory policeman.  He had stopped my lane of traffic so that trucks could move and men could sweep the street.  He was standing in the lane for oncoming traffic and he was signaling those cars to pass behind him in their breakdown lane.  This would seem that we would then have room to drive down a short distance on the lane he was standing in but we had to wait.

When he decided we could go he stepped into our lane and waved the cars on.  The oncoming cars were still traveling the breakdown lane so those in front of me pulled into the oncoming lane so they wouldn’t hit him.  As they passed him he began to scream, jump up and down, and point with both hands towards the lane he was standing in.

“Morons!  You are supposed to be driving in this lane!!  THIS LANE, IDIOTS!!”

After the first 3 cars passed him he jumped into the oncoming lane in front of me…good thing I was going slowly.

“Why are you following those morons??  Move over into that lane!” he said again pointing downwards with both hands.

I pulled my car into the correct lane and started to pass him.  I thanked him for directing me but that seemed to set him off more.

“You are a MORON for following THEM!!”

I responded “You’re a moron”.  Luckily my windows were closed.  When I thought about it later I wondered who the bigger moron was, us, or the person leading us.

I bring this story up because of the fact that I went from 0 to 60 in anger when this man yelled at me and called me a moron.  I certainly spent enough time worrying about him rather than about my family’s and my issues.  When I arrived at my therapist’s office I told him the story.  I brought up the question of depression again; am I depressed?  He doesn’t see it; he has told me this many times before.  I’ve also gone to doctors and they say the same thing; basically that I am sad, unhappy, and down in the dumps but I am not clinically depressed and the anger is a result of this.

I have a lot of things on my plate right now: no job, an 8 year old son with bipolar disorder, pdd/nos, and odd, and a wife with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.  The doctors believe once I get everything straightened out my mood will shift.  This is known as nonclinical depression.

On the other hand my wife has clinical depression.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) describes this as feeling sad, helpless, and hopeless.  She was taking medication for it but stopped when she became pregnant with Max.  After he was born she found that she couldn’t start taking it again because she was now getting a reaction from it.  She has tried many things since but nothing has helped.

And then there is Max; with his diagnoses and living with two parents who are unhappy what is a boy to do?  He already feels very different from other kids.  He has mood swings that bother him.  He’s constantly taking medicine that he doesn’t like.  And he has two parents that are very unhappy.  Even though they try to hide their feelings it still affects him.  As a result he is very unhappy and possibly depressed.

I would say that individually we are three depressed people but I find that combining us together is more than the sum of its parts.  We work off each other and things tend to get worse.  We become 3 times 3 times 3 depressed or depressed cubed.

What can we do about this?  Well, we are all in therapy separately.  We also have a family therapist.  My wife and I are looking for marriage counseling because as she said this morning we don’t want to divorce we just want to stop being unhappy.  I continue looking for work.  She is still looking for some medication that will provide relief while not killing her. And we both are continuing to find the best help for Max

My son Max, who is 8 years old, had needed a new bike for quite some time.  His previous bike is four years old and he had outgrown it.  We have wanted to get him one but money has been tight.   It seemed like a good time to suggest that he earn some of the money and we would pay half of the cost of the bike.

Max worked hard and the money he earned he pooled with birthday money ending up with a sizable chunk.  Before we went to the store we had one requirement: that he set aside some of that money for savings and then the rest we would take with us.  He fell in love with a mountain bike he found and happily discovered he had more than enough money to buy it.  This gave us room to buy him a new bicycle helmet to go along with it.

He is on that bike everyday, in the morning before he goes to school, in the afternoon when he gets home, and right after dinner.  He will even try to take it with him on outings.  On a recent cub scout overnight in a museum “Please Daddy pack it for me.”  Luckily there wasn’t any room.

Yesterday for whatever reason Max was going through my dresser drawers.  I found this out when he came running into the office all excited.  He had found my old pair of skin-tight bicycle shorts buried in the back of one of them.  Of course they were buried!  I haven’t worn them in 13 years.  Not only that I’m 53 years old now and have grown a couple more pounds since then.  But he convinced me to wear them for the big bike race he has planned.

When I put the shorts on my wife began to laugh uncontrollably, read ROFLMAO!!  Thanks a lot, not much support there.  It got worse when she decided that she needed pictures of the racers.  I tried to sneak off on the bike behind her back but both she and Max started yelling for me to come back.

After my biggest fan (um, yeah right) finished with the pictures Max and I were off to the races.  We headed to the track at the school down around the corner.  The plan was to have 12 separate heats and the one with the most wins gets this huge trophy.  How huge?  I don’t know; Max has kept it hidden.

Finally we were at the starting line.  There’s the count down.  And we’re off!  Down the track we go, around the bend, we were neck and neck.  We saw the finish line.  The closer we got Max got further ahead until he sailed across, winning with seconds to spare.  We raced again…and again…and again.  Max was exuberant because he kept winning.  He loved the feeling of the wind blowing through his hair as he shot down the track.  He was popping wheelies as he won the races.

But then disaster struck.  As we circled around one bend Max was leaning to the side and staying just ahead of me when he hit some sand on the track.  The bike slide sideways and down with him spread eagled on top of it and his arms spread out.  As I pulled up to him he lifted his head and said calmly “I’m not okay”.  This was not his usual “I’m okay” when he falls response so I knew something was up.

He held it together until he stood up.  When he pulled his long basketball shorts up there were quarter sized gouges on his knees and his calves were covered with cuts.  He exploded but he also started to cry.  Max doesn’t cry unless he is really hurt; the explosions happen hourly.  He does not want his bike anymore it’s an f’n this and f’n that bike, he will never ride a bike again!

I convinced him it was the sand, not the bike, which had caused the problem, in his words “the f’n sand”.  I’m told by doctors that swearing is one of the traits of a bipolar kid.  We have been working with him to tone this down and he is getting better but at a moment like this I let him get it out of his system.

He was ready to go home, he was walking stiff legged, and he wanted to leave his bike.  I convinced him to at least push it; he tried to ride it but it hurt too much.  He walked again for a bit then hopped on the bike again.  He informed me he was going to ride as fast as he could home; he needed a band-aid!

When he got home he cried as he went in the door.  I put the bikes away, took my helmet off, and headed up the stairs to go inside.  The door opened and Max came flying out, “Where’s my bike?”  The hurt was gone, he just needed a band-aid.  He was already to race again.

What parent hasn’t gone through this?  Parents with adhd and bipolar kids will understand when I say that these situations may be a little more over the top than for most other kids.  But we get through it and our kids get through it and hopefully as they grow they keep their exuberance as they move through all of life’s hurts.

I met Rob about 11 years ago.  He is a big man and very powerful.  This wasn’t surprising, his dad is built the same way and reportedly his grandfather was as well.  When I met him he had several restraining orders against him.  They had been taken out by his siblings and by his parents.  He was not allowed anywhere near their homes.

You see, Rob is a mean drunk.  When he is sober he will give you the shirt off his back.  He will help you in anyway he can.  He will give you twice what you have asked for.  But when he has been drinking you don’t want to be within a mile of him.  In those days there were bets on when he would be found dead in a gutter somewhere.  It was always believed he would be killed by someone who had taken offense to his anger.  And he was well known to the police; he spent many a time in a holding cell.

Rob started drinking when he was 12 years old.  I don’t know the reasons why he picked up that first drink.  I do know that his dad was a heavy drinker; he had been one for over 30 years.  Ron started drinking the year his father quit; dad had been sober for 26 years when I met them.  Rob spent his first 12 years experiencing the drunkenness, the absenteeism (dad was always in bars), and lack of money (it all went to booze).  And dad was always angry but apparently never violent.

Why did his dad drink?  Well, all his brothers and friends drank.  It seemed to be something to pass the time.  I have not asked Rob why he drinks.

As he grew older he drank, served in the army, and drank.  He held countless jobs but lost them all through drinking.  He has been thrown out of many apartments and has been in and out of hospitals and halfway houses.  When we met he had just spent a period being homeless before going into yet another hospital.  I started hearing stories about him at that time but I got to know him through visiting him in the next halfway house.  When his stay in the house ended he tried again to make it on his own.  I don’t think he lasted a year before he was back in the hospital.

I can see a little of the pain in his life.  I started drinking when I was 9 years old; it made me forget that I was depressed.  In my late teens I discovered that I could get rid of the terrible hangovers by drinking more.  I missed many high school and college classes, and I was forever convincing teachers that there were problems at home and that’s why I missed their midterms.

But I really haven’t experienced the alcoholic’s pain and suffering.  When I stopped drinking it was more a conscious decision, it wasn’t the struggle that Rob and others go through.  I have been to both Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Alanon meetings to support Rob and his family but it has only shown me a small part of their lives.

I have another friend who is also a recovering alcoholic.  He has never been to AA meetings and has never been in a hospital.  He was able to quit on his own but he says he eventually found out he could have a glass of wine with dinner without ending up going on binges.  He has been sober and doing this for at least 20 years.  He doesn’t believe in AA and he doesn’t believe alcoholism is a disease.  He sees it as an excuse and that anyone can stop if they really want to.

Do I believe him?  No, I don’t.  I have multiple sclerosis, this is real.  My son has Bi-Polar Disorder, which is real.  Addictions are real too!  I cannot stop my MS, Max cannot stop his BP, and addicts cannot just stop their addictions.

Interestingly enough when Rob was in the last hospital the doctor saw his file; it was fat from 30 years of use.  Unlike other doctors who had just treated the alcoholism, he realized that here was a man that was struggling very hard to quit drinking but couldn’t do it.  He decided to do some testing to find out if there was a different problem.    He discovered that Rob has Bi-Polar Disorder and has been using alcohol to self-medicate all of these years.

Okay, now we are seeing some light.  Rob is now on medication to treat the disorder.  It was enough to stop him from drinking.  He moved into an apartment and enrolled in college.  His goal is to get his masters in counseling so he can help other people like himself.  He has worked hard and stayed on the honor roll.  He bikes every day and still goes to his AA meetings regularly.  And he has been sober for over 4 years.  The restraining orders have since lapsed and he has made amends with his family.

I would like to say he has met his goals.  This June he planned to graduate with his bachelor’s degree and he wanted to move on to the master’s program in the Fall.  This past Christmas he had a slight set back which almost kept him out of school for the Spring semester.  It turned out he needed a medication change; once this was taken care of he was back on track.  And then 2 weeks ago I got a call from him.  His words were slurred and I knew he was gone again.  He had been trying to call another friend of his, maybe it was his AA sponsor, but got me instead.

He’s in the hospital again.  I don’t know when he is coming out; I would love to see him accomplish his goals.  Do I judge him?  I think not.  All I can do is help him as much as I can and pray.  I have too many issues of my own to worry about judging him.

My son is the best boy!  Isn’t that what all parents say about their kids?  Max has letters after his name that start at A and go all the way through Z.   He doesn’t have a lot of degrees; he is only in the second grade.   But he has a lot of diagnoses.  These are: ADHD, BPD, OCD, ODD, PDD/NOS, SID, Anxiety, and at this time of year, seasonal allergies that plug him up good.  I bet a lot of you parents can relate.

Why all the diagnoses?  One friend calls them labels that help us work with these children.  In my son’s case it is:

1. ADHD – to explain his hyperactivity (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
2. BPD – this is why he is so manic sometimes and calm other times (Bipolar Disorder)
3. OCD – this covers his recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
4. ODD – man, can this kid be defiant (Oppositional Defiant Disorder)
5. PDD/NOS – covers his social skills (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified)
6. SID – he needs pressure or spinning to calm him down.  He used to be overly sensitive to sounds but that seems to have gone away.  He is very impulsive and is a picky eater. Cannot stand tags in his clothes; we have to cut them out. (Sensory Integration Disorder)
7. Anxiety – this is fairly new (in the last year).  He has gone from being very outgoing to having a difficult time being away from his mother.
8. Allergies – I’ve included this on the list because they tend to exacerbate all of the other issues especially when he cannot breathe.

In later posts I’ll address each one of these “labels” and explain how my wife and I address each one of them.

As a lot of parents can attest to we are caught in a whirlwind of differing opinions as to what the real problems are and what we should and should not be doing to raise our kid.

We have been told that the diagnoses are worthless that it is just bad parenting.  Why haven’t we been spanking him, or better still, using a wooden spoon or a belt, to straighten him out?  Or another suggested sending him away to military school.

Get rid of the medications he is fine (yes, he seems fine because he is taking meds right now).  I had one parent tell me to give my son up to him for a week and my boy would come back a different child.

Others believe that that we should institutionalize him, or give him even more meds, to take care of the problems.

Max is in a special school and even though he is in second grade he spend alot of time with the fourth grade class learning more advanced subjects.  He takes pride in the fact that he is the only student in his class that has never been sent to the “quiet room”.  He saves all of that for when he comes home.

He currently sees a play therapist and has a mentor to help him work though his issues and he has occupational therapy several times a week at school.

As I talk about what my wife and I are doing for our son, I hope our readers will share some of what they have found works and what doesn’t as well.