A little background

My darling boy, Rob was diagnosed with bipolar disorder about a month ago. Deciding to blog about it to have an outlet for the rage and fear I'm feeling. Rob is 17 now, but a little background about him.

Rob has an older brother who has been an angel since the day he was born. Brad was an easy baby, always smiling, laughing - just a joy to be around since day 1. God I love that kid. He's 24 now. The smiles and laughter disappeared in his early teens when he began to struggle with his sexual identity and hid it from me and the rest of the world. Since then Brad has dealt with depression, but a mild depression for the most part, which seems to have lifted since he came out in college. Brad is gifted person, very artistic, highly intelligent, and the most amazing, sweet disposition. He's now living away from us, in NYC - pursuing his dreams and doing very well.

When I was pregnant with Rob, I was violently ill with morning sickness - all day long, every day. In about my 5th month my doctor realized I was having premature labor and put me on bedrest. That didn't stop the contractions and soon enough I was admitted to the hospital to get it under control and wait it out. The vomiting did not go away the entire pregnancy, and I was on different meds to keep the contractions under control and I lost weight instead of gaining. I go into all of this because I think it's relevant to what happened later to Rob. When the docs determined Rob's lungs were capable, but about a month before he was due, I was taken off the meds & sent home. Within 24 hours I was back, and Rob made his entrance into the world shortly afterwards, kicking & screaming. I was so terrified the entire time, thinking he wouldn't make it, it was such a relief when he was born healthy, or seemingly so.

Rob was a difficult baby, alot of crying, not enough sleeping - and within a few months he had to be admitted to the hospital with RSV (respiratory something something) that was a precursor to asthma. After the asthma was under control, Rob continued to be an easily startled baby, easily upset, and still not sleeping unless I was in the room with him, rubbing him, singing to him, talking to him. I learned how to hypnotize him into sleeping by rubbing his nose (try it - it really works)! Sometimes I had to put him in the car or the stroller and roll around until he would fall asleep, or I would carry him around the house rubbing his head, talking to him - whatever I could think of. But this boy would never just fall asleep in his crib, on his own.

At some point, I think around his first birthday, his pediatrician noticed he had difficulty with his fine motor skills and told me he was developmentaly delayed in that area. But he had had no problem with walking, talking - although potty training was something else.

By the time Rob was in preschool, he still had a huge problem trying to get to sleep. His dad and I had divorced when Rob was about two years old, and Rob had been sleeping with me ever since. Prior to the divorce Rob would not sleep in a room by himself. He would get up over & over & over all night long, and I would end up laying with him on the couch until he finally fell asleep. After the divorce, I gave up and let him sleep with me. Although, I still had to rub his back and talk to him or sing to him till he fell asleep. He was a very fearful child and he shadowed me everywhere I went, and talked non-stop. I couldn't get a word in edgewise, and when I did it seemed like he didn't hear me. I began to think he had a hearing problem, and scheduled him for a hearing test. When the audiologist put him the glass box with the headphones, it became painfully obvious that the problem was not with his hearing. That boy was bouncing around that room, talking, touching everything, and wouldn't listen to a word the audiologist was saying to him. She suggested I get him tested for attention deficit disorder.

Eureka! I read everything I could get my hands on about ADHD. Sure enough, Rob had all the classic symptoms, and then some. He was doing fine in preschool though, so I didn't pursue any remedy for it. I was so accustomed to how he was, I guess I just viewed his hyperactivity as part of his charm and it didn't bother or upset me. It was tough to let him go outside though, he couldn't be trusted to not run in the street. When he wasn't shadowing me, I was shadowing him. From the day he made his first friend, Rob could not be kept inside - he was constantly on the go - playing all day, sleeping over his friends' houses, having his friends sleep over our house. He could not be still, or be alone. He was also the most argumentative person I've ever known. Before I could get the words out of my mouth, Rob would disagree and argue until I would walk away. Even then, he would follow me - arguing, arguing... he wouldn't be nasty about it, he would just keep talking until I agreed with him or would lose it and tell him I wasn't listening anymore. This was all manageable though, and I didn't talk to his pediatrician about ADHD meds till he started having problems at school - when he went to 7th grade. I think he did fine prior to that because he had one teacher all day who would stay on his butt until he completed his work. Once he went to junior high, he had 5 or 6 different teachers every day who really couldn't pay attention to whether or not he was doing anything. Rob had always done well enough on tests and classroom work to skate without doing homework. When he started bringing homework to work on, I realized that he had bigger problems than I could deal with. I could not get him to sit still or pay attention at all when I tried to help him with his homework. We'd end up yelling at each other every damn time. His pediatrician put him on Ritalin. Rob said it didn't help. She upped the dosage, Rob said it still didn't help and he starting getting frequent headaches and was nauseated every day. He stopped bringing work home, said he was getting it done in school. His grades were fair - for awhile. Pediatrician tried him on Concerta. Again Rob said it didn't help, and was getting sick again. I stopped giving it to him.

In 8th grade Rob started failing most of his subjects. We implemented a 504 plan to help him out at school. Goddamn teachers and school didn't even follow through with any part of the plan without my harrassing them to do so. He couldn't keep organized, wouldn't bring his books to class, wouldn't bring anything home. Lost work he had completed, lost everything all the time - house keys, cell phones, the clothes off his back - everything! Rob barely made it through 8th grade. Luckily for him, he has always been smart enough to do no homework at all, but still manage to pass the quizzes, tests and finals. I believe it was in 8th grade that Rob started being sick most days and insisting he was too sick to go to school. He would complain of headaches, throw up, wheeze and have asthma attacks. When I would force him to go to school, he would call from the nurse's office and I would have to pick him up. I could not figure out if he was truly sick, or if he had become a master of manipulation. 9th grade, Rob began smoking behind my back. His teachers didn't believe he really was ADHD, because he did manage to sit at his desk without acting out - but he did NOTHING. No homework, no classwork - again he didn't bring his books to class. He would sit there and do NOTHING, or bother his friends. Again I had to force the school to follow the 504 plan, but it didn't help him at all. But, Rob managed to pass 9th grade by doing well on the finals.

10th grade, everything went to hell. Rob was sick every damn day. It was a fight every damn day to get him to school. One day Rob had what I call his first "meltdown". He had been fighting me about going to school, but I got him in the car. He started sobbing in the car, in front of other kids. The fact that he didn't care if his friends saw him crying scared the crap out of me. I brought him home. After much discussion, it came to light that he was so far behind in school he didn't think it was possible anymore to pass. He also confessed to the smoking, said hiding all of this crap from me was making him crazy. We discussed ways to get back on track at school, went to the pediatrician for another ADHD med that might help (this time Focalin), took him to a therapist, sent him to a sleep disorder clinic... Did I mention that he still can't sleep at night - after all these years? I thought his ADHD was getting worse. I finally began to understand that Rob was finding his life impossible to cope with. I pulled him out of the public school and enrolled him in a electronic school. They sent him a computer and he did classes online. The Focalin seemed to help him a little. The major benefit was that he could do his work any time - and usually did it in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep. He would also clean his room, rearrange his room, "straighten" up the rest of the house, do his laundry, draw pictures - all in the middle of the night. He would rearrange his room 2 to 3 times a week. Kind of freaked me out. He did the bare minimum of schoolwork, but passed his online classes. When summer came I stopped giving him the Focalin. With summer came the drinking. I caught him drinking in his room. Found empty bottles all over the basement. I found him drunk and suicidal 3 times in as many months. After many heart to hearts, we agreed that something in his chemical makeup would not allow for drinking or drugs... while his friends got drunk and funny, Rob would get drunk and suicidal. Rob realized he couldn't mess around with alcohol or drugs and told me he wouldn't do either ever again.

When school started again this September, I put Rob back on the Focalin. He managed to get some schoolwork done as long as I told him specifically what he had to do each day, in detail, and checked to make sure he had done it. Even with the Focalin, Rob could only handle about an hour in front of the computer. We had daily fights about his schoolwork. He also had his temps and would harrass me daily about going for a drive. And he had a girlfriend that he had to see every day. Rob would argue with me from the time he woke up until I went to bed at night, and even then he would sometimes come in my room to argue with me some more. I tried to set limits, had to do an hour of schoolwork before he could leave the house - tried to bargain with him to do some work around the house before he could get in the car. Any time I tried to set a limit, Rob would get angry - overly angry. His arguing changed from trying to get his point across to confrontational. He also argued with his girlfriend nonstop, he'd get very angry with her if she made any plans with anyone but him. They would fight on the phone, fight in person, and Rob ended up in tears over and over again. He was really worrying me. I began to suspect he was having a bad reaction to the Focalin, and I did a little research online. I discovered that side effects included depression and psychosis. I stopped giving him the Focalin. And he stopped doing any work for school.

Rob continued to be angry and confrontational, and depressed. His OGT practice tests were scheduled at a library nearby, and he was required to take 5 different tests. In Ohio, a child cannot graduate until they have passed all 5 OGT tests. It took everything I had to get Rob in the car to go to the library for the testing the first day, but once he was there he took the test without any further trouble. The next day I managed to get him in the car and to the library, but he refused to go in. After 1/2 hour of arguments and tears on his part, I took him back home. I could not even get him in the car the next three days. I was able to reschedule the 4 tests he missed for the next week. That weekend his girlfriend had some trouble with her stepfather, so we picked her up and brought her over to our house. For some reason, I believe that event empowered Rob in some way, and he was able to take his 4 tests the following week.

The day of his last OGT test was also the day he was scheduled to taking his driving test to get his license. All the way to the testing site Rob was really worried and anxious, he was convinced he would not pass the test. When the instructor came up to the car, she noticed that the driver's seat was broken and would not stay in a fixed position - she told us we could not use that car for the test. We would have to get the seat fixed, or use another car. When she walked away from the car, Rob lost it altogether. He was ranting and raving about what "a fucking bitch" she was, and I couldn't get him calmed down. He called one of his friends to bring another car. His friend agreed, but Rob was in a rage and was calling his friend constantly until he showed up with the car. The driving instructor was calling it a day when his friend showed up with the car, but I convinced her to allow Rob to take the test. Rob did perfectly on the test and got his license.

The next evening, I was in bed when I heard doors slamming and people running around downstairs. I went down to see what was going on... Rob was not around, his girlfriend and two other friends were in my driveway. I asked what was going on. Rob's girlfriend wouldn't talk, she was crying and pacing. Rob's friend Mike told me that Rob had received a text message from a kid who said he had spent the night with Rob's girlfriend the night before. Mike said Rob was on his way to this kid's house to kill him. I called Rob on his cellphone. Luckily he answered, and I was able to convince him to come back home. Then Mike told me that Rob had a knife with him. I looked at my knife rack and there were 3 knives missing.

Rob came home and was screaming at his girlfriend in the drive. I went out and got the kids to come inside, all of them except Rob went into his bedroom. I was trying to calm Rob down in the kitchen, and I took two knives from him that he had hidden in his sweatshirt pockets. I could not calm him down, I don't even know what he was saying... he was screaming, crying, and he had the wildest look in his eyes... I had never seen him like this. He went to the basement and got the other knife he had hidden there. He came up the stairs holding it to his own neck. I was trying really hard to calmly talk to him and get the knife, but he was out of control. I couldn't get him to hear or to calm down. Then he went toward the bedroom where the other kids were, screaming at his girlfriend to tell him if the text message was true. I called 911 and got between him and the bedroom so he couldn't get near his girlfriend. He went into the other bedroom instead, he was saying he was going to cut his throat, he didn't want to live anymore.. I don't even know what else he was saying. The 911 dispatcher said the police were on their way. I told Rob the police were on their way, only then did he give me the knife. Then he sat down on the couch in the living room and waited for them to come. Luckily the dispatcher must have told the police that Rob had given up the knife, they came in with guns drawn but they weren't terribly aggressive, and didn't make him get down on the ground or anything. They took him to the emergency room.