The past year has been more than chaotic so it's about time I turned my inner musings and daily rants into a blog as I know there must be others going through a similar situation parenting a bi-polar teen.
A little about me: I'm in my '40's, college educated, widowed several years ago and an Only Parent to an incredibly beautiful, verbose, goal oriented, creative yet mentally demonized soon-to-be 17 yr old daughter.
Manda is an only child, an honor student, well loved and respected by friends, family, teachers and, if one could go by it, the 700+ followers on her Facebook and Tumblr pages. Her quick wit was apparent before she celebrated her first birthday and there's not a day that goes by that I don't find myself chuckling at something fascinating or witty she's said.
She was fine until a couple years ago when she began to get short with me whenever I'd ask her something but I didn't think anyting of it as, heck, she's an Only Child-Hormone Filled 14 Yr old Girl so, yeah, she's not going to be a picnic to parent. Her moods would worsen on some days and she seemed to enjoy her room more than hanging out with her friends or me.
On some days her artistic side would rear up and she would ask if I could buy some canvas and paint supplies so she could paint. There was no talking to her during this time and she would stay in her room until her painting was done. This was a way she would expend extra energy but wasn't particularly interested in sharing her creation with anyone.
Manda also developed insomnia around the time her need to paint kicked into high gear. When I went to bed at 10 or 11pm she would stay awake until 3 or 4 a.m. and would have no problem getting up at 6 a.m. for school. Oddly enough, her schoolwork did not suffer. Personally if I don't get 7 hours of sleep a night everything suffers because of it. I took her to the pediatrician's office to see what we could do about it but he wasn't unduly worried; looking back and living through her nightmare of undiagnosed bi-polar disorder I can see she was manic at the time.
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ReplyDeleteI removed the comment because I wanted to say something differently. Sometimes I think of a better way to put something right after I hit that "Post Comment" button.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to reading more of your writings, I've put a link to your blog on mine.
I understand the difficulties of parenting a child with a mental illness. It's important that you take time to take care of yourself so you can better help your daughter.
Thank-you Sheri - I do what I can. A dear friend told me that just like you have to do if, God forbid, you're in a plane and need to use oxygen, you put the mask on first so you can help your child. So I make sure I do what I need to do to keep my sanity and be there for her to get well.
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