... In a city far, far away... I tried for thirty-eight hours to convince Eldest to come out to play with the rest of the world. I'm so glad she did. (It's all hitting me at once. She tried on her cap & gown for me last night. Her senior prom is tonight. Panic, pride, and nostalgia on my part.)
Scientists have discovered that two pathways exist in the human brain to the final destination of a decision. One is the limbic system, which controls emotional decision-making, along with other "gut reaction" activities, like the fight-or-flight response; the other, the parietal and frontal cortices, which are in charge of planning and rational decision making, among other things.
In the above mentioned study, normally-functioning people were found to have both pathways, and that even they were torn (as shown by brain activity via MRI) between a choice involving some sort of immediate gratification and one involving a more logical one which would provide an even greater reward after a short waiting period (in the study, somewhere between a month and six weeks). Using my admittedly limited scientific knowledge and my slightly more efficient common sense, I've come up with a reason for Youngest's inability to make even the easiest of "right" or "good" decisions, if not a way to combat my extreme anger and frustration regarding those decisions.
I posit that, because a bipolar person's limbic system activity is often elevated and his/her fronal lobe regional activity is suppressed/delayed/otherwise fucked up, this makes their ability to make rational decisions very, very difficult, to say the least. Further, as Youngest is only just now reaching some semblance of adolescence, the cerebral fibers in his frontal lobe are still not finished developing. So, in layman's terms, his brain's road to a crappy decision is wider and well-paved, while the road to a good decision is a one-lane dirt country lane.
Last night, one such decision-making session played itself out in a fashion equally fascinating and frustrating. For a couple of weeks now, Youngest's best friend (BF) at school and Youngest have been planning for Youngest to go home with BF after their early release day this upcoming Friday. It's a bigger deal than most trips to a friend's house, because BF lives an hour away, so these trips are pretty infrequent. As personal hygiene is currently low decision on the totem pole, we've been using this trip to BF's to encourage showers. His decision to take a shower or not on school nights will directly be tied to his ability to go to BF's; more, if he chooses to miss a shower, he will have to explain his decision to BF all on his own. Until last night, he'd been doing fine. (I suspect his not having to shower on the weekend further lowered his motivation to actually get back up on that horse.)
Despite my trying to get him to shower earlier than usual, to combat the particular situation that occurred, and despite the fact that he was happily awake up until the very point of decision-making, he decided he was "too sleepy" to take his shower. He was not too sleepy to argue with me in huge, convoluted circles, mind you, but four fucking minutes in the shower was too much to ask. We tried every bit of logic and every bit of emotional impetus imaginable, but nothing was budging him. His limbic system just wanted to lay in that bed and not do a damn thing if it wasn't fun. His frontal lobe was on the picket line... "Hell no! I won't go!" Eventually, I sat on his bed and told him that since he couldn't seem to make this decision, and that BF was that important to me if not to him, I would sit and talk enough that he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. After letting us know exactly how much he hated us for trying to sabotage his friendship with BF (WTF?!!? Delusional, table for one!), he took his shower. He spewed vitriol for about 10-15 more minutes before passing out mid-sentence. Ahhh, the fun-filled roller-coaster ride of bipolar disorder.
This week's theme is: Different. I took these photos after the two snowstorms we just had, which is very different for Texas weather. For five years, we had snow once every single year we lived here, then it stopped. Our last significant snow was Valentine's Day of 2004. I'm posting two photos this week, which is different for me; usually, I'm a one-photo gal.
The first photo is of Marshmallow in the snow. This photo really captures the intensity of her two different colored eyes. (You can click to enlarge it.)
The second photo is of my boys, whom I refer to here in my blog as Middle and Youngest. It never fails to strike me how very different they are from one another, in every possible way. I remember when the tags in their clothes were as close in numbers as their age. They are only sixteen months apart, but they are farther apart physically and emotionally than they have ever been in their lives.
I had originally planned to post on whatever subject corresponds to the item I'm giving away each day, but I'm at a loss as to what in the world I could give away relating to mental illness. The only things I could come up with are illegal (free Adderall and Concerta for all! No, not really, no.). I had also planned for today to be an environmental post, giving away Diane MacEachern's book Big Green Purse, but with my current frame of mind, an informational, yet subjective, post about bipolar disorder came out instead. Ergo, I have nothing yet planned for today's giveaway. The environment and Big Green Purse will be rescheduled for Tuesday.
I mentioned the other day that I was reading to catch up on a blog written by an incredible woman who has a bipolar teenager (as well as a normally-functioning adult son). I mentioned yesterday that life had thrown another curveball, which almost always includes my bipolar son.
So many of her posts left me breathless, simply because it made me think, "Hey! We're not alone!" or "I didn't imagine this. Other people have had this happen, too."
Some things that I've either realized, but now have the knowledge that I'm not alone, or things that I've recognized by reading her blog:
Youngest is triggered by therapy sessions. We've wondered for a year or more why, when his therapy sessions would be progressing calmly and well, we were suddenly confronted by "the monster" before we even hit the highway headed back home. He is responding to and relieving himself of the anxiety that his sessions cause him.
We are lucky that, financially, we can choose any doctor we want without the constraints of insurance (we've never filed his visits because his doc is out-of-network), and we can afford the specialized private school that Youngest attends. Distance is not a problem; I drive about 1000 miles per week for school and therapy (individual for Youngest and for me, and a family therapist, as well).
We are more challenged than others because Youngest has two siblings who are pretty close in age to him. They definitely trigger him a good deal, and their reactions to him and his illness play a large part in the explosive dynamics of our family. Every decision we make, we have to weigh how it will affect each of the five of us, as well as the family unit.
When Youngest yells in the heat of battle that we "just don't understand," he's right. As much as I read on the subject, and talk to other parents of bp kids, and stay abreast of medications and his therapy, I don't understand all it entails to be him. On some level I wish I did, but mostly I know how lucky I am that I don't.
No matter how hard or long or loudly I try to force him to reason, he cannot do it. He will not be able to do it; he is not wired to reason, for good or for ill.
Our life is far from normal, and one day, it may become even less so. We've talked about the possibility of locking away foods high in carbs (bipolar kids crave carbs like no other); because of Youngest's lack of self-regulation, he can easily eat a 16-oz. jar of my homemade organic jelly or a bag of Newman-O's in two sittings or a huge can of Ovaltine in three days. One day, we may have to lock away the steak knives and kitchen knives, or things that make fire, because of same lack of self-regulation.
Waking up a bipolar child is a nightmare. It's not just mine. Their sleep cycles are often severely fucked up, for lack of a more appropriate medical term. The first attempt to wake Youngest happens at 6:30 a.m. Most often, five trips into his room and thirty minutes later, he's finally up. Then he has just twenty minutes to have some sort of breakfast, get dressed, take his meds, brush his teeth. Mornings suck.
Now, just because we know these things, doesn't mean we always do the right things with that knowledge. I, especially, struggle with Youngest's hostility & rages, because although I get the brunt of 98% of his rages, he was almost unnaturally attached to me for 8-10 years. I also struggle because being in the same room with him is exactly like being in the room with my ex-husband; I therefore spend a lot of time with him in uncomfortable silence, breathing in shallow breaths while my heart beats like a hummingbird's wings because I'm afraid to speak and trip a land mine.
We've now been two days off his Concerta, the ADHD medication. Because they are stimulants, medications like Concerta (et al) can worsen any manic symptoms that are there. And because children's and, often, adolescents', manic symptoms manifest as irritability which swings to rage, that's a very bad thing. But, because his sleep rhythm is severely screwed, Youngest is all but comatose for most of the day, as well as silly and inattentive. I can't win.
This week's theme is: Wooden. I had a photo all picked out, but I changed my mind and decided to feature a guest photographer this week instead: my daughter (whom I refer to here as Eldest). She just got accepted into the Fine Arts program at the University of Texas at Austin yesterday; she's going to be a photographer. This is her (taken in July 2007):
She took this photo at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom in July 2006. It is part of the Tree of Life.
When I saw that today's writing prompt was Sleep (and/or Teeth), I thought, "Cake. I can write about my improbable, impractical, and inexplicable sleeping habits or my horrific, terrifying dreams and how good I am at deciphering their meaning." But then I convinced myself to tackle teeth instead, just to stretch my wings a bit.
We have a total of 151 teeth in our collective heads; three of us had to have teeth pulled in order to facilitate orthodontics. Three-fifths of us are currently in braces, two sets of traditional labial braces and one set of lingual braces (I was ahead of the trend, having had braces eight years ago, and Eldest flew through her braces experience). Three-fifths of us have had our wisdom teeth removed.
I had eight teeth pulled before braces (four regular molars, four wisdom teeth). Genetically speaking, I got screwed over in the teeth department; my father was in full dentures by the age of 29, and my mother also passed on her family's periodontal disease. Consequently, four of my teeth are in line to have implants in the future (my husband has vociferously declared that he will stop at nothing to ensure that he never sees me without teeth); I wear a permanent retainer behind them. When I had a root canal performed several years back, the oral surgeon told me I have problematic teeth; some of my molars have up to four roots, and the roots are long, branching, and some are spiraled. I'm a dental mutant.
Eldest was only in braces for fourteen months because she was so good about wearing elastics on her teeth. She just had her wisdom teeth removed yesterday; she has cute chipmunk cheeks today.
Youngest's lack of executive function means that many times, he would rather give up every privilege he has than to drag himself to the sink for two minutes to brush his teeth. It drives me absolutely fucking nuts. We've tried rewards, bribery, and threats to life & limb, all to no avail. My prediction is that we will have to have the braces removed from his teeth. He had to have three teeth pulled before his braces.
Middle will have braces on his teeth for five years at the rate he (doesn't) wear his elastics. He had to have two teeth pulled before his braces.
My husband has an artificial tooth. As a child, he was playing "golf" with his brother. For some stupid-ass unknown reason, hubby laid down on the floor to "eye" his brother's shot. His brother's shot, as it turns out, was directly in line with hubby's mouth, knocking his front tooth down his throat. Heh.
We pay a lot for our 151 teeth, monetarily, physically, and emotionally. I never really thought about how much dental drama we have endured. We could do a whole reality show about my family's dental issues. I'm totally serious; I'm calling A&E or DHC right now.
Last night, I spent forty long and painful minutes on the telephone with my dad, talking politics. Oh. My. Fucking. Hell. This afternoon, it still feels like I went to the dentist and had all my teeth pulled out with no anesthesia.
I'm back and will post a more detailed post later, but first, today is Photo Hunt day.
This week's theme is: Delicious. Both of my photos are definitely tongue-in-cheek and are actually a series of photos; facial expressions are key in these (you can click on any of the photos and get a larger view). Each is of one of my kiddos trying a new and exotic food. (Disclaimer: The photo of Eldest was taken by another teen in her travel group to Europe, but I could not resist including it.)
The first photos are of Middle after trying escargot for the first time. He is the child who is most open to trying new foods. I took these photos at Epcot (in France, of course), in July 2005.
This is Eldest this past summer in Belgium after trying "some gross fish." (I never figured out what that "gross fish" was, but it looked pretty tasty to me.) She promised me she would try a new food in each of the six countries she visited, and this was one of them. Her greatest culinary experience abroad was discovering, for the first time after 16 years on this planet, that she liked ketchup on her fries.
We're flying to Georgia to visit my family, my mom and her new liver, on Thursday. I'll be blogging from there, though, hopefully.
Merry Christmahanakwanzaadanivus! Now we're all covered, right? Go have a great day!
Our strategy for buying our kids' Christmas gifts has been in the process of fine-tuning for a few years. We now have what I consider a pretty brilliant idea. It keeps yearlong consumerism to a minimum and the kids end up getting what they want at Christmas.
The strategy? you ask. It's simple: don't buy them everything they want all year long. If it's not birthday or Christmas or a cold day in hell, it's not likely we're out buying a video game just because one of our precious pumpkins just HAAAAAS to HAAAAVE it. They can save up their chore money for it... which poses a problem for them most times, because we actually require work for payment rendered.
So, come Christmas, we have a very good list of pickings from which to choose. It looks like we spoil our kids at Christmas sometimes, but it's because we neglect them the rest of the year. (Well, at least that would be their story.) We give them one large gift on their birthday, but we haven't done (or overdone) a birthday party since they were five. They get to choose where/what we eat on their birthday, and they get their one large gift.
On Christmas morning, our kids are usually overjoyed with their gifts, because they aren't inundated and oversaturated with crap all year long.
(We also adopt as many kids as we can from the Salvation Army Angel Tree, and we shop for them together, and then we volunteer our time to help distribute all the toys to the families. It's a great way to help the kids realize how good we live life.)
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