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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 326433" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Laura, I'm sorry this is such a difficult time for you and for her.</p><p></p><p>Being form overseas, I have often a different take on things. If this is too alien then just ignore me, I can often have a wrong view simply because things are done differently here.</p><p></p><p>What has me concerned here and makes me think of a possible different direction for you to at least consider - you are concerned about a possible misdx. Bipolar hasn't really been nailed down, has it? </p><p></p><p>Which brings me to a concern - has she been thoroughly evaluated for the possibility of Asperger's? It would need a neuropsychologist evaluation, and a darn good one. The problems here - </p><p></p><p>1) she is very bright. The brighter the person, the more they adapt to 'mask' whatever the disability. It's not deliberate subterfuge, it's simply the natural way we all try to cope, to adapt to seem as normal as we possibly can. The brighter the person, the more they are capable of adapting. But this adaptation is still a pretense of sorts, underneath is still often a very unhappy and upset person.</p><p></p><p>2) She is female. Asperger's is tricky to diagnose especially in girls. Research is showing that girls are often very different to boys, they can more often be missed with diagnosis. Again, especially the bright ones.</p><p></p><p>3) There could be other problems at the same time.</p><p></p><p>The thing is - kids with Asperger's also can get VERY depressed, especially in their teens. difficult child 1 was at times suicidal. We see what we look at, quite often, and teens in general are liable to mood swings. A difficult child teen is likely to be even more moody, they don't need to be BiPolar (BP) to be particularly difficult or extreme in moods. They will have their reasons, if you did, in most cases. Often they can't identify the reasons for themselves, but the reasons are there. BiPolar (BP) has mood swings which don't have reasons, as a rule.</p><p></p><p>I find it has helped, to remember my own strong emotional swings from when I was a teenager. At the time there was always a reason even if the adults in my life would not have recognised the validity of my emotional state. I remember often being told, "Stop complaining! You've got nothing to worry about!" but that never made things feel better, not one scrap. And with hindsight - it was not helpful to say that to me. Yes, I can look back and see that to have a boy I liked not only totally ignore me but start paying attention to a girl who had been really mean to me, did seem devastating and I didn't know how I could stand it, and when you compare that to how you would feel if the bank were about to foreclose on a mortgage just doesn't seem to compare - back then it was the first time anything like this had happened, I had no way of knowing how to handle it, I felt publicly humiliated and exposed and was so inexperienced that of course it was raw and painful in the extreme. I look back and still say - given all that, my extreme feelings were not out of proportion, they had a reason.</p><p></p><p>Too often we try to medicate away the deep pain in our kids. We want an easy fix and often there isn't one. But tere are other options, other things that can help. I say this who did find that medication helped our kids, but we had to use other things too.</p><p></p><p>What helped difficult child 1 the most, was acknowledgement that yes, his pain DID have good cause, it was OK to feel that bad, there were valid reasons. Also that it wasn't his fault, and that it would pass. We used antidepressants for a while at high dose to help him begin to cope, to get the extremes of the depression managed so he could learn to control what was left.</p><p></p><p>difficult child 1 was 6 years old and feeling very bad about himself, when he was diagnosed with ADHD. At first I tried to shiled him from the diagnosis, because I worried how he would feel about himself, being told he had a condition like that. His doctor, however, made it clear - if anyone knew there was a problem, it was difficult child 1. He of all people was the first to know that something was wrong. But he was interpreting it as "I am bad because I am made that way; I have to accept to always be the naughty kid even if I don't want to be."</p><p>Once he realised that there was a reason, he actually was happy to be diagnosed. It wasn't his fault after all!</p><p></p><p>You sound desperate to help your girl. I don't blame you. It does sound like there's been a lot of mucking around, a lot of "We aren't sure but let's go with this," and shoving pills etc at you which are not reaching the problem, or are only a patch. Nothing really serious in terms of REAL help.</p><p></p><p>The trouble is - you know her better than anyone else. She knows herself. So now this knowledge has to come in to the equation. You both need to push to get the label that feels the best fit. It may be Asperger's, it may be BiPolar (BP). But whatever label, it does need to be thought through properly and you have to feel confident with it. But it can no longer be some expert telling you what it is, YOU now have to be seen (by yourself too) as part of her diagnostic/management team. As she does. It's your right, it's her right. And responsibility. And frankly, it gives you a better chance of getting it right...</p><p></p><p>So some suggestions - </p><p></p><p>1) Aim for a neuropsychologist update and ask them specifically to consider Asperger's, bearing in mind her high intelligence and the fact she's female (and girls tend to be atypical with Asperger's). </p><p></p><p>2) To help this, go to <a href="http://www.childbrain.com" target="_blank">www.childbrain.com</a> and do the online Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire. It may score her as normal - that's OK. Print it out anyway and give a copy to the neuropsychologist or other doctor. You can't use this Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire to diagnose this yourself, an expert has to do it. But it does signpost the areas of concern, areas you may not have thought of because you live with this and accept stuff as normal that may not be.</p><p></p><p>And as for everyone/everything else - it is extremely frustrating when you feel like they're fiddling while Rome burns. I remember feelnig frustrated when difficult child 3 was still not talking, and before I could access some urgent speech therapy, we had to undergo a course teaching us how to talk to our child (ie it's your fault for neglecting this child emotionally). It wasted another six months, at that time a significant percentage of his life. But if we refused to do it, then they took us off the therapy waiting list. very unfair.</p><p></p><p>But in this case - take a multi-pronged approach. Use whatever you can. Make multiple appointments and then grab the ones you want, cancel the others. If you instead make first this appointment (then wait) then make the next, it takes a lot longer and sometimes you go through a long wait all over again, because what you hoped to be ac hieved in a particular session turns out to be a dud. If you instead have multiple appointments made, and appointment A turns out to fix things after all, you can cancel appointment B. But if appointment A is a dud, then appointment B next in the diary is already in place.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile if someone hands you free movie tickets - they're doing it to make themselves feel better. It's not a cure, it's a band-aid attempt. But hey, it's a free movie ticket. As long as it doesn't get in the way of more valuable help, grab what you can. Often the free tickets etc are a totally left-field kind of thing, some movie theatre is making a donation in order to make themselves look better, it's not simply someone saying, "Let's go out and buy some movie tickets, they're gonig to be a lot healthier than doling out antidepressants."</p><p>Instead, it's a way of saying, "You are stressed, with good reason. I can't fix your stress any more than I'm already trying, but maybe this is something you can do for yourself while you're trying to cope with all the rest of this crud."</p><p></p><p>Over the years we've been given free movie tickets; the kids have been sent to camp (for kids who help care for a disabled family member) where two of our kids met their spouses(!); we've had free tickets to theme parks when they have a special day for families living with disability; we've been to barbecues, to parties, to government receptions. I've been interviewed by the media on various topics.</p><p>None of this was in any way meant to be "buying me off" from trying to get help. It was a fringe benefit, something we were able to do AS WELL to help our family feel a little more normal sometimes. We still went back home to deal with the same problems we have been living with, but hey, thanks for the handout.</p><p></p><p>Along the way some of the fringe benefits have been good - the Young Carers camps came with therapy, the kids would talk to one another in a large group therapy session and that was gold. A lot of these kids had problems themselves, at least half were also difficult child. </p><p></p><p>All help, all handouts, can help. But I agree - they are not a substitute for REAL help. It is natural to feel that having a movie ticket shoved at you indicates they really don't understand how desperate you are feeling or how urgent are your needs. As long as you can make that clear - grab what they offer.</p><p></p><p>After all the enquiries and reassessment, they may well conclude that she is, after all, BiPolar (BP). Or CD. But as long as it has been properly considered, and you both feel you understand why and it feels right - then that is what matters. There shouldn't be doubt, but misdx is unfortuntely all too common.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 326433, member: 1991"] Laura, I'm sorry this is such a difficult time for you and for her. Being form overseas, I have often a different take on things. If this is too alien then just ignore me, I can often have a wrong view simply because things are done differently here. What has me concerned here and makes me think of a possible different direction for you to at least consider - you are concerned about a possible misdx. Bipolar hasn't really been nailed down, has it? Which brings me to a concern - has she been thoroughly evaluated for the possibility of Asperger's? It would need a neuropsychologist evaluation, and a darn good one. The problems here - 1) she is very bright. The brighter the person, the more they adapt to 'mask' whatever the disability. It's not deliberate subterfuge, it's simply the natural way we all try to cope, to adapt to seem as normal as we possibly can. The brighter the person, the more they are capable of adapting. But this adaptation is still a pretense of sorts, underneath is still often a very unhappy and upset person. 2) She is female. Asperger's is tricky to diagnose especially in girls. Research is showing that girls are often very different to boys, they can more often be missed with diagnosis. Again, especially the bright ones. 3) There could be other problems at the same time. The thing is - kids with Asperger's also can get VERY depressed, especially in their teens. difficult child 1 was at times suicidal. We see what we look at, quite often, and teens in general are liable to mood swings. A difficult child teen is likely to be even more moody, they don't need to be BiPolar (BP) to be particularly difficult or extreme in moods. They will have their reasons, if you did, in most cases. Often they can't identify the reasons for themselves, but the reasons are there. BiPolar (BP) has mood swings which don't have reasons, as a rule. I find it has helped, to remember my own strong emotional swings from when I was a teenager. At the time there was always a reason even if the adults in my life would not have recognised the validity of my emotional state. I remember often being told, "Stop complaining! You've got nothing to worry about!" but that never made things feel better, not one scrap. And with hindsight - it was not helpful to say that to me. Yes, I can look back and see that to have a boy I liked not only totally ignore me but start paying attention to a girl who had been really mean to me, did seem devastating and I didn't know how I could stand it, and when you compare that to how you would feel if the bank were about to foreclose on a mortgage just doesn't seem to compare - back then it was the first time anything like this had happened, I had no way of knowing how to handle it, I felt publicly humiliated and exposed and was so inexperienced that of course it was raw and painful in the extreme. I look back and still say - given all that, my extreme feelings were not out of proportion, they had a reason. Too often we try to medicate away the deep pain in our kids. We want an easy fix and often there isn't one. But tere are other options, other things that can help. I say this who did find that medication helped our kids, but we had to use other things too. What helped difficult child 1 the most, was acknowledgement that yes, his pain DID have good cause, it was OK to feel that bad, there were valid reasons. Also that it wasn't his fault, and that it would pass. We used antidepressants for a while at high dose to help him begin to cope, to get the extremes of the depression managed so he could learn to control what was left. difficult child 1 was 6 years old and feeling very bad about himself, when he was diagnosed with ADHD. At first I tried to shiled him from the diagnosis, because I worried how he would feel about himself, being told he had a condition like that. His doctor, however, made it clear - if anyone knew there was a problem, it was difficult child 1. He of all people was the first to know that something was wrong. But he was interpreting it as "I am bad because I am made that way; I have to accept to always be the naughty kid even if I don't want to be." Once he realised that there was a reason, he actually was happy to be diagnosed. It wasn't his fault after all! You sound desperate to help your girl. I don't blame you. It does sound like there's been a lot of mucking around, a lot of "We aren't sure but let's go with this," and shoving pills etc at you which are not reaching the problem, or are only a patch. Nothing really serious in terms of REAL help. The trouble is - you know her better than anyone else. She knows herself. So now this knowledge has to come in to the equation. You both need to push to get the label that feels the best fit. It may be Asperger's, it may be BiPolar (BP). But whatever label, it does need to be thought through properly and you have to feel confident with it. But it can no longer be some expert telling you what it is, YOU now have to be seen (by yourself too) as part of her diagnostic/management team. As she does. It's your right, it's her right. And responsibility. And frankly, it gives you a better chance of getting it right... So some suggestions - 1) Aim for a neuropsychologist update and ask them specifically to consider Asperger's, bearing in mind her high intelligence and the fact she's female (and girls tend to be atypical with Asperger's). 2) To help this, go to [url]www.childbrain.com[/url] and do the online Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire. It may score her as normal - that's OK. Print it out anyway and give a copy to the neuropsychologist or other doctor. You can't use this Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire to diagnose this yourself, an expert has to do it. But it does signpost the areas of concern, areas you may not have thought of because you live with this and accept stuff as normal that may not be. And as for everyone/everything else - it is extremely frustrating when you feel like they're fiddling while Rome burns. I remember feelnig frustrated when difficult child 3 was still not talking, and before I could access some urgent speech therapy, we had to undergo a course teaching us how to talk to our child (ie it's your fault for neglecting this child emotionally). It wasted another six months, at that time a significant percentage of his life. But if we refused to do it, then they took us off the therapy waiting list. very unfair. But in this case - take a multi-pronged approach. Use whatever you can. Make multiple appointments and then grab the ones you want, cancel the others. If you instead make first this appointment (then wait) then make the next, it takes a lot longer and sometimes you go through a long wait all over again, because what you hoped to be ac hieved in a particular session turns out to be a dud. If you instead have multiple appointments made, and appointment A turns out to fix things after all, you can cancel appointment B. But if appointment A is a dud, then appointment B next in the diary is already in place. Meanwhile if someone hands you free movie tickets - they're doing it to make themselves feel better. It's not a cure, it's a band-aid attempt. But hey, it's a free movie ticket. As long as it doesn't get in the way of more valuable help, grab what you can. Often the free tickets etc are a totally left-field kind of thing, some movie theatre is making a donation in order to make themselves look better, it's not simply someone saying, "Let's go out and buy some movie tickets, they're gonig to be a lot healthier than doling out antidepressants." Instead, it's a way of saying, "You are stressed, with good reason. I can't fix your stress any more than I'm already trying, but maybe this is something you can do for yourself while you're trying to cope with all the rest of this crud." Over the years we've been given free movie tickets; the kids have been sent to camp (for kids who help care for a disabled family member) where two of our kids met their spouses(!); we've had free tickets to theme parks when they have a special day for families living with disability; we've been to barbecues, to parties, to government receptions. I've been interviewed by the media on various topics. None of this was in any way meant to be "buying me off" from trying to get help. It was a fringe benefit, something we were able to do AS WELL to help our family feel a little more normal sometimes. We still went back home to deal with the same problems we have been living with, but hey, thanks for the handout. Along the way some of the fringe benefits have been good - the Young Carers camps came with therapy, the kids would talk to one another in a large group therapy session and that was gold. A lot of these kids had problems themselves, at least half were also difficult child. All help, all handouts, can help. But I agree - they are not a substitute for REAL help. It is natural to feel that having a movie ticket shoved at you indicates they really don't understand how desperate you are feeling or how urgent are your needs. As long as you can make that clear - grab what they offer. After all the enquiries and reassessment, they may well conclude that she is, after all, BiPolar (BP). Or CD. But as long as it has been properly considered, and you both feel you understand why and it feels right - then that is what matters. There shouldn't be doubt, but misdx is unfortuntely all too common. Marg [/QUOTE]
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