New -- Help

[tessaturtle]

When I read your post, I did not get out of it that you were asking for advice on whether or not you should be in this relationship, but that you were seeking what we all seek here..companionship, a sounding board, and advice from others who have difficult child's. It seems to me, you got a lot of people telling you to get out of a relationship that you have described as a committed one with time invested. We can not help who we fall in love with and I could not even imagine even thinking of advising you to break off your relationship over a child with special needs.

I fell in love with my SO and his kids. I actually knew his difficult child long before I knew SO because I ran the after-school/summer camp program he was in. I guess you could say in that case, I knew what I was getting into before I jumped in. I would not even pretend that living with and parenting a difficult child has been easy, it definitely hasn't. However, my SO and I were a match from day one and are in this together. difficult child does not blow up on me any more or any less than his bio mom or my SO, he blows up the same no matter who we are in his life. He does listen to his father more than his mom or I.

Anyway, my advice to you, from someone in a somewaht similar situation is just educate yourself as much as possible on difficult child's beahviors, so if you are involved with his upbringing, you can help advocate for his and your family's needs.

Hope this helps :smile:

 

[jwlmarie]

Thanks very much for your response. You are exactly correct, I was not looking for advice on whether I should stay in this relationship. I was looking for some tools from Mothers and Fathers that have been in the battle with a child that has BiPolar and ADHD.

Thanks again for your support.

 

[flutterbee]

I'm certainly not advocating one way or the other on whether you should stay in the relationship. That is a very personal decision. I do think it's important to hear from others the effects a child with mental illness has on the family; not to scare you or deter you, but just to offer information. My children have been together all their lives and it's not easy on either of them. There has been a lot of resentment for both of them and it's been a long, hard road.

I see that the child is bipolar, but I don't see any medications listed for bipolar. If he is bipolar and it's not stabilized, adhd medications will likely make him unstable. Conventional wisdom says to stabilized the bipolar and only then add medications for adhd. We have some members who have children with both bipolar and adhd whose kids can't tolerate stims at all.

Like I said in an earlier post, I do think a neuropsychologist evaluation is important especially with bio-mom's history. We spent a lot of years spinning wheels until we had a neuropsychologist evaluation. We got more answers out of a few hours of testing than we did with years of therapy and psychiatrists. The neuropysch evaluation will also help you develop a therapeutic plan for the child.

It can take a long time to get the right diagnosis and many of us have gone through many misdiagnoses before we hit the right one. So many disorders mimic each other that it can be very difficult to sort it out. And once you do get a proper diagnosis, getting the right medications in place (if medications are called for) is another process unto itself. Then as you get the medications sorted out, the child goes through puberty and the process often starts again. There is no quick fix. It's years of advocating and perseverance.

Good luck to you.