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Home › Articles › Special Needs › The Bipolar Child

The Bipolar Child

Early Onset Bipolar Disorder

By Gwen Morrison

Pages:  1  2  3  

  • Great energy increase and the ability to go with little or no sleep for days without feeling tired.
  • Increased talking or pressured speech talks too much, too fast, rapidly changing topics.
  • Distractibility the child's attention moves constantly from one thing to another.
  • High risk-taking behavior, such as jumping off a roof, running out in the street with the belief that they will not be harmed.

    • Symptoms of Depression

    • Feelings of guilt, self-reproach, worthlessness.
    • Persistent sadness, frequent crying.
    • Loss of enjoyment in favorite activities, reduced motivation.
    • Frequent complaints of physical illnesses such as headaches or stomachaches.
    • Poor concentration, low energy, easily bored.
    • Change in eating and/or sleeping patterns.
    • Talk of harming themselves.

    There are some behaviors parents see in their children that wave a red flag, as Melisa Rechenmacher of Lancaster, Calif., learned. "She intimidates her sisters," says Rechenmacher about her daughter Kymberly. "She throws things. She is violent when she is in that state of losing it. We started her on medication last year; what a difference. The only problem is that you have to really monitor it because something wasn't right with one of the medications, and one night she got really angry. She picked up her mattress and threw it 20 feet, she threw toys at her father and me and she kicked and screamed. We had to call the police."

    Kymberly was admitted for medication evaluation and came home after a week at a local hospital. Rechenmacher says her daughter used to be suicidal which was scary but with the anti-depressants Kymberly is currently taking, she worries less about that and more about the everyday struggles of whether it will be a good day. "We all wait with baited breath to see if she's had a good day or a bad one," Rechenmacher says. "Unfortunately the mood of the house depends on how she is that day."

    The symptoms, if untreated, can go from bad to worse. Christie Kruger of Olympia, Wash., saw this in her own son at the early age of 10. "It started with mild mood swings, then got more intense," Kruger recalls. "He started having rages. Eventually he raged for hours without stopping; then he started lighting fires and burned himself. We hospitalized him at that point."

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