Tag Archive: bipolar disorder

Managing My Girl’s Tough Bipolar Weeks

Tough week here. My 9 year old forgot to take her meds once last weekend, and she spun into a pit of moody darkness for the rest of the week. It’s just part of the job with a neuro-atypical child, these zero-to-sixty meltdowns. It’s the crappy part of the job. Here’s how I handled it…

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Staying Sane While Raising a Bipolar Child

She stomps out of the room, each firmly-planted step shaking the floor. Tear-stained, she plunges her face into the pillows on her bed, where she screams and cries. As she starts to calm down, I feel the adrenaline retreating into the places from which it flooded my body. Breathing, relaxing myself, I tend to her…

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When she won’t hug Grandma

We flew 8 hours with 4 kids and umpteen bags across the country to visit Grandma. Within 2 minutes they’d already hurt her feelings. It’s always been stressful to balance the expectations of extended family and the needs of my two older girls, adopted as toddlers from foster care. Both their difficult history and their…

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The rant of an imperfect mom with imperfect children

I’ll never forget the Matthew’s first day of Kindergarten. He was placed in a special education class at our local school. I dressed him in a new red shirt and blue shorts that I had bought at The Gap. I combed his hair and took a picture of him for the scrapbook, hoping that someday…

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