Bill and Nancy
When was Ally first diagnosed with bipolar disorder?
From the time we adopted Ally at nine months of age, she was a
pretty irritable child. She was hard to sooth and wouldn't sleep.
She would stay up for long periods of time at night, often taking four
to five hours a night to fall asleep. She had an excessive amount of
energy and was very oppositional.
We knew that something wasn't right because she was so different
from our other two boys. It was hard to convince the pediatrician that
there were issues because she was so young and the doctor thought that
it was a normal development. By age three and four, she had multiple
temper tantrums that sometimes lasted for hours. At first she lost
control at home, but then she started to do it in public places.
When she was six, we decided to seek a psychiatric evaluation.
Initially, the doctor thought she had attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder and placed her on a stimulant. This only worsened and
activated her temper tantrums, so we stopped the stimulant after two
days. After seeing another psychiatrist who diagnosed her with
obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), we finally decided to take her to
an expert on bipolar disorder in Boston. Initially, the doctor
suspected that she had an underlying mood disorder along with major
depressive disorder and put her on an antidepressant. This helped
somewhat, but the sleep issues continued.
We never knew what would set her off. One time, while driving in the
car, she kicked my son in the back of his head. This shocked us because
she had been verbally abusive in the past but never aggressive. She was
very remorseful afterwards. She would cry and hit the car windows all
the way to school and doctor's appointments. She began to rip up
books, put holes in her walls, and destroy other personal belongings.
One day we were driving home from school and she got into a
disagreement with her older brother. When we stopped, she ran out of
the car into the woods. She wasn't coherent and I was unable to
rationalize with her and she kept running and running. Luckily, her
brother caught her. I immediately called her doctor who saw her the
next day. From this manic episode she was formally diagnosed with
bipolar disorder, type I and put on a mood stabilizer.
