Bipolar Teen Daughter

[my3girls64]

I am back after almost a year.... my daughter has now been propely diagnosed with mood disorder/bipolar.. she is currently on lexapro 10mg and seems to be adjusting to the medications well. she is not as moody or angry anylonger.. however, she is still making horrible decisions, lieing, and her grades have dropped dramatically... i have her facebook password (she does not know this).. so i know what she is doing... hanging with kids that are smoking/drinking (although some of it is made up).. she is lieing to people telling them she is drunk or high, when i know she is not because she is home... she is bisexual and seems to always meet the wrong person.. either poor family values, no parent supervision, or just all around bad kid... i need help.. my husband wants to send her away to some place for troubled teens... her thereapist wants us to create a "expectations/consequences" chart for her so she can see in black and white what is expected of her and what the consequences will me

 

[Liahona]

Welcome back! Sorry my brain is fried right now, but I wanted to welcome you.

charts work very well for my kids as long as I am extremely consistent. We don't live in an institution so I can never make it work for long. And my kids have a different diagnosis than yours.

 

[BusynMember]

If she is hanging around with drinkers and drug users, it is highly likely that somewhere, sometimes she is doing the same thing, especially since she is Face booking about it. Whether or not she is doing it at home, she is probably doing it somewhere. Unfortunately, I know that drug users lie a lot because I had one and since her "friends" (cough) think it's cool to drink and use drugs, it is unlikely she is always saying "no" when she is with them. I would definitely spring a drug test on her every so often, however they don't "get" every drug.

I am sorry you are dealing with this. If she is a young teen, your husband may be onto something, depending on how good the school is. If she is an older teen, there isn't much you can do because there does come a time when they are not in our control. We tried everything with our then sixteen year old and nothing worked. She managed to sneak out of t he house through her window. I drove her to school and picked her up. She still did drugs, sometimes at home by herself. You may want to check her room when she isn't at home.

At the very, very least she needs some very serious therapy, if she is willing to be straight up with the therapist. My daughter wouldn't talk. Falling grades, and new and undesirable friends as well as missing money (yours), and lying are red flags for drug use. in my opinion it's best if you can redirect her to a nicer group of friends or it doesn't usually turn out to well. My daughter had to go to live with her brother in a different state before she could straighten out.;d

 

[MyFriendKita]

Hi, my3girls64. Welcome back, but I'm sorry you had to come back under these circumstances. My son was diagnosis as bipolar at around the age of 16 (he's almost 25 now). I'm not sure how old your difficult child is, but a couple of things from your post jumped out at me. We went through a year of trying different medications for my son (he was originally diagnosis ADD/ODD), and we reached a point where I thought an antidepressant was going to be recommended next for him. I had done a lot of reading about bipolar teens and antidepressants, and I came to the decision that I would not let him take one. I know a lot of bipolar adults who do well on them, and some bipolar teens, but he had been in a lot of trouble, and I knew an antidepressant could make a bipolar teen very manic, and we really did not need to go there. Thankfully, his psychiatrist agreed and put him on a mood stabilizer (Lamictal). He was already on an antipsychotic (Seroquel), which had helped a lot with the moodiness and raging. This combination was a life saver for us. My son was like a different person. He was still somewhat impulsive (he still seems to have ADD symptoms, even today), but his disposition was pleasant, and he got serious about school and work. The psychologist that tested him before he was put on Lamictal had told us that no amount of counseling (and we had a therapist who wanted us to do the expectations/consequences thing, too) would be effective for our son until he was stable on medication. He turned out to be 100% correct.

I don't agree with MWM that if your daughter is an older teen there isn't much you can do. As long as your daughter is a minor, there is plenty you can do. For one, keep spying on her. We became amateur detectives in trying to check up on our son and keep him in check to the best of our ability. No, we weren't always successful, but we kept trying. We stopped a lot of things he was planning to do that way. I don't know how we survived the two or so years where my son was so out of control, but we hung on, and we all got through it. Today my son is not on medication, so he's very moody and he's not Mr. Sunshine, but he holds down a steady job and stays out of trouble. That's all I can ask.

 

[bby31288]

Hi and welcome. I too was surprised that the doctor put your daughter on lexapro an anti-depressant first. I thought first line treatment of bipolar was a mood stabilizer then add the anti-depressant after mood stabilizer was at a therapeutic level. I'm glad you have her password and can kinda keep track of some things. It amazes me that our difficult children lie about being drunk and high to their friends. I guess to look cool? Has her friends changed? Is the bisexuality new? I do not believe the chart will make a difference with her. I'm sorry I don't seem to be of much help! Maybe spring a drug test on her and see if anything shows up.

 

[BusynMember]

I don't mean you can't do anything and I shouldn't have said that. We did spy and we stopped her from running off with a guy she met online who lived in Colorado. Also, when my daughter used there was no Facebook or social networking so we didn't have that resource. And we did catch her doing things and turn her into the police. My point was, she still did what she wanted to do and the cops basically just slapped her hands since she was only caught with pot (although she did much more). You can take away her stuff. We did that. We took away her money. She got a job and kept it!! That was her only source of income. She knew she was on the way out at age 18 unless she straightened her act out. She didn't, not until she was out of our house.

But the sad fact was, in spite of all that it did not stop of even slow down her drug use. Drug users are very sneaky. That's really what I meant. It's best to nip it younger and we did not have a clue until she was fourteen (she had been into drugs for two years by then). She had to stop using on her own...we couldn't make her...nobody could make her. So the poster above is definitely more correct than I was!!

 

[TerryJ2]

Hi My3Girls, welcome back, but so sorry you had to come back.
So, Lexapro is the only thing your daughter is on? I know that it helps to take the edge off, but what about the mood swings? Isn't the dr giving her anything for her bipolar?
I'm so sorry about the lying and weirdness. I wish I had some advice but I'm up to my in alligators and am in no position to give advice right now.