This evening in her therapy groups they did discuss grief all evening. Last week she began to realize that she isn't quite as invincible as she has believed, and then her friend passed yesterday sank that realization home extremely quickly. She is having trouble processing that now very suddenly very real fact as well as the shock of her friends passing. Combine the sadness and other natural emotions with her current manic state, and you have a child that is wanting to go go go and do do do without concern for the impact it may have financially, mentally, emotionally or physically on others and is using all of that to avoid the process of grieving.
When you have to attempt to reign in a child in a manic state that is also grieving you are met with the full force of both the manic state and the emotions. Also attempting to help her not allow the sadness to cause her to slip into a depressed state, but rather function at a somewhat typical level creates a whole new conflict in so many ways. It's very hard for her to understand she can be sad and not be depressed. In her world sad equals depressed so depressed is where she typically allows herself to go when she becomes sad. Figuring out the balance and how to help her maintain that delicate balance is difficult.
