I agree with Corrina, it may be time to explore medication. I know it's scary to think about but, trust me, when they are working properly you'll wonder why you waited so long!
Who diagnosed him? Was it a specialist? You mentioned bi-polar, and that may be something that needs to be explored or at least ruled out. My son's psychiatrist said it's imparitive that the diagnosis of ADHD not be confused with bi-polar because the treatments are so different and will aggravate each other. So it's good to just make sure. The first several times we went to her office my son had the most horrible tantrums and I was so embarrassed! But it actually ended up making me feel better. She said "If you've ever wondered if he's bi-polar, don't worry any more. He's not. If he was, he wouldn't be able to swing that quickly from one mood to another". She said that bi-polar swings take much longer. So that may be something to look at when you're trying to figure out what's going on...
Hope this helped a little . Good luck!
cfa3, my heart goes out to you and your son. I know it is hard to start meds. Remeber that you can start them and stop if the side effects are bad.cfa3,
How was his first day of camp? I hope he like it!
I would get a full evaluation so you can rule things out and anything "in". Was he professionally diagnosed with ADHD? Most adhd'ers have a co-morbid condition as well as their adhd, just an fyi.
I have a 12 yr old son who couldn't go a day without his meds. They truly help him help himself.
My son has anxiety, sensory integration, and speech delay. We didn't begin meds until the end of first grade, we tried to pretend he didn't need them, but he did. He was labeled horribly. He also was very impulsive that not only could he hurt someone else, but he could hurt himself as well. Kids made fun of him because he acted differently, younger, goofey, etc. He also got in trouble for things he did and kids made fun of that as well.
If you have any questions, please ask. We here have all been through it before.
I hope your son is able to succeed at camp and enjoy his time there. I also hope he meets some new friends, every one needs a friend or two.
BETHANN39994.1446180556And just so I'm clear, I thought my son was acting bipolar before he wasI have posted here once before and havent been back since. I have been here a while now reading through posts and the variety of topics here. It seems like a great forum and a good place to come back to and post. I have more info on whats going on with my son than when I posted here a while back. He is almost 10, he is formally diagnosed with PDD NOS, anxiety disorder, adhd, Tourette's language disorder (delayed speech and articulation and pragmatic problems now)- I have never been one for formal diagnoses because I think a lot of times people are lot more complicated than psychiatry thinks and summing up a persons issues in a word can be very over-simplifying. Anyhow, we know there is no autism here, he has the PDD NOS because of behaviors that havent been diagnosed as other things yet. he is very adhd in that he is extremely impulsive (impulsive touching, slapping, grabbing, jumping on things etc etc), he talks NON STOP, we literally have to remind him to take a breath or pause and give our ears a rest - he is extremely frustrated to a shocking degree 90% of the time, cant pay attention to any one thing except preffered activities, spaces out, etc. He is also always been VERY immature for his age, although I think his very delayed speech has a lot to do with that, he is extremely emotionally immature, he will still play his kindergarten video games and watch sesame street, although intelectually he is average. He goes from zero (when nothing is bothering him) to explosive in a half a second. most recently he had a severe violent fit, not something we see often at ALL, a few weeks ago and i was on the verge of having to call the police he was SO crazy and aggressive, i still have bruises and bite marks. That freak out came after some days of a visible mood change building up in him, but he didnt think THAT would happen.
He is really basically freaking me out lately. he had a horrible year at school, he has no friends because he acts like he is 2, he is very clingy and co dependent and whiny and for the past 3 weeks he has been talking about strictly in a literally baby voice, a whiny, weird baby's voice. its horrible. he is obssessing more than ever and anything that comes out of our mouths, my husband and i, he will jump on, argue with and just say such nonsensical wacky things just to get an argument going - example, he will say like this morning "I dont want to go to camp, my lovebird will die if im not home" (we are trying a day camp today is first day) and I said "the bird will be fine, she has lots of attention from you" and his response, like to everything lately is something just ridiculous like "you want my bird to die. you are a liar. you want me to have a bad day" or some other such crazy talk. and then when you go to reply he just goes more and more off the deep end saying things that are so silly its scary. I know already that he has thinking issues - inablity to think through a problem, inability to use language properly to help him, irrational thinking and lots and lots of misperceptions and beliefs - but the degree this has gone to is 100x what it always was. he would always say things like "your lying" or "you dont trust me" and other misperceptions and erroneous beliefs, and alot of the time we would just have a to have a long talk literally explaining what "really" is going on and he would eventually see it and move on. But now its like he is just obssessed with this world of make believe and nonsense thinking and talking. I actually believe that there is NO thinking going on at all.
anyway, i am just at my wits END. He was always very emotional, hyper, silly, goofy, defiant, oppositional, at time aggressive, but he never seemed so FAR away like does now, he is silly now ALL day. its like i havent seen my son in weeks. I keep trying to figure out if i think there is a mood problem here and i am just so deep in this that i cant see! Do any of you have kids with a mood disorder? Whats weird is that it seems like there are times when all this big show of immaturity and silliness and aggression just stops, like when i took him to camp this morning, as soon as he walked through the door he seemed like "himself" again, talking normal, acting normally, greeting people, smiling and even kissed me bye normally. I dont understand what this means. He is not on meds, i am not much of a meds person and have been using fish oil and vitamins and wonder if i should try agian, taking wheat or dairy out, or try a different vitamin. But the problem now is thatthis is so off the wall, so freaky and lasting so long that i am half out of my mind and my husband cant take it any more, I am now thinking of meds. My sons seems out of his mind, yet there are those times like at the camp today which makes me wonder maybe its just US? maybe this is some huge emotional response to us, and he doesnt need meds, which do scare me and i find questionable. i dont know. I am used to his ups and downs over the years, some weeks good and ok, others hard and my son more irritable than usual or more explosive. But lately its like im living with a time bomb, and i am used to how hard he is, he has been SO hard to deal with from the time he was one year old. ANYONE have any comments, i dont know if i should think about bi polar, but he doesnt SEEM depressed? Im sorry this is so long! thank you!