|
|
(Date Posted:07/20/2009 07:54 AM)
Mental illnesses change as adolescents evolve
By ALANA LISTOE
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/07/19/top/55lo_090719_challenge.txt
Four-year-old Jake Power’s eyes are big and bright as he makes his way around the playground at Helena’s Memorial Park on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
His short, sandy blonde hair lies perfectly against his olive skin. His voice is soft. He doesn’t say too much. He doesn’t stand out from any of the other children playing.
Yet Jake has been known to explode, far beyond a typical child’s tantrum, at the slightest disruption. Jake has hurt himself and others. He’s been kicked out of every day-care facility in his hometown of Gillette, Wyo. It’s hard to believe this little boy stabbed his mother in the foot with a knife six months ago.
Jake is in Helena today because he’s living at Shodair Children’s Hospital, being treated for intermediate explosive disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. He’s been diagnosed, then undiagnosed, with pediatric bipolar disorder.
“We don’t really know what is going on in his little head,” his mother, Ashley Power, says sadly. “He can be the most wonderful, happy, great child that loves to play and joke around, even affectionate, and then two seconds later he’ll be ripping the house down.”
Government surveys say at least 6 million American children who are diagnosed with serious mental disorders have difficulties functioning in daily life. That’s triple the number it was just two decades ago. Professionals speculate that’s not necessarily because there are more cases; instead, they believe there is a better understanding of mental illness and less reluctance to diagnose.
Jake’s foray into the mental illness arena began when he was 19 months old. The little boy who had been a delightful infant and happy toddler no longer wanted to be held or to walk. He fussed often. Doctors in Billings, where the Powers were living at the time, diagnosed Jake with autism.
Then last fall, Jake started pushing strangers in a department store, throwing merchandise at them, and trying to knock over a shopping cart. He tried to walk to the post office at 2 a.m. where he thought a package from his grandmother was waiting.
Jake woke up, unlocked the front door and headed out. Luckily, he didn’t get far before a neighbor scooped him up and returned him home.
Ashley took him to the Wyoming Behavioral Institute, an acute care behavioral hospital in Casper, where therapists recommended more in-depth residential care and treatment. The only options were Shodair Children’s Hospital in Helena, a facility in Texas or one in Illinois. Ashley Power chose Shodair not only because of its close proximity to their home, but also because of its positive reputation.
Professionals at Shodair initially decided it wasn’t autism that affected Jake, but bipolar disorder. However, bipolar disorder, characterized by steep mood swings from extreme energy to crashing depression, is not typically diagnosed in children or teens. Yet, it has become more prominent in recent years.
A more accurate name for Jake’s mental illness might be intermittent explosive disorder, doctors have decided. It’s not unusual for children’s diagnoses to change, since they have a difficult time explaining thoughts and feelings, and they evolve as they mature.
Regardless of what it is that ails Jake, living with him is difficult for Ashley, a 25-year-old single parent.
She doesn’t know what set him off that day Jake stabbed her foot. She was cooking dinner and Jake went from playing with the dog in another room to an outburst of rage.
“He came in and starting screaming at me and grabbed the knife on the counter,” she said. He lunged forward, missing her stomach yet hitting her foot.
“It’s hard to understand when he gets like that,” she said.
Yet, like any mother, Ashley loves her son. She sees beyond the anger and the outbursts, embracing the little boy — emotionally, if not physically — who is sliding on the playground.
“To me, he’s the most wonderful child on God’s green Earth,” she said.
cont'd at website
--------------------------------------------------------------
"This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice." Oliver Wendell Holmes |
