In the age of zero tolerance, my son discovered that the school security will respond to fights, but not punches.

He had someone bullying him in high school, making fun of him for having a big nose. Told the guy he was done, and didn’t want to hear it anymore, and said if he said one more thing, there’d be trouble.

The guy opened his mouth again, my son stood up, punched him in the face, and sat back down. There was a security guard walking by at the time, and he saw it, and just kept walking.

I’ve felt my son’s punches in karate class, so my first reaction when he told me about it was to ask if I should prepare for a visit from the police, but he said he pulled the punch.

No one ever said anything about his nose again.

It amazed me that anyone would ever consider bullying him. 6’5" tall, solid muscle, about 12 years of Karate classes. It seemed like bullying him would be obviously suicidal, but he is a good kid who didn’t want to hurt anyone, so bullies irrationally thought he was an easy target.

I don’t know. Future me is already pretty pissed about me forgetting to take lactaid.

There were hallucinations in the first episode, and definitely some grandiose ideas in both the first and second episodes.

I have some concerns, because some aspects of his care after the first episode were neglected because he was felt he was experiencing too much anxiety to deal with it. That left him without any therapy, and because the psychiatrist had weaned him off the meds, he was unmedicated.

I don’t believe he would have stopped the meds without the psychiatrist saying he should. However, we do need to make sure he has ongoing care, therapy, and group meetings.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I appreciate the information.

The tray is for water spills more than coffee spills. If water spills, it’s much less and not difficult to clean up. When it’s a coffee spill like this, it’s much more effort to clean up.

Also, I thought I was going to have coffee, but instead I had a mess.

Thank you for your response!

That sounds absolutely terrible for you as well as her.

The one thing everyone agrees on with my son is that he would never hurt anyone else. We’re all only concerned that he could hurt himself.

Thanks for your reply.

There were definitely signs leading up to this. As I’ve mentioned, we were a bit too hopeful that the diagnosis was wrong, so we deluded ourselves into thinking it wasn’t happening. Which is strangely comforting because now that we have no basis for believing the diagnosis was wrong, we WILL pay closer attention.

The biggest sign was he wasn’t sleeping. That would be bad for anyone, but he never has trouble sleeping.

Thanks for sharing!

The thing that makes me most hopeful is his attitude. He really seems to be dedicated to making the treatment work.

We’ll have to ask that. I don’t think it’s been said, although it’s possible that it went past me without me understanding.

Thanks again!

We’ll definitely check them out. If the insurance doesn’t cover it, we’ll make it work.

Thank you for sharing!

It’s interesting that you mention Kanye, because the first time they mentioned bipolar in the crisis center, he said he had been thinking about Kanye.

Yeah, I spoke to him about that in the crisis center. I told him that it’s going to take time and it’s important to keep trying and to be aware of the possible side-effects so he can watch out for them.

When he told us that he started meds again, he told us what it was and let us know that he asked the doctor about side-effects, so I felt good about that.

That’s what I was saying to him in the crisis center. It sucks that you can’t feel fantastic. But the merely ok feeling you have to feel is what everyone else feels.

He is open to therapy, but we are in the US, so there are challenges. However, I have excellent health insurance through my employer, and he works for the same employer, so when he ages out of my plan, he’ll be able to sign up for the same insurance.

The other detail about him is he’s one of the most caring, kindest people I know. There is really no chance he will hurt someone else, except that if he hurts himself it will hurt the people who care about him.

Thanks for your response. We will ask about generic testing.

Both times, at the height of the episode, he recognized that it wasn’t right and asked for help.

While sitting in the crisis center with him and waiting for an out-patient placement this time, there was a moment when I was saying he just needed meds to get centered. He objected and said he was centered. I pointed out that if he was centered, we’d all be sleeping in our beds, and he was able to accept the logic of that.

The only reason he went off the meds the first time was because he was experiencing some bad side-effects and the doctor wasn’t certain of the diagnosis. I’m pretty confident that he’ll stay on the meds.

Thank you for your response. It is very helpful.

I’ve been hopeful because my son has shown that he wants treatment.

When he was weaned off his meds, we all latched onto the idea that the diagnosis was wrong, and I think we missed red flags because we didn’t want to see them. I don’t think we have to feel guilty about that, but we have now gone back to accepting the reality and we know we have to pay closer attention.

Yeah. The tray underneath is really just to catch water spills, but it definitely came in handy today.

I’ve done it often with the machine at work, but I’m always nearby, so I catch it before it overflows the drip tray.

I don’t know what that is, but I’m guessing it would be bad.

Yep. Started the machine and carried my breakfast out to my desk. Had to go back for something and thought, “something sounds wrong”, but it was almost finished.