Raising Bipolar

I like the therapist.  I like him a lot.

It’s interesting, though.  He is very much a behavior based therapist.  In other words,  he minimizes the effect of medicines as he believes they don’t control you.  You control yourself, regardless of medication.  Now, as much as I would like to believe this is wholly and completely true, I know it’s not.  We have learned the hard way that it’s not.   And I’m not sure the therapist completely believes it either as I know he know a great deal about bipolar disorder.  Rye is actaully able to make much better decisions and control himself better now with the medication.  Even he says he can feel it and can feel that he has better control of himself  and we can very, very much see it.  So while I think it’s a good idea for Rye to know that he controls himself and that this premise is what makes the actual behavior therapy work, the medication is what makes the therapy doable and we all know that.  Even Rye.

Anyway, so what have we learned so far?

Well, one of the best things from the first session was Practice Makes Perfect.   As he explained it, if Rye starts making good decisions now and practices working on making good decisions as he grows until he is 18 by the time he is an adult  he will be very good at making good decisions.  Making good decisions will be what he does well at the time of adulthood.  Conversely, if he starts now at 12 years old making bad decisions and practices making bad decisions over and over again from now until he is 18 years old, and surrounds himself with others that make bad decisions so the behavior becomes normalized, by the time he is an adult he will be an expert at making bad decisions.  And this will set him up for a very difficult adult life because the one thing he will be an expert at by the time he is 18 is making bad decisions.

I love this concept as it really is so true but I had never really thought of it in that way.

In the second session, today, he worked on reinforcing the concept of making good choices.  We also implemented a system of earning rewards and privileges (verses losing privileges or punishment which is where we were before).    We examined Rye’s behavior over the past week and looked at what he could have done differently and what Don and I as parents could have done differently (because let’s face it, we are learning here too).  We also talked about the fact that if the public school Rye goes to continues to be a total disaster in the fall (he wants to go back to school with his friends) then we should look at private school options.   In fact, he suggested a school that he said is great and so we are going to look at it in a few weeks.  We talked about football and sports, as Rye is really excited about that, and making good goals for yourself.  Keeping commitments.  Showing good character.   These are all things that Don and I talk about with Rye as well but it’s amazing how having an independent third party reinforcing the child and holding them responsible can have such an impact.

And the best thing about the therapist, the piece I just love and that makes Rye want to go and also leave the sessions feeling all warm and cozy, is that although the therapist is pretty hard on behavior and complying to rules and holding Rye accountable for what he does and says, he is also extremely good at positive visualization and enabling Rye to see what a great person he is now and can be in the future, what goals he can accomplish, what heights he can reach and how successful and wonderful he will be in the future as an adult.  It is really great.   He has Rye envision himself relaxing and following the rules and accomplishing whatever goals he wants for himself and having a very successful life.

I love it.

Accountability, following rules, responsibility, caring, empathy, hard work, respect for others, respect for one’s self, and good character, all coming together to create subsequent limitless success in life.

The possibilities in life are limitless if you do the right thing.