My Beautiful Brown Baby Girl

In my update on my last post, I left out some amazing details about my baby girl, E, the Diva. E was a very anxious baby. She was VERY anxious. Her body was stiff with anxiety. She was the loudest baby known to man and cried over everything, so we were seriously losing our minds each time she would get upset. If she couldn't be held right that second, if I had to leave her with my hubby, if I put her in church nursery, she freaked out! Screaming would last for hours. She would choke on her saliva, throw up, start hurting other people. It was like she was a caged animal begging to be set free! How we dealt with this was just keeping the girl happy. I didn't put her down, I didn't leave her anywhere, I just did the best I could. Finally when she was 2 I got her into the developmental pediatrician, and seeing as how her mother and father both have bipolar disorder, she felt it necessary to try a mood stabilizing medication on E. It worked great as far as suppressing her daily anxiety to the point where she she could function sitting alone, sleeping alone, even being at home with Daddy while Mommy went to the doctor or something. And it worked wonders for her inattention. Suddenly she started progressing in her developmental goals in therapy and we were so excited! Still, if she got upset because she got in trouble (say, hit her brother and needed a time out), she would scream for HOURS, choke on her saliva, throw up. We went to see a counselor, we asked doctors and therapists what to do. At least she only did it at home, and we considered it just her way of having a tantrum. She seemed to have zero control over her emotional state once she got upset. And then THIS year, she started having the issues at school. One day she was called out for doing something to another student at PreK and she freaked out! She screamed and tried to hit. She only had to do this once because she had 5 staff members trying to calm her down for 2 hours, and maybe she liked it! After that, she would do it at school almost daily. They tried ignoring her but the other kids would cry because she was so loud. Or she would start throwing toys at the teacher. Anger. Frustration. LOUD frustration. I would be called to the school, she would still be freaking out, and then sometimes after 10 minutes, sometimes after 55, she would suddenly stop, ask to be removed from the confinement room in the school office, apologize and ask if she could go home and have a treat. She started doing this at the gym, too. The gym child care workers were asking me how we punish our children (yes, they did!) as if we have caused this. I was literally sick. The school staff told me they thought she was mentally ill. Her teacher called me at night many times a week to ask me for help in guiding E because she seemed mentally ill to her, like she might snap at any moment. The doctor increased her medicine. She added on another medicine. We prayed. We cried. We were referred to more behavior therapists. Her teacher was probably as relieved as I was on the last day of school...FINALLY no more crazy fits. And I knew that E doesn't like being away from me, so being homeschooled, she would do just fine for me. I read and read on how to help her start rationalizing through her feelings to realize the world was not over if she had a timeout. We were starting to make some progress and then we'd have a big tantrum. E also has precocious puberty, meaning she has body odor, has had some body changes, and wears deodorant every day even though she is 5. She has moods that correspond with a PMS cycle, though she has not started menstruating, thankfully! This makes the tantrums even worse! Anything can set her off on that one week per month. I started really calling out to God to help me. I am fairly sure that E would not choose to act like this, affect people this way, or feel this way. I'm sure she did not wake up in the morning and say, "i'm going to get upset, start crying, start screaming, get sent to my room, and scream so loud that everyone in the family has to go sit in the car in the driveway so they won't lose their minds listening to me. I think that will be fun." The more this happened, the more she felt rejected! Oh, absolutely we tried holding her through the tantrums, being firm, being lenient. UGH When we would ask her what was wrong after a 2 hour screaming fit, she would say, "I was mad at myself for______" whatever she did to get in timeout initially. How can she live like this? She has to feel miserable! Does she need a psychiatrist? What can we do to help her!!?!?!?! Then a miracle happened. I ran out of her medicine, the one she has been on for mood stabilization for 3 years. It was on the weekend and she is not supposed to skip even one pill, but it was out of my hands and we were just going to suck it up and deal with it. The first day was awful. She was so all over the place emotionally! Then the next day was fine. Then the next day was fine too, even though the pharmacy said the doctor hadn't called in the medicine. No worries, we were going to see her the next day. By the 4th day, E was actually doing great! I didn't tell the doctor anything, but I had the refill in my hand and decided to just hold it for another few days, just to see what would happen. Days and days went by and each day E was emotionally better. When she did something, she might cry for a second and I would say, "I'm sorry you need a timeout. It may help you feel calmer." And you know what? She would do her timeout calmly. Just like that. I have spent hours on the phone begging the doctor for help as E screamed in the background this year. I have cried on the phone to my mother and BEGGED God to help my baby. And to help me to know what to do! Well, it turns out all I had to do was run out of one of her medicines. She's doing great now! Tonight, for example, I asked her several times to do something, but she was spaced out (feeling a bit hyper and enjoying it). I asked her to sit on her mat, which is on my floor because she has nightmares if she doesn't sleep right next to my bed. She started to cry really loud, an angry cry. I told her, "E you can make this better or worse. You can take your timeout to calm down on your mat right here, or you can go to your room and get your feelings out. Its your choice." She gave me a dirty look and went to her room screaming. I walked in and said, "you know, it doesn't have to be like this. You can calm down and come right back to me when you are sure you can listen." She looked right at me and said, "ok. I'm just going to read for a minute." Ten minutes later she still hadn't come out so I told her to come out. We talked about it and there was no problem. I asked her why she chose to go to her room instead of taking her timeout, "I was just tired. I needed some alone time for a minute to calm down my anger." WELL! How about that!?!?!?! Rational thought! Healing if you ask me! I cannot tell you what a relief this has been to our family. She goes to church now and loves children's church. She doesn't freak out when I drop her off. She hasn't had a tantrum once in a month and never at church. God has been SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good! I went back to her doctor and explained what happened, that I ran out of the mood stabilizer and she actually did better off of it...it was like a miracle cure! She said, "oh that's awesome! I'd much rather her be on less medicine than more!" I can't tell you how much better I feel knowing E isn't feeling so awful inside any more. And God worked through the trial over the past 5 years to help me continually stretch my breaking point. Its all good!