I am new to this online community and to the world of Bipolar.

This school year started with a diagnosis of Bipolar 1 for our now 13 year old daughter (a 7th grader). A second opinion was something we sought, and that came back with a diagnosis of Bipolar and Borderline Personality Disorder.

The 2nd diagnosis results came back as our daughter experienced her first extended hospital stay in a behavior unit . Part of what extended the visit to 15 days was a change over from Prozac and a medicine that decreased urges (can't remember the name) to abilofi. Throughout the course of the fall which contained more ER visits, a baker act, another 5 days in the behavior unit, things transitioned to an addition of buspar to the abilofi (she takes 20 mg of buspar per day and 15 mg of ailofi per day). The day after she got out of the 5 day stay in the behavior unit, she started at a new middle school, eligibility was determined for an IEP with the exceptionality of EBD, with a direct placement into a behavioral unit, in her new school setting.

Our daughter's early issues began early in 5th grade, as she appeared to have anorexia. After seeking out a specialist, we soon realized that it was more behavior and had a first psych eval which felt she exhibited factitious disorder and an unidentified neurological issue.

By the end of 5th grade, she had a 504, we shifted to 6th grade at a private school, and then had to pull her out half way as self harm talk began, quickly followed by the initial medication.

Through virtual school and summer, she was able to complete her 6th grade coursework.

7th grade has grown to an even greater roller coaster ride.

As we try to grasp the best way to help our daughter, we feel like the factious component still plays a big role. We just had blood work taken with our new Psychiatrist, so we are hopeful that maybe there is a better match with her medication.

Presently she is addicted to a boy, who is also in her behavior unit. There are times where she seems to get that this kid isn't good for her, yet most of the time, he is the driving force of everything in her mind, despite their breakup last week.

A few questions:

1. Many doctors have said she is young and even with bipolar, they would put it in quotes. Our daughter holds bipolar as a badge of honor. She becomes very argumentative and inappropriate with her language frequently. Food seems to be a key to calming her down. Are these moments where she can truly be "verbally aggressive" an example of a manic moment?

2. It's hard knowing what is "bipolar" especially with a 13 year old who is highly manipulative and attention seeking. Does it take a long time to find an effective medicine regiment? Or could we possibly be going the wrong direction with medication in general?

3. Above all, no matter what our daughter has in actuality, does anyone have advice on motivating a young teenager, who doesn't want to fix her problems? In all honestly, the hardest pieces of life that our 13 year old has experienced have been from her own pushing to places like behavior units.

There is a narcissistic aspect of our child, which is baffling. She has to be the center of everything. Her fixations, especially on self harm talk or being paranoid, have guided her towards those experiences.

Our daughter, whether conscious of it or not, knows exactly how to get herself to a behavior unit and how to get herself out. As her school now expresses it, she uses her "magical words". The power that our daughter has managed to achieve is scary, especially in a school environment.

Her honeymoon time at her current school seems to be over. If she doesn't pull it together soon, she will open a door to the most, restrictive school in our district.

She is in DBT therapy presently. The benefits aren't being felt yet, due to our daughter's resistance.

This year has also been met with a rise on impulsive behavior. She stole some jewelry from a neighbor. Thankfully my husband got her to confess. Although the friendship has been cut off, the neighbor dropped it.

We are truly concerned about our daughter's erratic behavior. She is so capable in many ways, but we find she is getting more and more withdrawn from the real world. She seems to like being institutionalized.

Any advice? Sorry if I exceeded the typical welcome thread. Appreciate your time.

Sincerely,

Mom4hope