Bipolar child?

My son is 5. Im struggling with my bipolar and schizoaffective disorder right now, and i see traits of myself and my struggle in him.
He gets angry, he has extreme reactions to small triggers.
It hurts my heart so bad.

I have good dialogue with him and we have a code word "penguin" that he says to me when he starts to have these feelings.

My husband and i are meeting with a child therapist in 2 weeks to talk about this, but does anyone else have a similar experience? Especially with such a yound child?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Hello BipolarMama31: I can't speak to this from the perspective of being a parent of a bipolar child. I'm an old man. But I wanted to reply to your post because, many decades ago, I think I may have been like your son. I recall my mother telling me that even as an infant if I was crying, & she would try to hold me to comfort me, I would stiffen up & just scream. And, as the years went by, I would also struggle with anger issues & have extreme reactions to triggers.

Back then, there simply wasn't the awareness of mental health issues there is today nor were there the services available that there are today. So my "symptomatology" was just assumed to be aspects of my personality or me just being "bad". And, as a result, these aspects of my personality, so to speak, haunted me throughout my childhood as well as throughout adulthood. So I want to commend you for recognizing & accepting that your child is struggling & for trying to do something about it while he is still so very young. I wish you all well...

My son was diagnosed when he was 16-17. He got suicidally depressed and dropped out of school.

He is 19 now. On meds. still get depressed but not bad. I think he is bipolar 2.

You are doing the right thing by getting him therapy. Make sure you're sticking with your treatment, too.

My son 13 has had bipolar. He's had it since he was little he has ASD and ADHD also. Meds specifically abilify. Right now he's doing well off meds but he has an open invitation to go back to therapy when needed.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Hes doing great now that we are paying closer attention to triggers.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk