Growing Up Bipolar: Max’s World (Newsweek)

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COVER STORY: HEALTH
Welcome to Max’s World
Bipolar disorder is a mystery and a subject of medical debate. But for the Blakes, it's just reality.

Max Blake was 7 the first time he tried to kill himself. He wrote a four-page will bequeathing his toys to his friends and jumped out his ground-floor bedroom window, falling six feet into his backyard, bruised but in one piece. Children don't really know what death is, as the last page of Max's will made clear: "If I'm still alive when I have grandchildren," it began. But they know what unhappiness is and what it means to suffer. On a recent Monday afternoon, Max, now 10, was supposed to come home on the schoolbus, but a counselor summoned his mother at 2:15. When Amy Blake arrived at school, her son gave her the note that had prompted the call. "Dear Mommy & Daddy," it read, "I am really feeling sad and depressed and lousy about myself. I love you but I still feel like I want to kill myself. I am really sad but I just want help to feel happy again. The reason I feel so bad is because I can't sleep at night. And dad yells at me to just sleep at night. But, I can't control it. It is not me that does control it. I don't know what controls it, but it is not me. I really really need some help, love Max!! !! ! I Love you Mommy I Love you Daddy."

This is the story of a family: a mother, a father and a son. It is, in many ways, a horror story. Terrible things happen. People scream and cry and hurt each other; they say and do things that they later wish they hadn't. The source of their pain is bipolar disorder, a mental illness that results in recurring bouts of mania and depression. It is an elusive disease that no parent fully understands, that some doctors do not believe exists in children, that almost everyone stigmatizes. But this is also a love story. Good things happen. A couple sticks together, a child tries to do better, teachers and doctors and friends help out. Max Blake and his parents may not have much in common with other families. They are a family nonetheless. That is what has mattered most to Amy and Richie Blake since Oct. 31, 1997, the day their son took his first ragged breath.

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Ups and Downs topic

Some of his symptoms overlap AS.I think one of the comments mentioned that as well. If I can compare myself to this child, I would rather have the problems I do. This poor child seems to be locked in a chaotic nightmare from which he may never be awakened. Horrible, profoundly pathetic.

I wonder if there was brain damage at birth caused by a lack of oxygen. The hole in his heart could have been a factor.

Aspies sometimes are also bipolar, though usually milder. A diagnosis of Aspergers/bipolar is not extremely common, but it does happen. Symptoms of bipolar usually emerge around age 15-16 or so. Britney Spears, who is bipolar, started acting "odd" around age 16, but her handlers covered it up because she was on the verge of stardom. That was around 1997. By 2004 she was full blown, and by late 2006 she had a full scale meltdown, after which she started doing all that train wreck stuff like shaving her head. As that indicates, bipolars usually don't start off full blown crazy, but become "odd" around age 16 and usually take 7-8 years to become fully bipolar.

A full blown bipolar infant is pretty rare. Some aspie/autie infants don't like to be held and such, but this kid was crazy from day one. I can't help thinking that his brain was damaged in the womb. All the heavy duty meds have probably damaged it further. One day, he's gonna refuse to take his meds, as most bipolars do every so often, and by that time he'll be so wild that he'll simply be hauled off to the state institution for the criminally insane (the only mental institutions still existing in the US). He'll have to be locked in a padded room for life.