goody2shuz

Now that my 16 year old daughter is pretty much "stabilized' on her meds I am finding it difficult at times to differentiate BP behavior from "normal" teenage behavior (if there IS such a thing )

Okay....for instance, Erin was punished for sneaking out of the house meeting her boyfriend and roaming the neighborhood for the night. From what we gathered, she met another kid and the three of them drank some tequila which was supplied by the boyfriend, hung out by the pier talking and stuff and taking his bike into town and getting a donut at a convenience store about 2-3 miles away. This was over a 6-7 hour span. While I think this was rather impulsive on her part I pretty much am chalking it up to teenage behavior. (My brother pulled the same thing as a teen and took my parents car for a joyride picking up a few friends along the way.)

Well her punishment is not to see or speak to her boyfriend or friends for a month.....yes it's extreme but she has done the running away thing in the past and lied and deceived us as well as her big sister and we are tired of it. At the beginning of the summer we sat both girls down and told them that we have ZERO tolerance for lies and deceit....that we weren't going to put up with that in our home and if they did so that there would be a BIG consequence. We told them that they would have a month of no social life (seeing or talking to friends) and to weigh that very carefully if thinking about doing something stupid. And we wished them a happy & fun summer.

Well daughter #1 blew it by sneaking friends into our home without our permission (this was a third time she has done so in the past year) and daughter #2 did the same by sneaking out for a fun night of roaming the town with her BF.

Anyway....the first day Erin cried saying that we can't do this to her....that she has Major Depression and Bipolar and it is going to push her into a depression....I KNEW that she was using her diagnosis to try and play me to lighten up but I called her on it and she stopped.

Today she went into the dryer to get her work uniform and stated outloud...."Mom, you have to get dryer sheets because staticy clothes agitate me." I told her that she was probably agitated because she forgot to take her morning meds and it was 2pm. She argued saying that wasn't the reason because she gets frustrated even when on her meds.

Okay......so I am wondering from BPers and parents of BPers....is it common for a teen BPer to use their diagnosis to excuse their teenage behavior??? BPers if you could look back to your teenage years, did you do this when you were a teen and moms do you have the same difficulty as I am in terms of differentiating between the two behaviors??

Just thought this would be something others here could help me out with.

Thanks ~ Goody