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Originally Posted by VoraciousReader
If there were one thing you could tell your son that you knew he would really internalize and take to heart and do his best to steer his actions accordingly, what would it be?
If you are honest with everyone, you will always know you were right even when things don't work out.
He's learning the importance of honesty as well as I can teach him: this summer we were in a meeting with a counselor and he was asked what the rules were at his hoes. At his mother's, he said there weer lots of things he couldn't do. What about with me? At first he said there were no rules at all, then when pressed, he said "Well, I guess just don't lie to Dad."
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Was his unusual name your choice? His mother's? A joint effort? Do you think it's harder for kids to have unusual names?
We had two possibilites picked out... but then in our post-partum exhaustion (it was a very long labor, and I was intimately involved in every second of it — she even said that I was her brain the entire time) they each seemed wrong. The name he wound up with popped into my head out of nowhere — no family connection, no real famous peiople with it, nothing. yet it was right — everyone has always thought so. (Yeah, I know, they're being nice.)
It's not a totally bizarre name, it's just uncommon enough I don't want this thread to come up in a Google search.
The really odd thing about his name is his surname: it's my mother's maiden name. His mother didn't like hers, I don't particularly love mine, and we didn't want to choose, so we picked a name we each liked. My grandfather, who cared about such things, had had three duaghters and the name had died laong that line, so he would have been pleased had he lived a couple years longer — but it was also particularly appropriate because for a while we lived with my grandmother (same side), who was alone in the woods after he died. She is the kindest person who has ever lived and loves nothing more than to help children, but K is special out of all her grandchildren and great grandchildren, of whom there are many, because with us there she had a chance to be closely involved in raising him — and he has her name.
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Do you worry that he will inherit your bipolar?
Certainly, and it seems he may have — he's very clearly my son, including in some not-so-good way. But in a very important sense it will be better than it was for me, because his father knows. I was not correctly diagnosed until my mid-thirties, but he and I have already talked about the possibility. (He's 12.)
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My oldest friend in the world is bipolar and has had a really difficult time getting medications that work for her long term. Unlike a lot of people with the disease, she is pretty med-compliant, even when she's winging manic, but the effects seem to wear off over time. Do you take any kind of medication and if so, have you had similar experiences?
See extended answer somewhere in this thread.
Taking one's meds is hard for bipolars when they're manic, as you obviously realize. But for me the problems have been more that they don't work well, or have clearly intolerable side effects — he dulling of the highs isn't something that's bad, mainly because my highs simply aren't any fun. I do crazy things, but not because I'm elated, it's more because I'm anxious or angry or just flat-out crazy. (Not any more — I really have suppressed those things so well that not only don't I exhibit them, I don't often feel them, or at least not the worst of them.)
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What is your favorite herb?
Basil, I suppose. But I don't cook often enough to matter.
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Do you cook? Have a specialty or a favorite food?
When I do cook, I do either soups (a really heavy bean soup that is for no one but me, or a vichyssoise that is straight out of my old
Joy of Cooking but that doesn't mean it isn't great) or risotto. Risotto al finocchio (fennel) is the best, but given a trip through the produce department I can whip up any number of combinations that are delicious — but that's cheating because risotto is so inherently great that as long as you know how to get the texture right, no one's ever complaining about it.