Nikki's Diagnosis

The week of Halloween started off in an unexpected way. Sunday the 24th we were invited to dinner by an old friend of Curtis's from his high school years (Scott Gibbons). That day, Nikki seemed to be having a down day. She cried in the morning and I told her she could just stay home from church if she wanted, so she did. Well, she slept the whole time we were gone and even after that we couldn't get her to do much. The time came for us to go to dinner and of course she did not want to go with us. The rest of us went and enjoyed some smoked chili and we brought corn muffins. Then we played a couple of games. It had been several hours and we decided it was time to go home. We were all shocked to see that Nikki cut all of her hair off so that she was nearly bald. The other kids were just asking why and Curtis and I were trying not to get mad about it. She is definitely experiencing some mental health issues and we needed to get this figured out.

The very next day I forced myself to go to the Rec Center in hopes that exercise would help me feel better but also so I could see my sister Melissa there and talk to her about what had happened. I almost chickened out but I'm glad I talked with her even though I burst out in tears in public. I was just so frustrated and didn't know what to do. Thankfully we already had the appointment made for the psychiatrist but that was a whole week away. I told Melissa some of the things going on with Nikki and to her it sounded like it could possibly be bipolar, especially considering the family history. Since Melissa has bipolar disorder I asked if she could talk to Nikki. I was able to take her over there on Tuesday the 26th and it was eye opening for Nikki but a very good conversation. Nikki told me that the things Melissa said she experiences are like her own experiences.

Just a couple of days before she had cut her hair off I thought she was doing so well. She was back to doing art again. There was an art project that she had been putting off for months and she finally tackled it. It was to paint a ceiling tile for her English teacher from last school year and it looks so good!

This is for the book "The Great Gatsby" (which I don't think I've ever read).

There are periods when she is happy and feels like she can do anything and then she goes downhill into a depression and feels like everyone hates her and she hates herself. She also gets anxiety.

We had her appointment with a psychiatrist on Monday November 1st where they were only offering online sessions. I wasn't thrilled about it being online but at the same time it was nice to just pick her up from school and bring her home instead of driving to Meridian for the appointment. It went well. She and I were asked a series of questions and it was determined that Nicole has Cyclothymia. It is not technically Bipolar but it could be considered the lowest type of Bipolar. Her cycles of depression and everything else she feels come in shorter cycles than those with Bipolar. Cyclothymia is a mood disorder. She was also diagnosed with having ADHD. The doctor (Joeth Ryan) decided to start her on some mood stabilizing meds called Lamotrigine. She has to gradually get up to the dosage she needs to avoid any allergic reactions. Apparently this is a medication used for people who have seizures. We're hoping that this will help with both the Cyclothymia and ADHD.

Nikki has been on the meds for a week now and I can't say that I see a difference yet. She had another rough weekend this past weekend. It was great at first with going on a date with Alex on Saturday but then Sunday came along. As soon as we got to church and sat down she pulled out her art pad and phone so that she can look at things to draw. The other two girls got paper to draw on or a coloring book out. At first I told them to put them away until after the Sacrament had been passed. Nikki didn't like that I had asked her to put it away. She immediately puts her head on her hand and closes her eyes. After a couple of minutes I decide that maybe it would be good for the girls (all 3 of them) to draw until it was time for the Sacrament to be passed. Even after telling Nikki she could go ahead and draw she refused to do it. So I left her alone after that. After the meeting was over she ducked out to go to her Sunday school class while I went to Primary with the girls. Jack also went to his class. Garrett was at home with a hurting stomach. Later on I go into the nursery to check on Aunt Cori and how she's doing in the nursery. She loves it in there she says but then she asked if we were able to find Nikki. What? I didn't know she was missing. I guess Curtis had asked Cori to go look in the bathroom for him to see if Nikki was there after she had left her class. She wasn't in there. 

It wasn't until after church that I find out that Nikki had started walking herself home and Curtis found her and drove her the rest of the way home. She was feeling down and depressed again and feeling like she doesn't belong at church (which she has said several times before). She was very down all day, even after Curtis got her out to take a walk in the evening. She seemed okay the next morning (which was yesterday) but after she got to school she sent a text and called me to ask if she could remove seminary from her schedule and just have an open period to do school work. That kind of threw me off and ruined my morning but I told her that we would talk about it with Dad that night after she got home from work. She later came home at lunch time in tears because she didn't want to go to seminary, which was the only class she had left for the day. I talked with her in her room for a little bit but I didn't want to say too much, especially anything that would cause more frustration. She doesn't feel like she belongs there and she felt like the teacher would call her out all the time because she's either sleeping in class or when she's trying to stay awake she'll have phone out and be drawing. I just let her stay at home and sleep.

I texted Curtis to let him know and actually for several weeks now he has been thinking that maybe we need to back off with trying to get her to church. His sister had told him that it backfired with her two boys on forcing them to church. Now neither of them attend as men and carry some resentment. We certainly don't want to cause resentment for Nikki with us or the church. After talking about it when Curtis was driving home and after he called and talked to our bishop we ultimately decided that it would be better to get her mental health in order and hope that the spirituality will come later since church and seminary seem to be triggers of some of her episodes. So last night we talked to her about not forcing her to go to church anymore and that if we needed to get her out of seminary then that's what we would do because her mental health is priority right now.

It was a hard pill to swallow and a very difficult phone call to make this morning when I called her seminary teacher. Of course he was greatly disappointed and saddened by this decision and the fact that she didn't seem to enjoy seminary anymore. Then I called and emailed her counselor at school to go ahead and remove seminary from her schedule. I was emailed back that it was taken care of and she now has an open period instead. Wow, that was hard to do but I'm hoping beyond hope and praying that one day she'll choose to come back and that she will feel the spirit again after her mental health is stabilized.