Spinning

Our world has been spinning and our daughter has been spinning out of control. But for about 24 hours she managed to hold it together while she stayed over at her cousin's. How or why she was able to do this I don't know. As soon as she stepped into my car, she let it all out. When we got to Dr. D's office she told me her name was LaFreaka and if anyone called her Acadia she was going to turn them into dust and put the pieces of dust in different countries. We went into the waiting room and she wrote on the wall with a crayon. In Dr. D's office she started scribbling on paper, flailing on the floor, crying, yelling, screaming, biting herself, hitting herself, etc. Dr. D asked her if she felt like hurting herself and she said "Yes, but I don't have a plan!" Can you tell she knows the drill now? "Do you have thoughts about hurting someone else?" "Yes!" "Who?" "Everyone!"
So she was a wreck and the doc said she should probably be hospitalized.
Now to catch you all up, we tried to hospitalize her Monday and that resulted in 5+ hours in the ER and then going home because there was just "No room at the Inn". Still nothing available Tuesday morning which is when my SIL offered to take her for the day and overnight if it worked out. So that's what we did, and it apparently worked out. Jump back to today, I have to make a decision. If I go head with admission, we can skip the ER because we just saw the doc. But what about the previous 24 hours? Where does that come in to the picture? The doc didn't have much of an explanation for me other than sometimes in a different environment kids can hold it together for awhile. She said it was up to me whether I wanted to take her home and try again, or admit her. Dan didn't know what we should do, either. In the midst of this, Dr. D took a break to call the hospital and I took Acadia to get a snack. At this point she switched. All of a sudden she was calm and talking to me. She started talking about how she was just pretending in the doc's office, and that she really could control herself. The next minute she was telling me that she thought maybe I wasn't real and I was some person in a good costume trying to kidnap her. Probably not, but she couldn't really be sure. Okay....so is she manipulating? Paranoid? I have no idea. She says she wants to go back to the doc and tell her how she "really" feels. Sounds like a good idea. Back we go and she does start talking and answering questions. Acadia's story now is that she feels fine and wants to go home. I notice her movements getting faster and more driven. She starts setting up this whole playset of dinosaurs and gets so involved in playing with them, that she's not hearing what we say to her anymore. No one is going to make this decision for me so I say "Okay, I think that we are probably seeing some progress at least in the length of time that she is able to use self-control, and possibly in the length of time between episodes. I think I will take her home and we will wait and see what happens from here. If things go really badly tonight and we need to hospitalize her tomorrow I will call you, otherwise we will deal with it at home."
I drove home with her screaming, smashing the car vents, and describing each of her feelings with a different face and a different voice; happy, sad, angry, grumpy, scared and zooming. At home we tried to have a "normal" evening routine. The girls played on the computer together and started connecting again. We had some screaming and fits, but we also had cooperation with our bedtime routine. She was anxious about going to bed alone and threw a fit, but she told me that she stopped and asked God to help her do the right thing. Then she came and calmly asked me to lay down with her for a few minutes. This was a huge step for her and we told her how proud we were of her for that. Before she drifted off to sleep she asked me why God made her with Bipolar. I said that there isn't one answer to that question, like 2+2=4. It's more like a mystery. And she has the rest of her life to look for clues.