#21 One Step Forward ...

The first few days of cutting back the medicine went fine. In fact David seemed to be doing great. Full of energy he started getting back some of that curiosity and interest in things that he had been so long without. But slowly the energy turned to mania and then to severe mania - he stayed up for three days straight - one morning he burst in at four o'clock in the morning asking me if I could come up with some new lessons for him to do the next day. He had been up all night reading - something he had seemed to have no desire to do since his suicide attempt. The next day he feverishly, with words spilling out in a rush that he had stopped taking the risperdal - he had only pretended to take it the last few times - I, of course, was concerned, but I guess I was so wishful that all this had been a dream - that I foolishly let him convince me that he didn't need the Risperdal at all - he felt like himself again and was so happy to enjoy reading again - and this I understood more than anything - an avid reader I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have that taken away from me. I realized of course that my son was manic - but I thought that once he had been tapered off the Depakote and put on something else that perhaps his mania would recede and that he didn't need an antipsychotic after all. But like a mirage of a nearby island on that storm tossed sea - I was just setting myself up for great disappointment - for the island was actually a circling shark waiting for the right moment to strike ....