Mass, a baby, and a bipolar child

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talalyn

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I’m incredibly conflicted at the moment. At a time when I need to be attending church the most I haven’t been. It isn’t that I don’t want to, but several things have contributed to my Sundays being spent cleaning. I am not Catholic, however I was attending RCIA classes four years ago and had to stop due to work. I still feel drawn to the strength and stability and would like to return. But here comes the speed bump…ok brick wall.
My husband is deployed overseas and I have a 4 month old strictly breastfed baby and a 3 year old diagnosed with early onset bipolar disorder, which means she has violent mood swings and the attention span of a goldfish.
I have little to no family support and quite frankly nobody else would be willing to help. Im on my own.
Should I just give up on the idea of church? The Catholic church by me doesn’t have any form of child care, which is fine since its hard for me to leave my 3 year old with others due to her condition, but I don’t believe they have a cry room…which also sometimes contains other children who are misbehaving for parental reasons and can quickly contribute to a full 2 hour meltdown for my child.
Does anyone have any suggestions? I have no friends who attend church of any faith, so enlisting someone to go with me is out of the question.
 
talalyn said:
I’m incredibly conflicted at the moment. At a time when I need to be attending church the most I haven’t been. It isn’t that I don’t want to, but several things have contributed to my Sundays being spent cleaning. I am not Catholic, however I was attending RCIA classes four years ago and had to stop due to work. I still feel drawn to the strength and stability and would like to return. But here comes the speed bump…ok brick wall.
My husband is deployed overseas and I have a 4 month old strictly breastfed baby and a 3 year old diagnosed with early onset bipolar disorder, which means she has violent mood swings and the attention span of a goldfish.
I have little to no family support and quite frankly nobody else would be willing to help. Im on my own.
Should I just give up on the idea of church? The Catholic church by me doesn’t have any form of child care, which is fine since its hard for me to leave my 3 year old with others due to her condition, but I don’t believe they have a cry room…which also sometimes contains other children who are misbehaving for parental reasons and can quickly contribute to a full 2 hour meltdown for my child.
Does anyone have any suggestions? I have no friends who attend church of any faith, so enlisting someone to go with me is out of the question.
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An unrelated question, but I’m curious how a 3 year old can be diagnosed with bipolar. It is extremely unusual for people so young to be diagnosed, most people are diagnosed in their teens or as adults.

Are you sure that diagnosis is correct? Have you seen multiple specialists?
 
Early Onset Bipolar Disorder is quite different than the normal Bipolar Disorder, and much more common in children aging 3-6 years old than people think. Typically it is misdiagnosed as ADD, ODD, ADHD, etc. She has been to the best of the best hospitals, even when that includes traveling out of state and driving 8 hours a day. We didn’t come to this diagnosis easily, and I have had a second, third, and fourth opinion from doctors and psychiatrists practicing at different, unrelated hospitals. I didn’t walk in and say “I think my child is bipolar”, they all told me, and were blind to the other medical records so that I could be sure they weren’t taking the easy way out and just sticking to what the last doctor diagnosed.
Trust me, she isn’t the first. With a very strong family history of bipolar disorder and alcoholism on her paternal side it’s no surprise. Our family is even part of a study regarding early onset bipolar disorder and dna. We are still trying to find a medication to help stabilize her manic episodes but wont turn her into a zombie. Im not crazy about using any medication in a child of her age, but when she sleeps maybe 3-5 hours a night and usually not all at once, and we live practically barricaded in our own home then its time to do what we can to give her a semi-normal life.
 
I wanted to chime in and say I’m praying for you and yours, having had foster kids like your little one I know how it feels.

Since you don’t have a lot of help now, do you at least have access to EWTN to watch Mass and other inspirational shows on the TV? That in itself is so uplifting for me, I won’t give it up. If you don’t have it and can add it to a cable or satellite package for a nominal monthly fee it would be worth it in your situation at present.

EWTN also has kids’ shows on at certain hours throughout the day that might keep the kiddo centered a bit so you can rest or get something needful done.

Good Luck, this too shall pass…
 
Susan,
Saint Timothys in Phoemix does broadcast, and Im usually watching. I guess I’m just hoping against hopes that someone might have advice on how to actually attend. My parents have now offered to watch my child so that I may attend mass, the problem is that their…track record with following through is pretty shaky. If I do attend with the baby it should be no problem since she sleeps so well bundled close to me. I guess the best I can hope for is to be able to attend whenever my parents do help me out.
 
Call the Parish, talk to someone in the Women’s Ministry (may be called CCW) or to the DRE. Ask if there is someone who will attend Mass with you. A grandma or grandpa who misses her grandkids or a confirmation student? If you were at my parish, I could have you a list of helpers by this afternoon.
 
Just wanted to let you know that my family is praying for yours today! We are all very sick (possible H1N1) and have decided not to attend church today so that we do not infect others. I talked to my Parish Priest last night and one of the EMs will bring us the Eucharist today.

I feel for you!! It must be very difficult not to go more!

Steph
 
kage_ar said:
Call the Parish, talk to someone in the Women’s Ministry (may be called CCW) or to the DRE. Ask if there is someone who will attend Mass with you. A grandma or grandpa who misses her grandkids or a confirmation student? If you were at my parish, I could have you a list of helpers by this afternoon.
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I guess I got so used to non-denominational churches that I didn’t even think to contact the Parish. Thank you, I’ll do just that.
 
God bless you, it is so hard to have a sick child, is this disorder something that she will grow out of?..If you have no family to watch her, probably the easiest thing to do is watch Mass on tv, read about Catholicism,read prayer books, and when your child is a little older and controlled more, you can start RCIA process and slowly start going to Mass…Get some CD’s or DVD’s by Fr Corapi or Fr Cedric Pisegna…these 2 priests have been so inspiring to me, I’m a convert:)
 
Hi, Talalyn. I like the idea of calling the parish and asking for help. If you were in RCIA right now, you would be leaving the Mass just before the Nicene creed is recited. It may be a little easier for you to stay for half the Mass. You might ask for help from someone (or two) with experience or knowledge of special need children to care for your children while you attend the whole Mass, or just until the RCIA class leaves.

My daughter has very high-functioning PDD-NOS (autistic spectrum), which overlaps genetically with bi-polar disorder. When she was 3, she could not remain quiet or still in Mass. The first time she sat through Mass I like to think of as my Christmas Eve miracle, because it was the Midnight Christmas Eve Mass two weeks after she turned 4 years old. There’s a story to that, but miraculously she sat through Mass that night and has every Sunday since then. She now participates in everything, makes the sign of the cross, genuflects, and is learning the prayers. She’ll be 5 in Dec. So, there is hope, even for your child. Don’t lose hope or become discouraged, especially by the many people who will refuse to understand or believe your situation or offer help. There are many out there, but God has a plan. For every person who doesn’t believe you, God has called another person to help you.
 
Angels_Unaware said:
Hi, Talalyn. I like the idea of calling the parish and asking for help. If you were in RCIA right now, you would be leaving the Mass just before the Nicene creed is recited. .
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Not every Parish does the dismissal of those in RCIA. Ours does not, we have RCIA on Wed evenings (and CCD at the same time for kids pre-k and up).
 
Our RCIA classes are held on a wednesday evening as well, so it’s yet another hurdle. I’ll see what they say.
 
How wonderful that you have found the Faith and want to formally join the Catholic Church 🙂

I would be so happy to volunteer to help someone in your position, esp since when mine were younger I took them to Mass with me and know how hard it is to go with little ones who don’t have extremes of behavior! (and even then, there were a few comments I overheard which really upset me 😦 ) Maybe in the future this will be a more common ministry…

But in the meantime, I would definitely get in touch with the parish and see if they can help you, and take your parents up on their offer whenever they are able to help out. While it may be difficult to get them to follow through every week, you may be able to get them to follow through fairly regularly or at least with a bit of notice one way or the other.

The thing about the “obligation” to attend Mass is that it is not the type of obligation which means you are doing the wrong thing by not attending, if it is simply impossible or very difficult for you. The obligation is more like don’t party all night and be unable to wake up in time or schedule a golf game Sunday morning–that type of thing.

Bad weather, illness (our own or of someone for whom we care), very long distance–all these excuse one from the obligation. You can work on getting to Mass sometimes with the help of your parents, having a regular pattern for when you are unable to attend, and developing your spiritual life.

You can also start working with your daughter on being able to attend Mass as well. It may take longer than it does with other children, but working on teaching her to sit still and calm for longer and longer periods will probably help her in other areas as well. Also, teaching my children about what was going on in Mass, teaching them them prayers at an early age, and sitting up front (I know! It seems like the toughest place to sit!) have all helped. If you can regularly watch a Mass on TV, you could “practice” there. (I would work on it a little every day rather than a lot once a week.)

(And ITA about the crying room–some are used the way they are supposed to be, but others are a madhouse!)

I do hope that your parish will be able to help you with this, if not, maybe another one close by. Stick with it! And graciously accept any help that’s offered!
 
Are there any state funded programs in your area for children with special needs like your daughter? A preschool program or something like that? Maybe your pediatrician could point you in the right direction? If she was able to attend something like that, even for a few hours it would give you break and perhaps you’d be able to attend a weekday mass? Some parishes have a daily noon mass for example. Or you’d be able to just sit in the quiet church and pray?
 
At our parish, RCIA is videotaped for those who cannot attend due to jobs, etc. Perhaps your parish would consider doing this. It’s not the same as being with the other people, but at least you would be able to hear the priest’s talk and learn all about Catholicism.

And I agree about calling the parish and asking if anyone could help. I think we would have a whole list of people from our parish that would become “surrogate grandparents” or “surrogate aunts and uncles!”
 
yellowbird said:
Are there any state funded programs in your area for children with special needs like your daughter? A preschool program or something like that? Maybe your pediatrician could point you in the right direction? If she was able to attend something like that, even for a few hours it would give you break and perhaps you’d be able to attend a weekday mass? Some parishes have a daily noon mass for example. Or you’d be able to just sit in the quiet church and pray?
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I am entitled to respite care through a military program, however since she only sleeps about 3-5 hours a night I had planned to overlap the respite care with RCIA class and sleep. Maybe I could look into a weekday morning mass as well.
 
And on a completely different note, my husband has decided he’s curious about all of this and is checking into the possibility of RCIA overseas where he is stationed! This is a huge step for him, the last time I got him into a church it was non-denom and Christmas service… four years ago!!!
 
flyingfish said:
An unrelated question, but I’m curious how a 3 year old can be diagnosed with bipolar. It is extremely unusual for people so young to be diagnosed, most people are diagnosed in their teens or as adults.

Are you sure that diagnosis is correct? Have you seen multiple specialists?
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Why question this woman’s dilemma and her child’s disorder when she is asking a faith question? I too have a child who suffers. We simple want to attend Mass ourselves and to expose our children to the glory of the Lord. Any suggestions?
 
Claymont79 said:
I wanted to chime in and say I’m praying for you and yours, having had foster kids like your little one I know how it feels.

Since you don’t have a lot of help now, do you at least have access to EWTN to watch Mass and other inspirational shows on the TV? That in itself is so uplifting for me, I won’t give it up. If you don’t have it and can add it to a cable or satellite package for a nominal monthly fee it would be worth it in your situation at present.

EWTN also has kids’ shows on at certain hours throughout the day that might keep the kiddo centered a bit so you can rest or get something needful done.

Good Luck, this too shall pass…
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To the OP:

Since you are on the internet…(on here) EWTN has streaming live internet too. So the cable thing isn’t necessary. Go to www.ewtn.com top bar “television” live (US) then choose what your connection speed is (dial up, broadband etc.) it should work and you can watch it all day and night if you want!
 
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