Through the Looking Glass

Hi, Hopefulmom. I can assure you that based on what you say your son is a genius. A year ago, I listened to Nancy Andreassen of the University of Iowa present a lecture to the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting. Dr Andreassen was the first to spot the correlation between bipolar and creativity, and she's doing some brain scan studies on the topic right now.

Her theory is that the "association cortices" in the brains of bipolars are far more active than in those of the general population. In other words, we can gather seemingly unrelated data from different parts of the brain at lightning speed and assemble them into creative ideas and solutions that leave the rest of the world for dead.

By the same token, she went on to say, because we are always seeing possibilities no one else does we may see two or more right answers in a multiple choice question. So, often we don't test optimally.

So IQ may not necessarily be an accurate measure of your boy's true intelligence. Keep in mind, there are no accurate tests for creativity, though there are tests claiming to test for creativity, designed by non-creative drones who don't have a clue about creativity,

But here's another wrinkle. There is clear evidence that a lot of us have to contend with cognitive deficits. Brain scans and various tests reveal that we often have trouble concentrating on the task at hand, even in sympto-free states. There are many possible reasons for this : 1) Fatigue, which really slows down the brain (I have yet to meet a bipolar who doesn't have a sleep problem) 2) Failure of different parts of the brain to communicate (often dopamine or glutamate-related, key neurotransmitters) 3) Memory fall-out and frontal lobe power-down from depression (depression weakens whole brain networks and getting them back online takes time) 4) Competition from different areas of the brain (eg limbic overload, distraction from a creative idea, inability to filter out thoughts, sensations, inputs, etc) 5) Stress (too much stress takes the thinking parts of the brain off-line, and our population is extremely vulnerable to stress).

There is no perfect solution to the cognitive deficits, but there are a lot of smart strategies, including: 1) Smart meds, often involving off-label drugs 2) Establishing routines and a decent sleep schedule (melatonin is gaining favor with a lot of pdocs, but please talk to your boy's pdoc first) 3) Reducing stress (such as creating a quiet environment, learning certain yoga breathing techniques, etc) 4) Proactive IEPs (such as making sure your son is not taking academic classes at times of the day when he is at his cognitive worst (and bipolar kids are generally at their worst in the morning, following terrible sleeps).

In the meantime, please cherish the unique divine spark of your son. If bipolar poses special challenges, it also confers special gifts. But you already know that :)

I often compare him to Einstein (a mom can dream can't she?).  Einstein was a dyslexic who failed out of school, yet his thought processes went somewhere nobody had been before.  My child is brilliant but is very much affected by lack of sleep, poor appetite, lack of focus, and lack of motivation.  He also suffers extremely low self esteem from being thought of as "different".  I hope that with time, he will be comfortable in his own skin and realize that the things that make him different from his peers are the things that truly make him one of a kind.

Many thanks, Judy. I didn't anticipate how much the wind would affect the sound in the "Living Well" video, but I attempted to make lemonade out of lemons by making the wind part of the soundtrack, in effect doing the job that background music does. In some parts of the video, my voice is competing with the wind, and I hope to have a solution to this next time I shoot outdoors.

You will also note some minor exposure glitches. I had my camera on auto, which means the auto-exposure is constantly re-adjusting. I thought the camera would be smart enough to figure out the light is perfectly fine, but no, it can't leave well enough alone. Thus, in the blink of an eye, the light may appear slightly dimmer or brighter. So I need to learn the manual settings and spend more time setting up the shot.

Then there was my "bird shot." I had just set my camcorder on my tripod and set up how I wanted to frame my shot and marked where I would be positioned (standing in front of a rock formation) when either a hawk or turkey vulture literally glided in slow motion directly over the camera. The ultimate money shot.

By the time I disengaged the camera from the tripod and pointed it at the sky, I could no longer see the bird. I was convinced I had missed the bird, but when I played the footage back home I found I had a reasonably passable clip of my camera in jerky hot pursuit of a spec in the sky. The bird shot looks like amateur video, of course, but it synced perfectly with where I just happened to mention spotting a bird when talking about zen moments in another clip.

So here's where I'm learning. Go with the subpar bird shot? Definitely. It greatly enhanced the "zen moments" shot.

Of course, after I did my bird shot, I had to set up my original shot all over again. Sigh ...

Really, I'm having way too much fun.