The Challenge of Multiple Mental Disabilities

For years we thought my 20 year old daughter was just being a preteen or teenager. It started in the forth grade she got to where she hated going to school she would not sleep at night and then want to sleep all day, sounds like a teenager to me. Now she was not into drugs or boys at this time she just liked to watch tv or be on the Internet, I would have to force her to go to school she all ways said it's to boring, she wanted to argue with me about everything and anything. Still sounds like most teenagers to me right. Well guess what. My sister in-law talked me into having her go to counseling, and boom we find out she has depression ok not to bad can deal with that ok...

After some counseling we are told she should be put on  anti depressants ok so we find her a Doctor for that, well guess what now she all so had ad/hd to go with the depression,as the time passes, she starts having fits of passing out for no reasons that we can find we take to 3 different ERs for this, each time we are told she is going though a phase and with lots of liquids she should out grow it, even took her to a cardiologist he said the same thing finely we are sent to a Neurologist and he finds out she has epilepsy by giving her an EEG. Then they decide to give her a sleep studies, after they hear about her staying up all night and wanting to sleep all day or sometimes sleeping for up to 16 hours straight, yep you guessed it she all so has narcolepsy. By now she is a in her last year of high school and doing great, getting ready for collage. She keeps going any way and heads to a community collage where she is still going, she takes it slow but she is doing great with school she even just made the Dean's List. She has decided to go into law I really hope she can handle it.

So lets recap this I have 20year old daughter with depression, ad/hd, epilepsy and now narcolepsy. Boy she has medicines to wake her up, make her sleep, keep her moods even and keep her from having seizures.(well most of the time anyway)

So as a mother I will tell you if you have a preteen or teenager you should all ways watch out for signs of depression things you might not think of as depression, like angry, irritability, change in school habits or any habits, you should all ways be careful not to just think oh they are just going though a phase because some times that is not it trust me. I wish I had thought about it earlier and got her help sooner.As for the epilepsy she does not have the grand mal or at least she has not had one you never know. I never know that you could have seizures and not know it, they can be as simple as just sitting and staring they are called Absence Seizures that is what she has mostly. These are the other two types Myoclonic seizures (sudden and very short duration jerking of the extremities Generalized tonic-clonic seizures (grand mal seizures). I hope this was of some help to other mothers out there.