I finished reading the first thread, and I'm halfway through this one, and I see posters repeatedly asking how could they fool doctors and how could this go on so long, and I have a personal experience with something similar.
I'm not as eloquent as so many of you are so I apologize in advance for what I know will be a hard post to follow.
I live in Middle Tennessee, and have an equine facility and do lessons, sales, boarding ect. One of my customers, Cindy, has several children... three were biological and grown. One was 10 years old and adopted at 2 years of age.
I only knew one of the biological children, her name is Hope. She is 24 years old and had been diagnosed bi-polar. One night when she was nineteen, she decided to commit suicide by driving her car into an oncoming car. Hope lived. She was badly hurt with many broken bones etc. The driver of other car was killed, and a 2 year old little girl in the backseat lived. Hope was charged with involuntary vehicular manslaughter and only received 6 years probation.
Now... the little girl that was 10 at the time (she is now 16), was unbelievably ill-mannered, would not mind you, yell at you, throw fits and attack you. Cindy always talked about the things she does and did and said she was bi-polar too. She attacked horses with broom handles, hit my daughter with a whip, I could go on and on. Her name is Lily. Lily would be just fine and out the clear blue sky throw a fit. I took an interest in her, and tried working with her. She wanted to go to saddle club shows and I would tell her I'll take you but you have to behave. And she would. When she would start to throw a fit I would say we are loading up and going home and she would stop. So I began to doubt that she was bi-polar. I'm not good at telling stories like this but there were so many many instances where it just didn't feel right.
Okay...now Hope had to do community service hours for her probation. Hope was about 350 lbs, lived at home with Cindy and Lily, didn't have her license because of what happened, lonely and I would sit and talk to her, and she told me some crazy stuff. She said when she was young, her mom would take her to doctor after doctor till she found one that would prescribe whatever medicine is for bi-polar. She said both of her brothers are also bi-polar. One brother didn't have anything to do with Cindy or any of them, and he moved off somewhere.
Now...I have a very good friend who wears many hats. She has been awarded the point of light by 2 presidents, was brought here to Tennessee years ago to infiltrate a mental hospital in Nashville, find out what was going on and fix it. It was a big stink. TV reporters managed to get cameras in there and film all kinds of atrocities and Eva was the fixer upper. I think it was called Cloverbottom. She also has a not for profit therapeutic riding program, and I happened to be partners with her at the time on some horses, so I called her and said I want to help Hope, (yes, I had problems with the fact that she had killed someone and orphaned a child because she deliberately hit them, but she seemed remorseful and horrified at what she did. She said she was crying and driving and just impulsively at the time swerved to hit the oncoming car). So I told my friend about Hope, and she came out and talked with Hope. Now... Hope had to work a specific amount of hours in community service per week, and had trouble getting to the Boys and Girls Club where she worked her hours because she can't drive. Oh I should have mentioned that Cindy the mom is a teacher here locally and she teaches special needs children! So Cindy worked and couldn't get Hope to the Boys and Girls Club. Now my friend, after talking and meeting with Hope a few times, pulled some amazing strings in the county where I live and managed to make my barn a satellite barn of her therapeutic riding program, which meant that Hope could work her hours off at my barn. I let Hope live with us, away from her controlling mom whom I now suspected of some crazy a$$ *advertiser censored*. Hope had told my friend that she wanted to get off of bi-polar meds and live a normal life and my friend said we can wean you off and see how it goes. Since you are living with Renee I will come over daily and check on you and we'll see how it goes.
Back to Lily.... she spent the night with me one night, and she had a little backpack of medicines she had to take. My daughter who was 20 lined up all of the pill bottles and got online to research them and said Mom. There are several here that shouldn't be taken together because they can cause psychosis and they are from different doctors. So I called Eva my friend and she came over and took pictures of the bottles.
Eva reported Cindy. And Eva is big stuff around here. All that happened was this. Cindy came in a truck and made Hope move back home. She was beyond furious that Eva was helping Hope get off of meds... and by the way Hope had been here by that time about 3 months and hadn't been taking anything at that point for a couple of weeks and no manic behaviors, no fits or anything. Lily WAS removed from the home and sent to a hospital for two months, and Cindy had to take some kind of therapy during those two months. After Cindy completed her therapy Lily came back home.
I've really dumbed down what happened and omitted so many things that I witnessed. Such as when I had a Fourth of July party for the barn, and Cindy talked about how when Lily was 8 she had to sleep in a box they locked because they were afraid to go to sleep. I have 2 boarders that are psych nurses and I said is that acceptable treatment? Making your kid sleep in a locked box and they both said they knew of NO doctors that would condone that. So many stories like that I could tell you.
Anyway... this woman ... all three biological children have bi-polar and even the one that was adopted. Oh.... Lily made some kind of medical journal a couple of years ago. Cindy managed to have Vanderbilt Hospital diagnose Lily as bi-polar and apparently it made the journal because she was diagnosed so young. Typically they won't diagnose bi-polar until you are an adult. Something like that. Cindy was quite proud of that fact and talked about it and showed the article off. Basically she was shoving it in my and Eva's face that we were wrong about her and Lily is crazy.
Another thing Eva found out when she reported Cindy is that Cindy actually used to be a CHS worker, and she herself was reported by several hospitals because Lily has had so many broken bones. All blamed on horse related accidents. Eva questioned her about the last one, a broken arm which had happened the year before. Lily couldn't remember what happened. Anyway....this woman still has Lily who is now full blown out there. She drew a knife and cut her babysitter when she was 12. She chased someone around a local restaurant with a knife. She was kicked out of school when she was I think 14 for attacking someone with something. Hope is now like 27 and still lives at home and takes more meds than ever.
I saw firsthand how someone managed to manipulate and lie and deceive, get caught and still keep doing it. I have no doubt that Lily really is bi-polar now, but I don't believe she or Hope or maybe not even her brothers are bi-polar naturally.
