[gesturepen]

I feel a little awkward being here, mainly because I'm not actually the parent of a bipolar child; I'm just the aunt, currently living at home with my mom while I find money for college. About a year ago, my would be sister-in-law called my mom with the delightful ultimatum- either my mother takes in my 10-year-old niece or she goes in foster care. Since then, she's been living with us. I guess the point of this topic comes from the fact that sometimes, when she's at her worse, all I want to do is hit her. Last year she threw a major tantrum and hit my mother, it took everything in my willpower not to attack her.

Despite how bad things get, she's usually been respectful of my stuff, but since my mom took a second job in the evenings, she's gotten way more ballsy because my mother isn't around. We're a 1-car family, so I drop my mom off at work, then go out to do the grocery shopping or whatever else needs to be done. She's started stealing things from me (and losing the stolen items on top of everything) when I'm out of the house. Today we confronted her about it and she lied, of course. My mother punished her anyway, but when my niece is accused of lying, even if she is blatantly lying, she goes ballistic. And she's been refusing to take her medication recently, so today it was even worse than usual.

This evening she threw a huge fit: screaming, tossing papers, throwing food, the whole nine yards. During that fit, she turned to start screaming at me, and I felt myself getting angry enough to hit her again, but this time she started taunting me, saying "Go ahead! Hit me! See what happens!" If my mother weren't there to stop me, I think I might have actually done it.

I feel pathetic admitting a kid can get me that angry, but it's true. I wouldn't even consider myself a violent person. It's just the things she does- losing 1 of my shirts, ruining a pair of my shoes, screaming at my mother, screaming at me- build up until I can't take it. I spoke to my mother about it; her advice was if it ever got that bad again when she wasn't there, I should get out of the house immediately, just drive off and cool my head. But, she wants me to leave her alone with our valuables while she's having a violent fit? What should I do, barricade the bedroom doors?

I don't trust her enough to leave her alone for more than a few minutes, knowing she's willing to steal from me now. And I don't trust myself enough to stay in the house with her when she's throwing a tantrum and I'm that angry. I'm not sure what I should do. Sorry about this long post, by the way. Most of my family and friends are asleep and I guess I need to vent to someone.