My son is 10. He has been a very, very emotional and anxious child his whole life. His father and I both have anxiety disorders so I wasn't overly surprised when he was diagnosed with anxiety with obsessive tendencies (after he developed a crush on a little girl at school and was staring at her and being bothersome to her- not in a violent way - more in an inappropriate for his age type of way - not sexual - but like he loves her, etc. We are currently in therapy for that. Bipolar runs in my husband's family and I am becoming increasingly concerned that this is what is going on with my son.

His mood from the time he was an infant has been very erratic and mostly unhappy/high strung/overly sensitive to stimulation, up and down, hyperactive. I remember thinking that we would have a few good weeks and then he'd have a few weeks that were just awful, he was cranky, miserable, aggressive, acting out. Over the past year with hard work and I think some maturing he has longer periods of being able to manage his emotions. However, I feel like the progress is so slow that there might be something else going on, and on top of that, the contrast between good and bad times seems bigger. Yesterday he had an awful day that ranged from him freaking out every time I asked him to do something or he was disappointed. He had a long crying jag in the afternoon and then was totally wired in the evening where I had to spend a bit of time getting him to unwind. He was acting really inappropriately but would cry inconsolably when he was sent to his room. He has hit me and thrown things at me on numerous occasions and been destructive to the house. This has been somewhat better controlled with us managing the tantrum better, I think.

I took him to the book store last week and I picked up a book, "The Bipolar Child". He had everything on the list except one, which was difficulty waking - he has no problem getting up. He has massive carbohydrate cravings - I cook delicious dinners and he just turns his nose up at them. It is at the point where we have little to no junk in the house because he finds it and eats it all. He has hypersexuality in my opinion - not sexual so much as just a very early and intense interest in girls that seems much different than other little boys his age. He definitely has mood swings, he gets anxious and depressed at night a lot - with crying jags, especially when he is overtired. He can be extremely hyper. He has grandiose behavior - thinking he is entitled to things, bossiness, thinking he is wonderful sometimes. He is impulsive and can be quite annoying. He has problems maintaining friendships - which is very sad because he wants to play all the time and he has so much energy to do it.

He is so young that we both worry that we will get him diagnosed with this and then he'll outgrow it. However, we have been waiting a very long time for him to outgrow some of this and it hasn't happened.

Does this sound familiar to any of you? His therapist (he has been to a psychologist and a child therapist) thinks giving SSRI medication a try might be worth it but I feel like if he is bipolar, we should be really wary of the SSRI medications from what I have read. She thinks he may have bipolar but is thinking we should wait it out a little longer. How long do we wait? What is your experience.

Thanks so much if you've read this far