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(August 3, 2003) Shelby, N.C. -- Lesia Roberts prays. She lifts her head in silence as her heart overflows.
Words cannot express what Lesia feels when she prays for her son.
Jason Roberts is 16 and mentally ill. He suffers from a combination of bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, commonly known as ADHD.
Lesia Roberts holds up a picture
of her 16-year-old son, Jason Roberts, who has bipolar disorder and adhd.
Since 1997, Jason has been hospitalized nine times. He has lived in seven different group homes. When he remembers to take them, he is on four different medications.
As she prays, Lesia, 38, reflects on all the doctors, all the counselors, all the programs. So many people have come and gone in Jason's life, she can barely remember them all.
Every year, Jason gets worse.
Now, he is behind bars in the Cleveland County jail, arrested with two other minors and one adult for nine counts of breaking and entering.
Lesia prays because God is the only one who understands. Jesus is her rock.
Everyone else has come and gone over the years.
As she prays, a verse comes to Lesia's - mind 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
She thanks God and rises. She can face the day.
She saw it coming.
Before the arrest, Jason was out of control. Lesia would wake up, pray, get the house in order, and in just 15 minutes, Jason was downstairs in the kitchen, tearing things apart, spilling food, slamming doors.
The days started to become a blur. Lesia would crawl into bed at night with no energy left to pray. Every morning, it started all over again.
Lesia predicted that Jason would end up in jail. She saw it coming.
Several weeks before the arrest, she approached The Star, saying she couldn't find any help for her son.
In a month-long series of interviews, she was able to tell her story.
After the arrest, the house is strangely quiet. Lesia has time to think back over the years.
Holly Oak Park Apartments until 1994.
Grandmother's house until 1995.
Homeless for a month.
Trailer park in Grover until 1996.
Cottonwood Apartments until 1997.
Another house.
Another trailer park.
Aunt's house in Hendersonville.
Another apartment.
Back to Shelby in October 2001.
Nine moves in less than a decade.
And then the hospitalizations: Twice in Gaston, twice in Asheville, once in Copestone Psychiatric Service, once in Parkview, once in Pardee Hospital in Hendersonville, twice in Butler.“The older he got, the more things didn’t just make sense,” Mrs. Roberts says.
Bipolar is a mood disorder characterized by aggressive, irritable, “highs” which swing to depressive, often suicidal “lows,” according to Pathways Senior Counselor Kathleen Meriac.
Jason's case might seem extreme, but among bipolars, extremity is the norm. The only common characteristic is that every case is different, Ms. Meriac said.
“Some individuals tend to have a greater amount of depression; others have a greater degree of mania,” Ms. Meriac said. “The bipolar diagnosis is going to include some features of both.”
Jason began to exhibit signs of the illness when he was 10. That was when the rages started. One day Jason attacked his sisters with a board game piece and Lesia called social services.
“The woman came in and said, ‘There’s something wrong with this child,’” she remembers. Jason was admitted to Gaston Memorial Hospital for two weeks. Doctors came to the conclusion that he was, “just an overactive young man and relatively normal.”
In the fifth grade, Jason busted out every window in the family’s apartment. In the sixth grade, he was suspended from school every week. He would leave the house in the middle of the night. Get in fights with neighbors. Light fires.
Finally, Jason was diagnosed bipolar and ADHD.
To provide for her children as a single mother, Lesia went from job to job, walking to work if she didn't have a car.
Once, for eight months, she walked three hours a day from Patterson Springs to the Pizza Hut in Shelby.
“Some days I’d get a ride, some days I didn’t. I would leave at 8 and get there at 9:30,” Lesia says. “I had to take care of the children somehow.”
Eventually, Jason threatened her boss, and she had to quit.
When they moved to Hendersonville in 1999, Jason was committed four times and sent to four different group homes. Lesia’ two daughters, Shantell and April, moved out.
“They couldn’t deal with it,” Lesia said. “The kids were at the point where they were like, ‘We don’t care anymore.’”
In 2001, the family moved back to Shelby. Jason went back and forth between group homes, but the facilities could never handle him for long, and eventually he was always sent home.
"I would tell myself, you just have to be strong, even though at night I would scream and cry and pray and ask God to help me stay strong for them," Lesia said.
On Mother's Day 2003, Jason went into a rage, smashed out windows, pulled out a blank gun and kicked holes in the walls. He wrestled with his mother and both of them went tumbling downstairs.
"We screamed so loud the neighbors heard us and the police came by," Lesia said.
Lesia's mother, Mary Roberts, can remember when Lesia didn't know what was wrong with Jason.
“She was trying to raise him and take care of him like the rest of the kids,” Mary said. “Then they finally told her what was wrong, she had to deal with that.”
Without God, Lesia never would have made it, Mary said.
“There were some times when she just ready to give up completely, but the praying and the encouragement she’s gotten from other Christians have helped her,” Mary said.
Over the years, Mary has watched her daughter struggle to make ends meet, only to see things unravel time and again.
“She went through good jobs, but couldn t keep them because he would act up and she would have to come home,” Mary said. “It’s nothing but God that she’s doing as well as she is.”
Feelings of defeat and clinical depression are common among family members of bipolar victims.
“Families go through tremendous stress in trying to assist the patient,” Ms. Meriac said. “It sometimes leads to marital discord or isolation.”
Lesia has been on antidepressants several times, and says there were periods when she was tempted to give up.
“I remember sitting on the bed saying, ‘God, it’s not working anymore, because the harder I try, the worse it gets,’” Lesia says.
As Jason got older, controlling him became more difficult.
“It’s worse now that he’s older,” Mary Roberts said. “Lesia really can’t constrain him. When he flips, it’s not like he even really knows what he’s doing. He just goes off.”
It is not unusual for a bipolar adolescent to end up in jail, according to Ms. Meriac. Often, their first diagnosis is behind bars.
“Sometimes that’s the first time bipolar disorder is actually identified, when they get into a jail situation,” Ms. Meriac said. “So often in the early years, bipolar looks like attention deficit disorder.”
When parents are ignorant of the disorder, the aggression and bizarre moods are interpreted as mere “acting out.” Bipolar children are often experience ridicule and isolation from peers.
“After the child has exhibited an episode of bipolar, they tend to be less likely to resume their friendships,” Ms. Meriac said. “Other friends may be uncomfortable around them.”
Lesia says Jason has earned the nickname “Crazy J” among neighborhood kids. One minute he hangs out with 13-year-olds, another minute he hangs out with the ‘rough crowd.’
“He’s trying to fit in, but he doesn’t really know where he belongs,” she says. “You can’t see the wounds outwardly, but these kids are damaged inwardly.”
Full-blown stages of mania can be accompanied by hallucinations, personality disorders, and paranoia or borderline schizophrenia. But depressive states are often more dangerous.
“As bad as the mania is, the depression is just as bad, because it ultimately could lead to suicide,” Ms. Meriac said. “As difficult as it is for some of the medications to be tolerated, they are life-saving.”
Nationally, about 1 percent of the general population suffers from bipolar, Ms. Meriac said. As far as she knows, Cleveland County's population matches that statistic.
“We have a few children here at the Pathways Center who have been diagnosed with bipolar, but it’s not in large numbers,” she said.
Gradually, information about bipolar is reaching the public.
Cleveland County's Mental Health Association is forming a support group for bipolar-ADHD victims and family members, according to Executive Director Bonnie Koelle.
“Right now we’re in the process of gathering names of people who have the diagnosis, and care providers to help them learn how to deal with the disorder,” Ms. Koelle said. “We’re also talking with Pathways about contracting to do the support groups.”
The association's resource library is open to the public and offers information about the disorder.
The National Mental Health Association also is trying to put out more information on bipolar, to prevent misdiagnosis, Ms. Koelle said.
“Often someone will be diagnosed with depression, but there’s more going on,” Ms. Koelle said. “If we can get this information out, we can start helping people. We need to educate the county.”
Lesia, however, says she is frustrated with the mental health community. Pathways, Cleveland County's mental health agency, helped for awhile, but when the going got rough, no one could really help Jason, she says.
“I could probably be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most team meetings that didn’t get anywhere,” Lesia says. “With all these meetings and all these great ideas, Jason was not getting any help.”
At the last team meeting with Jason's counselors, Lesia "let them all have it."
“I said, with all this stuff thrown across the table, with all your medical background, you can’t come up with a solution,” Lesia says. “Jason has stopped taking his medicine. Jason is out of control.”
Since then, Lesia has been on her own.
By the time of the arrest, Jason was almost beyond help. And when it did happen, Lesia was alone.
“I have no help, no backup help, in the phone book, and that’s just depressing to me,” she says. “I’m know I’m not the only mother that’s going through this.”
She is not entirely alone. One person has been there all along.
“The thing that’s kept me going is that I have a relationship with Christ,” she says. “It may seem like I’m standing alone but nevertheless He is there with me.”
Last week, Lesia visited Jason in jail. She pressed her ear up against the glass window, straining to hear her son's words over the voices of other mothers.
I'm ready to do better, even if it takes going back to a group home, Jason told her. "I'll do anything."
Yelling above the other voices, Lesia gave her son the only wisdom she has left.
“You need to ask God to help get you out of here,” she said. “You need to pray.”
Source: The Shelby Star
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