To cope with her son's rages, which would persist for up to two hours, Reusch has locked Bryan in his room and called police. Bryan once threatened to kill himself with a kitchen knife. Bryan gets mad and pops him,'' Reusch said. The tiniest aggravations ignite his rages. I get a big explosion if I don't put the butter on his baked potato the right way,'' his mother said.
Family history is a diagnostic key.
At 6, Bryan was being treated exclusively for attention-deficit disorder until a psychiatrist learned that his grandmother and great aunt had bipolar disorder. Ill. The risk increases to 50 percent to 75 percent when both parents have it. Years before diagnoses were made, the mothers suspected something was wrong. Bryan was so active in the womb that my ribs were bruised for six months after he was born,'' Reusch said. Without provocation, the Bexley boy, at 2, slugged a stranger during a family visit to the San Diego Zoo.