A Family History of Mood Disorder - Related to Some Kinds of Autism?

Thank you Connie. I have a "bipolar mentor" that I have been speaking with (a close friend of 10 yrs), and she too believes that my daughter is more aspergers than bipolar. What I see the most with her (as far as the bipolar) is rapid mood cycling. Her autistic behaviors are more apparent on a daily basis, but the mood cycling happens consistently around the time of her period. She can go from happy and giddy to down in a hole and crying in a matter of minutes.She has recently taking to cutting, mind you nothing serious yet, but this definatley has to be dealt with. Her cycling lasts for several days and then goes away. After that I see just her normal irritablity, rocking, hand flapping, tip toeing behaviors. Then she's fine until the time of the next cycle. Due to insurance issues I am unable to challenge the doctor on his diagnosis because we live in small town rural slower lower Delaware. I tried to get a second opinion and was unfortunatley told by the other doctor that he would not challenge the current diagnosis. (I honestly believe this is an insurance issue, which I am advocating to see reversed, GO AUTISM SPEAKS!) I personally refer to her as autistic spectrum/bipolar when someone asks her diagnosis. Its not that the diagnosis matters. Its the therapies shes not getting due to the diagnosis. She has serious hygeine issues, she does not know how to participate in conversations, she is very dismissive when she has no interest in what you want to talk about. These things are affecting her friendships (if you can call them that) and I've seen bullying by so called friends because of it. She thinks completley different than most of us, simple jokes or sarcasims go right over her head and sometimes it takes several minutes for her to get a joke. If someone is being mean, she doesnt quite pick up on it until after the fact. She cannot stand being corrected by anyone, and is obsessed with the english language. If you use a word wrong, or you mis pronounce it (according to her) she is quick to correct you. She is constantly proof reading her friends posts or emails and points out every spelling error they make. (She would be tearing me up right now reading this...LOL) I dont always use the correct, too, there, their etc. And she's quick to point it out. I am just worried about her future as none of these issues are being handled and as long as they are not, they are not going to get better. The med's she's on work, up until that time and its like she's taking nothing at all. (she's on 300 mg trileptal 2x's, 1 mg risperdal 2x's, and 50 mg of zoloft am, and 25 mg pm). I honestly believe they will be going up after our Thurs visit. Sorry so long and thank you for your patience in reading it and understanding my frustration. Lets hope the Autism Excelleration Act goes through for all states and all insurance companies.

I so sympathize with your frustration. Nothing is so maddening as not being able to get the help your child needs.

One thought: maybe the system you're interacting with would be more open to "adding" a diagnosis than to changing one you have challenged. (This is assuming that they are indeed missing something - I am not a mental health professional and cannot judge the situation other than to say it's important to have a mental health professional who is insightful regarding both autism spectrum disorders and bipolar disorder help find the best "definition of the situation" and treatment regimen for her.)

I thought you might also be interested to learn of a new book focused on girls with autism spectrum disorders. I learned of it when I went to see its author give a session at the Autism Society of America Conference. It's by Shana Nichols, and it's called Girls Growing Up on the Autism Spectrum: What Parents and Professionals Should Know About the Pre-teen and Teenage Years .

Yes, I guess if insurance reform, or non descriminatory insurance is pushed then yes, the diagnosis would be "autistic spectrum/rapid mood cycling" both nails hit on the head at the same time.
As for the book, its kind of funny because I am currently reading "Girls under the Umbrella of Autism Spectrum Disorders, Practical solutions for addressing everyday challenges"...My daughter has also decided that she no longer wants to meet with her male psychatrist, but would like to start talking to a woman. (Pretty understandable) Just like her, one day I am totally frustrated out of my mind and the next we have a really good day and I actually get to unwind the rubber band that I have become. I cant thank you enough for letting me vent, as well as someone just listening to me and understanding my frustration.

Well, I'm not such a conosoir on the theme as reading books all the time and all hands in activism, BUT I have an autist girl (7y) and my father have in his 50s a pshicotic disorder,he is bypolar,have early alzheimer, my mother in law and 2 of my 3 sisters in law have bipolar disorder and one of them is esquisofrenic. SO!! I thinks this factors can be a link of my kid's genes. If I'm wrong please correct me.Or we just have bad luck. thanks

Hi yayagi, and welcome to IAN.

I'm so sorry to hear about how much your family is coping with. It is surely a heavy load.

I'm afraid at this point we don't know whether mood disorders (like depression and bipolar disorder) are somehow associated with autism spectrum disorders or, if they are, how. We are currently working on our own study to try to contribute to the research about this.

Basically, we are trying to see, using the data from the IAN Parental Depression History Questionnaire, if parents with a history of mood disorder tend to have children with a certain ASD profile. The idea is that there might be a specific kind of autism spectrum disorder associated with a family history of mood disorder. If that is the case, it could be quite important. It would mean that professionals working with children on the spectrum should consider family medical history when assessing ASD. They should also be very much aware that family members might need assistance with mood issues. It might even mean that certain medications might work better for children with ASD in these families than they would for children with a different type of ASD or family profile. (I want to stress, however, that we don't know yet. These are just possibilities.)

We will certainly report our findings once we are finished with our study. Our study, as is always the case with science, would provide one more small but significant piece of the larger puzzle.

One thing to keep in mind: even if there is some genetic link between mood disorder and ASD (which no one can say at this point), luck is still part of the picture. When it comes to our genes, there is always a roll of the dice involved because each of us only gets some of our parents' genes, and how the ones we get operate and interact is a story in and of itself. In brief: what we got, or what our children got, is nobody's fault. All we can do is work the best we can with what we've got.

My four year old son was diagnosed with Severe ADHD and PDD. His father was advised to take ritalin when he was a child and my sons aunt who is his fathers sister was taking thorazine and all of her children have add, dislexia, and mood disorders. There are no mood disorders on my side of the family. I truly feel there is a definite link. I have three other children from a previous marriage and none of them have this disorder. My sons father refuses to believe that there could be a link. It has caused many disagreements because I think my sons disorder is possibly hereditary and his dad disagrees because he refuses to accept his own disorder.

Hi Sherrijr, and welcome to IAN.

Over the years, researchers have noted that individuals with an autism spectrum disorder seem to be in families that have higher rates of some of these other conditions, like learning disabilities or mood disorders.

Having said that, though, it is still not clear exactly how ASDs and other conditions, like ADHD, anxiety, or depression, may be related. For one thing, there may be more than one type of ASD, and different types may come with different genetics and different family history profiles. Perhaps one kind has a higher association with a family history of mood disorders, for example, while another has a family history associated with learning disabilities. We don't have a clear picture yet, although research is ongoing.

No matter what is eventually learned about this, it is important to remember that nobody really controls their genes. We all have some that we are glad to inherit (like those for low cholesterol, good teeth, or musical talent) and some we aren't so glad to inherit (like migraine headaches or dyslexia). I think most families will find that it is probably not helpful to assign blame based on genetics. It's a roll of the dice for all of us.

Hello all, this is my first post. I am Mom to a child with PDD-NOS and I suffer from anxiety and depression. I have sought the help of a therapist at various times in my life and am currently taking two mental health prescription drugs. My brother's story is exactly the same as mine, and there are relatives on both sides of our family who suffer from mood disorders (diagnosed and undiagnosed).

What I wanted to post: I am curious as to whether your research has considered that, rather than only genetics, could autism and mood disorders be related because both the parent and child were exposed to the same environmental contaminants. For example, studies in recent years have indicated a link between depression and pesticide exposure, and separately, a link between ADHD / autism and pesticide exposure.

My brother and I grew up in an old steel town, only a few miles away from a Superfund cleanup site. In our neighborhood there were lots of cancer deaths, affecting both young and old. I have often wondered if we were intermittently exposed to toxins in our drinking well water.

As a nation we have seen such dramatic increases in recent years in the occurrence of autism as well as the rates of depression. To me, this indicates there is something wrong in our diets and / or environment. Perhaps time will tell if there was a chemical trigger, something as significant as what we saw with DDT, that will have to be eliminated from use to protect future generations.

Hi otorsnel, and welcome to IAN.

Yes, there is definitely interest in both environmental factors and in possible connections between environment and genetics and ASD or other conditions.

The difficult thing about environmental factors is identifying just one. There have been literally thousands of changes in our environment over the last few decades. See our articles on Environmental Factors, here: http://www.iancommunity.org/cs/understanding_research/environmental_aspects

Please note that one very interesting study mentioned in this series of articles is focused on organochlorine pesticides. I myself have come to think of it more as "toxic soup" - the fact that we are exposed to so much, all the time. Could it be that there is no single environmental culprit? Could it be more a question of the entire load of factors we are exposed to over a lifetime?

As far as connecting genetics and environment, there are at least two major hypotheses about that. One is that here is a "two hit" mechanism: you have to have a genetic vulnerability and then get "hit" with an environmental insult. The other focuses on genetic changes, including mutations to genetic material, or the existence of duplicated or deleted sections of genetic material, that might result from exposure to environmental factors. The same kinds of changes, it should be noted, can also result from aging, exposure to UV rays, etc. See our articles on Genetics: http://www.iancommunity.org/cs/understanding_research/insights_from_genetics

I hope this helps to address your question, and wish you and your family all the best.