Film

“I don’t want to have to do this,” Valorie sighs while she twiddles her thumbs and stares blankly at the ceiling. The door is closed, and the hallway is empty in the old courthouse.

“Without your testimony, we won’t be able to get back child support,” and a gaze of disappointment from her father earlier that day, repeats in her mind.

“It was a lot of stress. With moving, with kids making fun of her at school, her dad, and I think that is what triggered her Bipolar disorder. It was a lot of stress,” said Dawn, Valorie’s mother.

It was a year ago that Valorie and Dawn packed up and moved. “It is a lot less stressful living with my mom. I don’t have to deal with the emotional abuse,” said Valorie.

At the age of 13 that Valorie was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 Disorder. “She kept saying she saw a guy in a red coat. That was when we knew we had to get her in to see someone.”