Ask me about growing up with a Bi-Polar parent

[Fishwhenican]

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Tough post here. I have a question for you regarding your father: Are you at all bothered by the fact that he did not correctly handle the situation with your mother?

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No, not bothered at all. He stayed with her because he felt is was his duty and she needed someone to help take care of her. If he wasn't around she would likely have ended up a bag lady or worse.

I am not sure there is a "correct" way to deal with the situation.

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Although, I don't think you've really lived a full life until you've had a knife fight with your mother, wtf, was your Dad thinking? If I came home and found my wife doing 1/10 of the stuff that you experienced, my wife would be out the door.

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I don't think dad ever knew about the knife thing. He wasn't home at the time and I do not think I ever told him. Believe it or not but, stuff like this was not all that far removed from normal for our household so I do not think I saw it as being as big a deal then as I do now in hindsight. She ended up in the psych ward shortly after that anyways.

[Fishwhenican]

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did she ever take that bi- polar test? i think its pretty new; its a measure of 1 - 100 on how 'bi - polar' u are. Stephen Fry (English presenter / comedian) got sumthin like 65 - 70, and they were saying he got it pretty bad. Your mum, sounds like she was affected a lot worse. Altho, i dread to think how bad / primitive tthe treatmnt was 40 years ago.

Dominic was it lithium th med ur dad came off? i know taking it and coming off it is alot worse then never taking it

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I honestly do not know what tests they ever did on her to come up with the Manic Depression diagnosis but if you read the definitions of Bi-Polar (or manic depression in the old days) she fit it to a tee.

From what I have read, a LOT of artistic/creative/intelligent type people are/were either Bi-Polar or likely Bi-polar. Stuff like Handel writing the messiah in 30 hours straight or something like that.

From what I have been told and seen the doctors just didn't really know what to do with this stuff 4 years ago! They were still trying to figure it out and likely still are. I know in her experiences lithium was the only thing that finally gave her some type of stability. Even on that, though, she would still flip out about every two years or so.

[Dominic]

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did she ever take that bi- polar test? i think its pretty new; its a measure of 1 - 100 on how 'bi - polar' u are. Stephen Fry (English presenter / comedian) got sumthin like 65 - 70, and they were saying he got it pretty bad. Your mum, sounds like she was affected a lot worse. Altho, i dread to think how bad / primitive tthe treatmnt was 40 years ago.

Dominic was it lithium th med ur dad came off? i know taking it and coming off it is alot worse then never taking it

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i don't know what it was...it was fairly recently...he went on it and was fine...so he thought he was all better and stopped taking it. Now we're trying to get him to take it again. He thinks it's a weakness and he should be able to do without it, though.

[Fishwhenican]

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Obviously there were huge negatives in your life due to her disorder. My question is can you think of any positives that resulted?

Did it make you a more independent person at an earlier age? Are you more prepared to help others when a family is in crisis? That kind of thing.

You know the old saying, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

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That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche

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Funny, that quote by Nietzsche was my mantra. It kept me from going off the edge more than one time!

I think the only good thing I take away from my mom's crazyness is being able to deal with a lot of things calmly and not worrying about small things. It made me very determined to survive and not end up like her.

I ended up very independent very early because I had to. My dad traveled a lot so I was the one running the house a lot of the time when he was gone and Mom was in the hospital. I took care of my little sister a lot and learned to cook because I had too.

There is not a lot of up side to the times when she was "Crazy". I do have to say though that when she was stable and I was younger she was not a 1/2 bad mom. I had some very good times when I was a kid. It was just that these times when she would flip out were always looming over you and you never knew when it would rear it's head, so you lived walking on eggshells sometimes. Little things like having friends over didn't happen as much because you never quite knew what you would find when you came home.

[Fishwhenican]

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did she ever take that bi- polar test? i think its pretty new; its a measure of 1 - 100 on how 'bi - polar' u are. Stephen Fry (English presenter / comedian) got sumthin like 65 - 70, and they were saying he got it pretty bad. Your mum, sounds like she was affected a lot worse. Altho, i dread to think how bad / primitive tthe treatmnt was 40 years ago.

Dominic was it lithium th med ur dad came off? i know taking it and coming off it is alot worse then never taking it

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i don't know what it was...it was fairly recently...he went on it and was fine...so he thought he was all better and stopped taking it. Now we're trying to get him to take it again. He thinks it's a weakness and he should be able to do without it, though.

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Classic! Happens all the time with people who have a mental illness!!! The drug works exactly as intended, they feel normal and think they are cured. That and the whole stigma/weakness thing with needing drugs to keep your sanity. It is quite a roller coaster ride for them as well as everyone around them.

[SoloAJ]

I find all sorts of mental and behavioral psychology pretty interesting in general. This become one of the things I became particularly interested in when I found out that someone close to me had a mild form of it and her aunt had it full blown. While this has no particular bearing in the thread, I think it is interesting that it is something you don't really realize how serious it is unless you're immersed in it. Even myself, who has been exposed to it, has no idea really what type of stuff you went through.

From your posts so far in the thread, I've gathered that you don't regret at all how you handled the situation ("coldly" as you put). Is this a true assessment?

Additionally, did you do your research on the disease once you got to the age where you could understand what was happening? Or by that point, did you just feel you had all the information that you needed first hand? I think I would want to just find out as much as I possibly could, perhaps as a way of comforting me somehow...knowing that I wasn't the only one in the world being affected or something.

Final question for this post, if someone came to you with advice that a family member or someone close to them had BiPD wanting advice on how to handle the situation, what types of things would you tell them? It seems your general advice would be to try and distance yourself from it and be callous even. But considering your dad, I wonder if you would try to tell them to work through it maybe too?

And as a final non-BiPD related comment, I really enjoy these Ask Me threads so much more when the poster is willing to run with the questions and just elaborate in their own way. It makes my simple questions become interesting because you turn it into something better. Thanks Fish. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Fishwhenican]

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I find all sorts of mental and behavioral psychology pretty interesting in general. This become one of the things I became particularly interested in when I found out that someone close to me had a mild form of it and her aunt had it full blown. While this has no particular bearing in the thread, I think it is interesting that it is something you don't really realize how serious it is unless you're immersed in it. Even myself, who has been exposed to it, has no idea really what type of stuff you went through.

From your posts so far in the thread, I've gathered that you don't regret at all how you handled the situation ("coldly" as you put). Is this a true assessment?

Additionally, did you do your research on the disease once you got to the age where you could understand what was happening? Or by that point, did you just feel you had all the information that you needed first hand? I think I would want to just find out as much as I possibly could, perhaps as a way of comforting me somehow...knowing that I wasn't the only one in the world being affected or something.

Final question for this post, if someone came to you with advice that a family member or someone close to them had BiPD wanting advice on how to handle the situation, what types of things would you tell them? It seems your general advice would be to try and distance yourself from it and be callous even. But considering your dad, I wonder if you would try to tell them to work through it maybe too?

And as a final non-BiPD related comment, I really enjoy these Ask Me threads so much more when the poster is willing to run with the questions and just elaborate in their own way. It makes my simple questions become interesting because you turn it into something better. Thanks Fish. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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You are correct in that people who have not been through something like this have no idea what it is like.

No, I do not at all regret the cold approach I took to the situation when I was 18/19/early 20's. It was a survival mechanism and it worked for me! Beside there was nothing I was going to be able to do for the situation by then anyways.

I think I really started doing a lot of research on the thing when I went to college. Took Psych and all of that and spent a bit of time in the library. As I got older and the internet came into it's own I spent a good deal of time researching as well. It was comforting to know it wasn't all that unusual. I do kind of wish I had found some sort of support group of people who had gone through the same stuff. Might have helped with some of the stupid things I did many years ago or if nothing else helped me not feel so alone with the weirdness.

Advice giving,,, Hummmm....
It is easier giving someone else advice than to go through it yourself. I think I would try as hard as possible to convince whoever was in the situation to get the person on meds and do anything to keep them on the meds. If a person stays on their meds it is way better than the person who takes them and goes off and goes off the deep end, ends up back on meds, stops taking them, goes off the deep end ect...

I think I WOULD also tell them that thye need to know it is not them it is the person with the disease and they need to realize what they are in for and figure out what they are willing to do to either stay int he situation or get out of it. A lot of different variables there. Is it a parent, a spouse, a child. Some situations are easier to get out of than others.

Glad you are enjoying the thread. I am finding your questions good as well! Keep firing!

Now I must run. Family is going to the movies. We have to go to a town 40 miles away to ge to the nearest theatre and it is just a little whole in the wall kind of place but fun anyway. With the site down tomorrow it may be Sunday before I can get back to any more questions.

[katyseagull]

Nice thread. Very informative, though kinda sad. I once dated a guy who grew up with a bipolar mother. The things he and his brother and sister told me were heartbreaking. I've never forgotten them. I remember him saying that his mom would get so depressed she would sleep for entire days and not do anything around the house. As children, they had to find their clothes in the dirty laundry pile and basically fend for themselves. This was humiliating as a couple times they were sent home from school for not being properly dressed.

When their mom had a manic episode she would undertake crazy projects that she would work on through the night. I remember him telling me about her Chinese garden. It drove their dad crazy. By the time I started dating this guy, his mom and dad had long divorced and she was living in a really awful trailer and had very little money. So yeah, just a terrible situation. Each one of the kids handled it differently. Two became alcoholics and two became very responsible.

I remember reading an article about the actress Patty Duke. She claimed that lithium saved her life. She and her family claimed that lithium was the miracle drug for her body because it simply made her normal, not drugged up. I also remember reading that some doctors are taking another look at lithium after trying a lot of other newer drugs on their patients.


My question for you is, do you ever wonder about all these people who are being diagnosed as bipolar? Seems to me like lately I've been hearing of more acquaintances and friends of friends who are being diagnosed as bipolar and it's got me a little skeptical. They don't seem to act like how you describe your mom, or how my ex described his mom. Do you know if this disease encompasses a really wide range of behaviors? Also, is it common to pass this disease to one's children?

thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

[Fishwhenican]

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Nice thread. Very informative, though kinda sad. I once dated a guy who grew up with a bipolar mother. The things he and his brother and sister told me were heartbreaking. I've never forgotten them. I remember him saying that his mom would get so depressed she would sleep for entire days and not do anything around the house. As children, they had to find their clothes in the dirty laundry pile and basically fend for themselves. This was humiliating as a couple times they were sent home from school for not being properly dressed.

When their mom had a manic episode she would undertake crazy projects that she would work on through the night. I remember him telling me about her Chinese garden. It drove their dad crazy. By the time I started dating this guy, his mom and dad had long divorced and she was living in a really awful trailer and had very little money. So yeah, just a terrible situation. Each one of the kids handled it differently. Two became alcoholics and two became very responsible.

I remember reading an article about the actress Patty Duke. She claimed that lithium saved her life. She and her family claimed that lithium was the miracle drug for her body because it simply made her normal, not drugged up. I also remember reading that some doctors are taking another look at lithium after trying a lot of other newer drugs on their patients.


My question for you is, do you ever wonder about all these people who are being diagnosed as bipolar? Seems to me like lately I've been hearing of more acquaintances and friends of friends who are being diagnosed as bipolar and it's got me a little skeptical. They don't seem to act like how you describe your mom, or how my ex described his mom. Do you know if this disease encompasses a really wide range of behaviors? Also, is it common to pass this disease to one's children?

thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

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Your description of your friends life sounds pretty familiar! Not exactly but similar.

Lithium was the only thing that really seemed to act like a "miracle drug". I believe Pattt Duke when she says it saved her life!

I get skeptical of all the diagnosis' as well but it may be that there have always been a lot of people with this disorder and it wasn't recognized as such so you hear more about it now. There are also varying degrees of severity with this disease which could account for differences between something like what your friend went through and other who are diagnosed as being Bi-Polar.

We were always told that there was a chance of the disease being passed on to children or through genetics. Scared the hell out me and my sister as well. Still does at times and you find yourself always looking over your shoulder wondering if it is going to creep up and all of a sudden be there. It's a big reason why I do not let myself get too emotional to one side or the other.

[GTL]

my dad takes lithium and is diagnosed as bi-polar. he also has never acted like the people being described in the posts above. he has never, to my knowledge, been in a mental ward. he doesn't talk to me about it much, but says that the medication saved his marriage and probably his life. I don't want to go into details because I want to respect his privacy. I do believe he is bi-polar. and i think the disease can manifest itself in a wide range of behaviors/emotions/etc.. etc..

i think more people are being diagnosed as bi-polar because they used to be diagnosed as crazy/ass holes/psychos/depressed. now there is just a more specific diagnosis.

the disease most likely does have some kind of hereditary link.


it is sometimes very scary living life wondering if one day you will start having serious mental problems. my dad is bi-polar. i have two grandparents who were alcoholics. and an aunt who commited suicide after a mental breakdown. she was most likely schizophrenic.

i was severely depressed in my late teens. I am not bi-polar but it can be a scary thing to think about sometimes.