Do any of you have bipolar parent/s?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

[suninvited]

1. I always suspected that my mother was

we just didnt know the term for it then. I think they mostly referred to it as manic depression.

However, my mother hated weakness of any kind. In my adulthood, when she found out I was seeing a psychologist, she went ballistic.

She sure showed all the signs of being bipolar, I am convinced she was.

[KSinTX]

2. Same for my Dad (may he rest in peace)

I don't think he was bipolar, though. I think it was something quite different just totally undiagnosed. To have it treated, he'd have to admit something was wrong. Like your mom, weakness of any sort was not to be tolerated. That would be "coddling."

[Connonym]

14. I also think my dad may have been bipolar

mostly depressed but occasional low-level mania. I know he was institutionalized when he was about 19 but my mom doesn't know any details and my dad's family doesn't discuss such things so I don't know what happened. Although I believe that was also around the time my paternal grandfather died so it may have related to that.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. I am a bipolar parent, if that counts. I am

bp2 http://psycheducation.org/depression/02_diagnosis.html#soft

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. do you have any periods of psychosis?

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Very minor ones like thinking my late mother or God is 'talking' to me, but they aren't

telling me to do anything major. Mostly just clean my house and stuff like that. LOL (Although in one episode I did write lots of new Bible verses, but since they were all about people getting along it was all good.)

But I didn't exactly lose touch with reality, so I am not sure if it quite counts as psychosis. It was more like another layer of reality was added on to the one I am in now.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. god tells my father to do things that costs the family large amounts of money

last time it was around 75 grands. this time possible 6-8 grands.

i wish god would shut up

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. Not good, but typical of BP. *hugs* He on any meds??

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. nope. undiagnosed.

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. He needs treatment asap. BP tends to get worse over time

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. wont get any. believes god speaks to him and he has attained that level

of self realization/nirvana/whatever

[Critters2]

23. I'm so sorry, priyanka. My ex used to do that.

It literally took me years to get out of the debt he accumulated. And the tax problems. I wish you weren't dealing with this. Getting him to stay on meds is the only real solution, but, as a parishioner who's a psych nurse said to me at the time, "not staying on meds is a symptom of the disease". And it's a helluva disease. You have my sympathy. FWIW.

:hug:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

25. he wont acknowledge that there is a disease

god speaks and talks and guides him because he has attained this level of nirvana etc

[LeftyMom]

4. My late stepdad. He was unwilling to seek treatment, hence the late part.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. ?

[LeftyMom]

7. He committed suicide in one of his low periods.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. I am sorry to hear that

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. thats terrible, sorry.

[YankeyMCC]

8. It seems very possible

my mother may be bi-polar, from what I understand of the illness she seems to exhibit the symptoms, she always has but it seems worse these last few years since my Dad died.

So it may not be as serious as a truly bi-polar affected person but my brother-in-law's mother was bi-polar and he suspects my mother is as well, even from behavior before my Dad died.

[Darth_Kitten]

9. Think maybe my bio dad was schizophrenic........

don't believe that qualifies as bipolar but a mental illness anyhoooo..... :shrug:

[khashka]

13. My aunt

We no longer have any contact, although we used to be really close. But her incredible mood swings became intolerable, as well as her actions.

With proper meds it can be treated, but she's taking the wrong ones and it's only making her worse.

Khash.

[Ellen Forradalom]

18. Oh yes. And I am one, too.

My dad was a lifelong undiagnosed bipolar. Too glaringly obvious, yet he never got help.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

19. Mother is ADD, not the same but, still...there are issues. Father

also displays signs of narcissistic tendencies.

[pokerfan]

20. Yes

Long periods of depression interspersed with mania, attempted suicide, meds, electroconvulsive "therapy," etc.

[QMPMom]

21. I 99.9% sure that my bio-mother was a rapid-cycling bipolar.

I didn't know enough when she was alive to consider that she might be. It was only years later when I was in therapy *myself* that the subject came up. The psychologist asked me what I thought my mother's mental illness might have been and he agreed with me when I said rapid-cycling bipolar.

We went through years of hell with her and she had, well, I won't tell you how many, electroconvulsive treatments that did nothing but cause amnesia. We had the suicide attempts, hiding of medications to attempt suicide at a future date - the whole gamut. God, I can take apart a bedroom faster than you can imagine to seach for hidden drugs. She was also very manipulative and mean.

I have spent years hating her. Until...........

When Dad died in February an odd thing happened: ALL of the anger and rage at my bio-mother went away. It is totally gone.

It's a wonderful feeling of freedom to not be angry at her.

[Solon]

26. My Mom is bipolar...

Mostly, as far as her behavior, I don't know, it depends sometimes. She would get depressed, and go away to the hospital for a couple of weeks, then come back fine. She takes her medicine just fine, and hasn't had an episode in years, especially since her doctor switched her drugs to a more recent one, but in the past, it was difficult for her to keep her moods in check. A bad reaction to her lithium medication could send her into either a manic high, or into crying fits. Didn't help that she had bad side effects to the drugs because of an allergy to them.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

27. my dad thinks he is fine...

so no drugs

[Deep13]

28. Yes, but she doesn't "believe" in drugs.

:(

[bertha katzenengel]

29. I think my mom was. n/t

[NMDemDist2]

30. my mother was n/t

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

31. My mother was and it was a horrible experience.

She needed to be locked up in a rubber room. She made my grandmother's (her Mom), my father's and my life a living hell for about 8-9 years in the 70's. She didn't believe in medication and refused to take it.

I think my niece is showing some symptoms of it as well. She's my brother's only daughter and she definitely has some issues that seem very similiar to Mary Elizabeth's.

[Rising Phoenix]

32. my mother is

[littlebit]

33. Girlfriends mom was bipolar

She would have these episodes where she would go out and spend massive amounts of money and then not be able to account for it. Then she would spend days locked in her room crying. Once during a psychotic episode she tried to stab her son and daughter in law while they were asleep. Fortunately her son woke up before she could do it. Over the last five years she started getting a lot worse. Last august she committed suicide.

[MrsMatt]

34. mother was

first diagnosed with depression 20 years ago. I had just married, and moved half a continent away - she'd call me and tell me the most horrible things (they were bankrupt, my sister was divorcing, etc.) that were not true. She would try to bury her meds, because she believed that she was being poisoned. She was committed for a time until they had it under control. I believe she was prescribed lithium at the time.

About a year and a half later, she had a manic episode that entailed spending prodigous amounts of money (including plane tickets to Hawaii) - she was committed again, only this time she was convinced that she was on her way to heaven, so she started stripping in the car (don't need clothes in heaven). It took a little longer to get her on an even keel this time around, as the drugs she'd been on earlier made her mania more severe.

Three years after that, she died at age 58 of a heart attack caused by an unintentional overdose - turned out that her body didn't metabolize the meds correctly, and the two drugs she was on built up in her bloodstream (prozac and desipramine, which at the time was a very common combination, and considered very safe) and caused her heart to fail (she had had an enlarged left ventricle, so they were monitoring her).

It's been 15 years - I still miss her.