I'm 20 years old, I'm in college and I have to through the same situation almost every single day - I have to deal with my mother who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She was a educated women, but the depression she is suffering for the approximately last 10 years has completely changed her. I'm really worried about her, I try to encourage her but nothing seems to work - it's just making worse, communicating with her I'm all sucked my positive energy. She refuses to socialize or to move forward - like she's already dead but only keep surviving. She's in a deep sadness full of pessimism never with a good idea. Every day I try to calm her and to tell her that everything is ok, that she has to move forward and to forget about the past - she just can't do this: she spends almost all her time describing how terrible and awful was her past, saying that everything is bad, was bad and will be bad. I'm getting frustrated every time when she is doing this. Moreover, she was drinking and for some time she said that she stopped doing it, unfortunately I see that she was lying. I don't know what I'm supposed to do next - I am young and frustrated. I really love her but I don't know how to deal with her behavior. Can someone help me please? Any advice would be really thankful since I don't have any...
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Bipolar mother - HELP!!
- Thread starter noneed
- Start date
I'm in a similar situation as you though I'm a little older than you. I know what you mean and it's very sad to hear other people complaining about this. I am the only child at my parents and my mom is also diagosed with bipolar disorder so I know it's really hard dealing with a person with bipolar, especially if she's your mom. She has moodiness and she's always depressed and sometimes I think she is trying to make me feel the same. I never heard her praising someone, especially me, she always is complaining about bad life and that I'm a bad son even though she doesn't work and spend money on really useless things like cigarettes. What I really cannot understand is how at only 58 years old can speak as she will die soon and probably that's the reason she hasn't any positive effect upon my life. I already tried to break our relationship completely, but I just couldn't, she's my mom after all and I am concerned that she could harm herself if nobody keeps an eye on her. Now I'm just trying not to take her words seriously and I don't let her negativism affect me and my personal life. I hope that you will feel better knowing that you are not alone. I know it's hard, but we have to go through this.
James Leftie
New member
Heeeey don’t worry that much!! I know how you’re feeling right now! I was in the same way! Nowadays I am 45 years old man and I was the only child of my bipolar mother and in addition of an alcoholic father. I consider that life put me in hard situation like that just so I could be the person I am now. I know it is hard, I know you have to think about it, I know that she is your mother and you love her I know all of this BUT don’t run around your mom and being all over worried for her and having no time and space for your own life! I personally recommend you to get out of there as soon as possible and make your own life. NO, you don’t need to ignore her or to totally cut the relation between you. You can be there if she really needs you but you don’t have to put your life on hold because of that! I was in the same way with my parents! I escaped that life and I tried with everything I could to forget my past! I was telling myself every single night that I’ll never going to be like none of my parents so I’m very glad to say that I’m not! I got married with an intelligent woman and I am having 2 very beautiful kids, I am having a decent job and I am living a much higher life than I used to know as a kid and teenager. Be near your husband and not near your bipolar mother, leave, escape and go. Live your life and your problems near your husband and don’t let your parents problem interfere in your personal life. It's all in how you look at it and deal with it. There’s at least one positive aspect in almost everything, you just have to learn your lesson right! Leave the fear behind and live your life!
I'm dealing with the same kind of problem with my mom who is suffering from bipolar disorder. She is not the easiet person to deal with and even though she is my mother I really think that I should avoid her and leave behind all contacts with her. I really want and need to live a normal life so... People and friends keep telling me that I should be there for her but to be honest I can't stand that anymore and I don't really know what should I do. Sometimes she doesn't fully understand that she is having children and I think that she doesn't accept this. I tired of being blamed about everything even though I'm trying so much for her...
Hello everyone, I’m new here and I have a serious problem that is really similar to yours “noneed”. I am 29 years old, my mother is 63 years old and a few years ago she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I’m very worried about this. I’m always trying to encourage her, but the problem is that her depression is all too familiar and this evokes in me different thoughts about my past that I tried to remove so hard. This feeling makes me a pessimist, downhearted, sad and refusing to socialize with someone and I would like to change this. Now she is 63 years old but she still has problems with her depression and for those few years she made no progress. I really tried to help her but every time when I try to communicate with her I feel like I return to my past problems, like this is sucking me back in.
She is also speaking like she is mentally retarded and she praises me all the time. The thing that I hate most is when she speaks about how awful her past was. Every time I have to raise my voice and get frustrated because she says that everything that I say or everything that I’m trying to explain to her has no reason. In those moments I really think that I should abandon the relationship with her.
All the time I’m acting like a parent with her, to help her but it seems like it doesn’t work. I’m not wise or knowledgeable I’m just trying to understand her because I don’t know how to deal with her. Sometimes I can’t believe that she is really my mother. She is totally irrational and that’s why I don’t know how do I have to speak with her . I love her very much, but I really can’t tolerate her moods swings anymore, and her depression makes me nervous. What should I change? How to make a bipolar relationship work normally? Do I have some chances to change something? Please help me because I really need your opinions and your suggestions.
Hello everybody, it feels good seeing that other people are dealing with a similar problem as I do, for one or another reason it encourages me and Im thankful for that. I am concerned that my mother is suffering from bipolar disorder and im almost sure that this is true because my wife is working as a social worker with people who are suffering from many kinds of mental illnesses so she thinks that my mother is suffering from bipolar disorder. Sincerely I have no reason not to trust her words. My mother knows it and has known about this fact for more than 35-40 years but she has done absolutely nothing in order to treat this illness. For entire years she had periods of her life being highs or/and lows she is drinking way too much and I start to believe that she’s also becoming an alcoholic. Because of everything that she has done in her life she had a big success in keeping away (and finally completely estrange herself) from my father (her ex-husband), from my sister (her daughter), from her friend of a friendship longer than 20 years and in general from anybody that was close to her. She was taking care of her mother (my grandmother) talking and visiting her for a couple of years now in a very good nursing home where my grandmother was living. However, for about one year now my mother is living completely alone because she doesn’t have anybody near her now. she ended her relationship with her mother about a year ago and for many years she doesn’t talk to almost anybody except me. She divorced with my father more than 10 years ago.
Now, my grandmother is slowly dying because of an illness (she is now 91 and she is suffering from an late phase of body dementia) but my mother still doesn’t visit her. In fact, my mother can’t handle the situation at all, she doesn’t take care of herself. Besides everything she is having quite often episodes of severe manic so I am concerned that one day I would totally unravel. What makes me very frustrated is the fact that she knew about this condition of hers for all of those years plus she joined with clinical depression, however she always refused to get at least SOME treatment. Im really concered about all this situation, she can suddenly call me in the middle of the night being extremely down and bad and she tells me that if I wouldn’t come she would definitely kill herself that night. Sometimes I think she’s bluffing because this happened a couple of times now but when I see her, I don’t wanna risk. After all she is my mother. As other user has said, my mother’s situation is similar: she always remembers and talks about how bad and how horrible her childhood was, she always says that she was kicked in her back by everybody, absolutely everybody without exceptions. The thing is that she has never ever tried to move over it, not even once. She refused to try to forget all those bad moments. It is so hard for me to leave her alone because she tells me that I am the only one that she can rely on, she claims that Im her saviour and that im her last hope. She praises me, tells me that she’s very very proud of me and so on. How can I leave her in that way?
Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I tell her she continuously refuses to seek for any help. My wife tried to help her but she doesn’t want. Completely strange people tried and still the same result. I’m sure that if I leave her, she would have nobody else near her, she wouldn’t have anybody to whom to talk so this kills me from inside, however I cannot live this life in the same way anymore. a million of times I said to myself that I am done and this is enough, however, I never could do it. for the first time this happened when I was only 15, she kicked me out of the house one night because I went out with my dad. She always told me how bad he is and those many many other things that she is having against him. All these things and many other similar things are going like that in a cycle of behavior for all my life but I am now married for a couple of years and I need to leave that life and to live in my new life, with my new family. I know that this would make me problems with my family if it continues that way. In fact, all this situation has already made a big strain on my family and my marriage. Sincerely, I am clueless what should I do now, it seems that I am left with no options. As I am growing up more I am getting more and more angry at her, more and more frustrated because she is having all the resources that they can only exist, available to help her with this illness any time but she refuses, she always tells me that she’s able to control things, to keep everything under control while she never controlled anything, she was only drinking. But medications were never an option for her. she purely cannot understand that there are medicine for the brain as good as there are medicines for the heart or any other organ. She insists that this is a catatonic inducing substance that would make her feel even worse. It seems to her that drinking is better. Sincerely, I have no idea what I need to do next so if somebody knows something then please share it with me because I have to make a decision very fast. I have to choose now between my family and my mother who doesn’t want to get any help. Extremely hard situation to deal with...
Hello. I just read some of your posts and I really identified my mother in all of this. I know that there are a lot of people that are scared to have children because of this disease. I was thinking about this many times and some time ago I was scared too. I had no signs of this illness so my brother too. Now I’m married I have 3 beautiful children and I’m really happy. My children also have no problems with this illness so it’s make me really happy too. After passing so many years near a person that has this kind of disease it is really a joy for me that my children are healthy and happy. I considered that having a baby is a joy and obviously you risk in this situation but it’s worth it. I grew up with my mother that had this disease since I was 10 so I know very much about this. She went to prison because of her disease and now when I remember this I understand that obviously this is not her fault. Every time when she did something she comes back after some months later apologizing for everything. These were hard times for us, but after some years living with here like in a nightmare we decided that we can’t deal with this anymore. The thing was that my mom started to speak about strange things, accusing me of theft and other crimes that I did not commit. At the beginning I did not said any word because every time I was assuring myself that it was not her fault. When my family started to be involved in all the conflicts I decided that I have to change something. There were moments when she called the police and tried to accuse me and my brother of different crimes, when she tried to commit suicide or just having some strange situations in which we just did not knew what to do with her behavior. It was quite impossible to calm her because there were situations in which she looked at us like we were strangers to her, like she see us for the first time. So this was terrible.
Our decision to let her go was very difficult and resembles a severe and a ruthless decision but we had to do that. It was hard because she is my mom, but I couldn’t see my family anymore on tears because of her. I wish all the best for those who understand me and know very well what means to live with a bipolar person. I don’t want you to understand my decision, I know that there are those who criticize me because of this but I think that I made a good decision.