My Bipolar Mother
May 30, 2008
I’ve been married for 15 years, and have 3 kids, 11, 12, and 14. My wife is extremely understanding. She has to be, because my mother is bipolar, and has exhibited the symptoms of it for as long as I can remember. Her mother also had the same behavior. Thankfully, I’m not biologically related to her. She is now in her mid 70’s, and is physically separated from my father (most of the time, anyway). She was diagnosed at least 3 times that I know of, the most recent was after she was involuntarily committed while on holiday. She took her prescribed meds for a few days, and then quit.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, can convince her that she has a problem and needs them. Not the threat of missing her 50th anniversary, not even eliminating contact with my kids, her grandchildren. At this point, I really have no hope that she will ever improve, even if she is medicated.
Unfortunately, I think that the stress is going to kill my father. Either that, or she will become physically violent.
I started blogging my story when she was so manic that she was actually having delusions. That was in April of last year, and a lot has happened since then.
I’ve only recently been made aware of just how I have been affected by it. I had thought that I was lucky to have escaped relatively unscathed, but that no longer seems to be the case. I have no memory of events that my relatives witnessed, and I’m wondering if my memory problems are somehow related to coping mechanisms that I developed when I was young.
I have read your book, as did my father. He and my cousin went through it while Mom was in the hospital. Unfortunately they highlighted things that they thought were significant, and Mom found the book on our trip home.