I Already Have A Bipolar Mother
There are very few instances where I’ve denied or deleted comments. Normally I just let them through without question, or occasional edits for profanity. But this was directed at me and struck a nerve. I’ve had this comment sitting in the moderation que for a week now, and it bugs me. I might be overly sensitive or conditioned to this kind of thing, but it bugs me none the less.
Some background from other comments she’s left:
- It appears that this woman has bipolar, but *may* be getting treatment.
- Two of her three children have cut off contact with her.
- She recognized that her behavior has hurt her children.
- She claims not to like the conflict caused between her and her daughters, and wishes to have their relationship restored.
Here’s the comment that I found troubling:
I was wondering if you would be willing to help me and in the process maybe I can help you in return? I love my children and ache when I read your blog. I would like to offer you a “mom” you can tell your feeligs to and have them validated and I would love a child I can share my empathy, love and compssion with. Maybe if we can make it work there is hope. Two out of my three children are not in communication with me at this time. I am hoping we can help each other understand the sane and the insane you began your blog with. My email is: <redacted>
May you find peace in your life.
Notice that there is no hope without my successful participation, and that I need her help (after I’ve helped her). I’ve seen this kind of burden before. It’s a guilt trip, and it’s toxic.
So, this woman who has chased off two of her own kids offers to make me an honorary ‘child’ she can share her ‘empathy, love and compassion’ with. Who wouldn’t find that appealing?
I think I’ve made it quite clear that I don’t need my feelings validated by anyone. I understand well enough the ‘sane and insane’, and have no desire to get sucked into an emotional vortex with someone on the internet.
I already have a bipolar mother, I really don’t think I need another one.
Am I being harsh?
p.s. If this is you, and you wish to remain anonymous, don’t post in this thread.
I think I would react the same as you. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. If I were her daughters I would feel very hurt that she would bestow upon you the high honor of her “help” while they apparently bore the brunt of her manic behavior. Not to mention, I would prefer to turn to my husband (and I am sure you to your wife) rather than turn to someone of the opposite sex, from the interent, who is unstable. Sounds like a very scary relationship.
Yes I have bipolar and I am in treatment and I wonder when does the statute of limitations run out? Yes I asked for your help. I can see how it bugged you. My words were clumsy. I don’t want to be your “mom” nor you my “child”. I was asking for help so I could try and understand my kids perspective. That was the “child” part. Yes I hurt my children as many parents do. I am flawed and will make mistakes. I never intentionally set out to hurt them. Not everything has to do with my mental illness.
I was trying to offer to answer any questions or listen to what you had to say. Maybe you wanted to know how it feels to be a parent with bipolar? This was the “mom” part.
I certainly don’t want to place any burdens on you. You always had the power to say no and to tell me how you feel or felt about my request. Yes, your post felt harsh.
I wish you all the best and hope someday you will have some kind of resolution with this issue. I hope you have peace. I will not post again and I realize I am revealing my identity.
My own mother, in her illness, is also known for never saying exactly what she meant, not meaning exactly what she said. (Unless she gets the outcome she wanted, in which case she claims she spoke clearly. But she seldom gets what she sets out for, and there is a definite pattern of people ‘misunderstanding’ her by taking her words at face value, rather than somehow sensing hidden meanings.)
For me, this became absolutely impossible to live with after a while.
The other side of this hidden-communications thing, was this: my mother always felt (and as far as I know, still feels) that a. anyone who speaks their mind plainly, is a mean person ; and b. other people are communicating in hidden ways, of course.
Due to point b, my mother recently told my youngest son that she feels his older brother doesn’t “really love her”, because he says ‘I love ya’ instead of ‘I love YOU’.
It’s sad that this illness causes this kind of convoluted, nonsensical thinking. But the good news is, there are medications and therapy (both one-on-one and in groups with other recovering bipolar patients), that can really help.
cleodoggie8:
The Statute of Limitations runs out when you are cured.
Your words weren’t clumsy, nor were they misinterpreted. You said exactly what
you meant. You want to replace a relationship with your children with one with
me, hoping that it might go better. Unfortunately children aren’t like xxxxxx,
you don’t get to discard one that you’ve broken and replace it with something
shiny and new.
And honestly, if you are as overflowing with empathy and compassion as you
claim, I doubt your children would have abandoned you.
Not ‘intentionally’ hurting your children is good, the alternative is
criminal. The problem is that I doubt you ever apologized without saying ‘but’
afterward. Making excuses with qualifiers like that is worse than not
apologizing at all. It means you recognize what you did was wrong, but have
some justification for it that excuses you from any responsibility.
As to parenting while bipolar, there are other support groups and forums for
that. You are more likely to find camaraderie and validation there. I tried to
understand my Mom’s feelings and motivations, but her mind works differently.
Don’t try to get inside the head of a crazy person.
Now, ignoring all that and assuming your motivations are pure. If you want to
have any hope of getting a relationship with your children back, you will have
to:
etc. It was all you, all the time.
therapy. Both will be required.
make sure you haven’t weaseled out of responsibility.
you, and have reason to be suspicious.
I’m sure that there are more, and others might have more suggestions as well.
If you chose that path, and not many do, then God bless you.
No, no, no, you’re not being harsh!
Good heavens.
I’m guessing you’re possibly triggered…this post triggered me, and I was just a bystander!
This woman sounds like my mother, so taking a guess she might sound like yours also.
This behavior is exactly something my mother would do, and in fact has done, in her illness. (With me right there, I had *not* yet cut off contact!)
It’s a very sick line of (il)logic: my children are leaving me (or dissatisfying me), because of an illness that people say I have. But I don’t think I’ve got any problem whatsoever, therefore I will just replace whatever child I’m unhappy with; carry on exactly as I have been; and then the next time I find myself abandoned and/or dissatisfied, I’ll wonder why this keeps happening to me!
Think I’ve also heard this called taking hostages, rather than having relationships.
My opinion – ? Defending oneself is not being harsh. If enough people respond to this woman as you did, maybe at some point she’ll have that moment of clarity and realize she truly has a problem.
Hope you and your family are well.
Forestchild said it best.
WHEW. Color me triggered as well.
Thank you so much for writing this blog. I’m just at the stage where I’ve talked to my own doctor about my mother’s bizarre behaviour. While he naturally said he couldn’t diagnose her through just my observations, he said his best guess would be bipolar II disorder.
I haven’t read all of your entries yet, but your blog just “screams” my mother. I also have kids who are 7 and 4, and I’m running into the same issues that you have written about.
And my Dad… so in denial… The last time we talked I tried to communicate as gently as I could how worried I was about Mom’s mental health and how I wished she would talk to her doctor. Somehow my plea for her to get help was the worst thing a daughter could ever do to her mother, and indicated how much “I needed help.” He hung up the phone on me.
I don’t know where this journey is going to take me with my parents who are in their early 70s. I’m in my early 40s and we don’t even live in the same province. Right now we’re not communicating, but that is preferable to the manipulation and guilt trips and anger.
Knowing that other people have the same “crazy” experiences makes you not feel so bewildered. It also helps you to recognize them for what they are – the product of a disturbed mind. I’m getting used to the fact that I can’t improve the situation; I can only try to minimize the impact on myself and my immediate family. Thank god I have best husband in the world.
Please keep writing! It’s definitely helpfull for me, and judging by the hits on your blog, for many others, too.
TO: Namegoeshere
You were not being harsh at all to cleodoggie. She is clueless…….clueless to the years of emotional devastation bipolar parents have created for their children. I thought it very selfish for her not even begin to think of what you may feel when you got her post. Maybe (just maybe) her intent was not selfish…..but it came across that way.
So, for me, when I read her initial blog, it just brought up all the memories of my mom lashing out in pure hate at me one minute and then sending me a “oh let’s talk and spend time together” or “I didn’t say that” text.
And this actually is for Cleodoggie: Sometimes it really sucks when you sit back and realize the hurt and pain you have caused. You want to do something to make it better….to not feel that pain. Well, the pain is something you need to feel. This is not meant in a mean way. It is just the consequences we must face. You reap what you sow. You need to work and focus on you and not other people. That will always create a diversion off of you. Get medication. Go to therapy. Get your relationship right with God. I hope things work out for you. God bless
I have a mentally ill mother and i has been progressing for 15 years. When my dad was still working, the family thought I was a bad kid until I went to college and my dad retired. My mom is like Jeckle and Hyde and she can be an actress when she wants to be. I also uninvited my mom from my wedding last year because she had an arugment with my dad about something dumb, so to prove she is right she called 911 and told them my dad was trying to kill her. My dad called me and i was able to speak with the police and that is when my dad moved out for a few weeks. To get him back she called home depot and ordered 15K worth of new windows and he had to manage the construction crews that she hired. Today, when my dad goes to the grocery store she calls me and asks what I did with her husband. She basically accuses me of having an affair with my dad. She calls me at my home or my cell while I am at work and then when i see her she has many expense gifts for me of things she thinks that I “need”, which she ordered from HSN or QVC. I am so fed up with the whole thing that I am getting ready to call a crisis center and have the mobile team come and take away my mom for treatment. She is 65, angry, bipolar, she cannot follow a conversation and has become a hoarder. Please pray for her wellbeing. This tears me up inside. Love, her loving daughter who wants her mom back. – N
Wow. All of them are cookie cutters of each other. Give her the heave-ho, and don’t turn back.
It’s just so typical of a bipolar parent to meander her way to this website, only to then play the victim and it make it about herself…I know that sounds harsh, too, but in the grand scheme of help resources out there, this is one of the very few for children of bipolar parents, compared to the many more resources for the mentally ill. We are the silent victims that often get hidden behind the veil of a bipolar parent’s egocentricity and manipulation. We need this site more than the bipolar moms do. Sorry.
You just used the PERFECT words to describe that mom, my mom, and all of them
My mom has bipolar
She left me and my sisters when I was 12. She said she left cause we were bad kids. She is dying with cancer and is still starting trouble. I can no longer take her in my life. She loves to see that I feel bad for her. Considering she lied for years when I was a kid saying she was dying with a illness she made up I feel numb. She is dying and still trying to use me for money and emotional blackmail
I’m 26 and my mom has biboler and everything else. My older sister has bipoler too. My mom is dying and my sister is her money bags so she has backstabbed every one else
I cut them out of my life
my mother has bipolar disorder also and my dad has too big a heart to leave her ( again) my sister quit talking to her when she was 16 and I was 10 and left to watch the littler 3 siblings because my dad would work overtime and my mom was always shopping or…. who knows and then at night they would stay out for hours when my parents split I was 11 and now I had the responsibility to watch out for mother who was starting to let some teenage habits(coke, ecstasy, alcohol, I guess whatever was available) come back and I would stay up allnight and then miss school either because I fellasleep without settin the alarm because I easygoing to make sure she made it home Safe or because she just still wasn’t home and I was getting wworried the longest she ever stayed gone without answering her phone was 5 days but to an 11 yr old that has to watch out for 3 younger siblings and doesn’t know where there mom is it can be terrifying then my parents got back together when i was 14and it was like a major switch she didnt want my dad knowing how much I took care of her or the reason I never went to his house when they were separated ( my mom had told me how much he hated me and how he really wanted me to be a boy and that’s why he liked my brothers so much more and I found out later was a total lie) then I stuck up fir my mom against the extended family against my friends and my boyfriends and my siblings and even my dad but she was always the first to throw me under the bus telling me I was fat until I developed anorexia then she said I was so skinny I looked nasty nothing could ever please the woman I was grounded for things I thought she would like( I scrubbed my carpet floor on one occasion but didn’t instantly bring the cleaner back down so she said I was huffin it and I difnt even know what that meant) she found out I was a cutter and threw my stash of razor blades at me one by one and told everyone what I had been doing she kicked me out when I was 18 because I was going to see my sister and my nephew who she never got to meet and I haven’t talked to her since there’s things I miss about having a family but I don’t miss her I loved her until I just couldn’t anymore there’s just so much a child can take until they realize hey I’m an adult and I will say when enough is enough just because your someones mom doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want to them and they will still love you in the end because this bitch has had 5 kids and I know shell be dying alone in the end
I just came across your blog. I am the child of a bipolar mother too. The letter you received sounds like it could have been written by her (other than that mine has four daughters, not three) and other commenters have summed up many of my feelings precisely. Thank you for sharing your story with others – I plan to read more.
Really everyone, those who know what the rules are or should be (and are thus able to make concise judgements), AND those who identify themselves as victims regardless of who is bipolar and who is the non bp family member. There are a few simple time (and science proven things to consider, whether you are talking bp I or bp II
There is no cure, only treatment, and most can be treated successfully.
A really not nice or destructive person can be bp
A otherwise really nice person and constructive person who is bp can do not nice tor destructive things when the are not being treated successfully.
Successful treatment keeps the bp mostly, but not completely at bay.
Patience Compliance difficulties can be monitored by family members, and when there is no compliance, don’t get into a he said, she said, do what you can to redirect them to compliance again.
Love them if you love them anyway, and show your support, and take care of yourself
If you don’t love them anyway, try to do no harm, and take good care of yourself.
I agree with all of your comments, but I think the complicating issue for people participating in this blog is that we are talking about our mothers. That’s a relationship that we want out of instinct, but also because of social expectations. It’s not a bond that you can throw away easily. People who suffer from bi-polar disorder tend to do things that hurt the people who care about them the most. At some point we have to decide if there is hope for that person to behave in a caring, loving manner, or whether there is no longer any hope. If there is no hope, it is a huge decision to determine whether to continue the relationship. Everyone on this blog is working through that question and the hurt that surrounds the decision, making our thoughts and feelings not so simple.
My bipolar mom passed away from breast cancer. I was so angry with her her last days cause she was a trouble maker, a user, a gossiped and started stuff with my own young step kids. When I saw her laying their helpless in the hospital for once I understood. It’s not her fault and now she is in heaven, a place that took away her earthly issues. I miss her now that she’s gone but feel a sense of peace knowing she’s fixed now. I know she didn’t mean to use or hurt me. I know she regrets abandoning me when I was 12. Anyhow I hope you all the best of luck with your mothers or whoever and just know it is a disease.
i battle bp1 and its certainly no cakewalk. fortunately my family and i can actually chuckle lightly when looking back at my enraged mlddle of the night calls not so unlike your mothers. bottom line is i had to succumb to my disorder and a handful of meds, and my family had to forgive and educate themselves just enough to understand “the nature of the beast”…….im not saying its been easy. b.p is a b$#ch but surely you have thought about your children someday possibly showing bp traits? life is short and unprdictable. keep an open mind. im routing for you!