Life with a mother who is bipolar- Please help

[Yellow428]

Hi,

I am female who is almost 28 years old, working full time and currently dealing with my own anxiety, depression and some of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder. I live at home with my two parents. My mother is out of control, she has these extremes super high spending money like its grown on trees and lows and anger that are unbearable.

Has anyone on here ever had to live and deal with someone who is bipolar everyday? I find the most challenging part is that because she is my mother i take what she says to heart, and even though I am in therapy and actively trying to better myself with DBT and CBT she throws me downhill. All of my progress for weeks just takes a nose dive when she is like this. I am sick of the cycle of her beyond rude comments then 2 days later apology text. This is verbal abuse and I cannot tolerate it. My father plays a neutral role in all of this. I don't make enough money to move out, if needed I could but i would scrap by.

Any advice?

I have tried isolating myself. I lock myself in my bedroom at 730pm to avoid her. She is wrecking my life.

L

[Nowuccas]

Hey Yellow428,

I have no personal experience in this area, but am wondering if she is refusing mood stabilisers, possibly due to adverse side effects, or perhaps she just enjoys the manic/hypomanic state too much (you didn't mention whether she has bipolar disorder type 1, with psychosis, [hallucinations or extreme delusional beliefs] or type 2, in which there is no psychosis, and the mood swings are less severe). Or one of the other 3 types, as shown at http://your-mental-health.weebly.com/c.html

Relevant reading:
Living With Someone Who's Living With Bipolar Disorder: A Practical Guide for Family, Friends, and Coworkers by Chelsea Lowe and Bruce M. Cohen MD PhD, & Bipolar Disorder, Second Edition: A Family-Focused Treatment Approach by David Jay Miklowitz, & Bipolar Disorder: The Ultimate Guide by Sarah Owen and Amanda Saunders, from your bookstore, or amazon.com

EBOOK:
View: http://forwebresources.com/ebooks/bipolar-disorders.html 97 pages).

Have you tried posting questions in the bipolar disorder chatrooms and forums, where you would be more likely to find people with useful answers?

CHATSITES & FORUMS:
http://bipolarchat.net/ & www.mcmahonweb.com/ & www.psychforums.com/ & www.supportpath.com/ & http://www.abssn.org/ & www.crazyboards.org/forums/ & http://www.bpbabble.com/ & http://crazymeds.us/ & http://www.bipolarworld.net/Community/webchat.html Check out: http://dailystrength.org/

PHONE:
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (U.S.A.) (800) 826 3632. www.bdsalliance.org/

PARTNERS / FRIENDS / FAMILY / CO-WORKERS:
See www.bipolarsupporter.com/ & www.bipolarsupport.org/ & www.livingmanicdepressive.com/ & www.helpguide.org/ also has advice on helping bipolar people.

Kindly PM me if any of the above websites are defunct now, as the info is several years old.

Family of some bipolars apply to the courts for an order that the sufferer take their prescribed medication. Or if none has been prescribed, that they attend a medical examination for the purpose of diagnosis and treatment. Supporting evidence in the form of video, receipts, sworn affidavits, etc. would be required.

You may benefit from using Bose, or similar noise cancelling earbuds, or earplugs, or turning up the volume of the music playing on earphones / earbuds.

My previous post about anxiety and depression may be viewed at:
http://anxietyforum.net/forum/showthread.php?33964-New-to-the-site-and-looking-for-help&p=223989#post223989 &
http://anxietyforum.net/forum/showthread.php?32707-has-this-happend-to-you&p=216510#post216510

The material that I have collected about BPD is at http://your-mental-health.weebly.com/x.html

"Disentangling Rapid-Cycling Bipolar From Borderline" is at https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/disentangling-rapid-cycling-bipolar-from-borderline/ in case you have any doubts about your diagnosis.

Hoping something in the above helps.

[Nowuccas]

https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/disentangling-rapid-cycling-bipolar-from-borderline/

Bipolar disorder - sometimes known as
manic-depressive disorder - is a form of mood disorder
characterized by periodic cycling between depressive-like (sad,
irritable, agitated) and manic-like
(energetic, impulsive, happy) states. Bipolar disorder is thought of
as a spectrum disorder in that there are extreme forms and mild forms
and everything in between. The classic bipolar presentation (e.g.,
Bipolar type 1) involves mood alternation between pronounced
depressive and manic episodes, possibly involving actual psychotic
states, several times per year, with each episode lasting months in
duration. But there are milder forms of bipolar where patients
complain of pronounced depressions only, depressions with mild manic
symptoms (bipolar type 2), mild depression and manic symptoms, etc.
There are also individual differences in the periodicity of bipolar
cycling, with rapid-cycling (more than four times per year),
ultra-rapid cycling (more than once per month) and ultridian
cycling (more than once per day) now discussed in the literature.
Ultra-rapid and ultridian cycling patterns were not accepted as
existing when I was in graduate school in the 1990's. If a patient
was cycling faster than four times per year, we were taught to think
strongly that there must be some underlying personality disorder
accounting for that. Things have changed a little in ten years.

Bipolar disorders are considered to be
disorders of brain chemistry. The dominant view is that the disorder
is 'hardware' driven - with mood swings being caused by
disregulated ratios of various brain chemicals and/or neural
sensitivities to brain chemicals in a manner similar to how some
forms of Diabetes are conceptualized as being disorders of blood
chemistry and insulin sensitivity. The chemicals go out of whack
and that causes the disorder. Not surprisingly, the common
treatments used with bipolar conditions are almost exclusively
pharmacological; Lithium, Valproic Acid (Depakote) and more recently,
anti-psychotic agents like Olanzipine (Zyprexa) and Seroquel. There is
little room in this
causal conceptualization for the possibility that higher level brain
functions such as thought or social representation might play a
causal role in producing the mood swings.

In contrast to bipolar disorder which
is diagnosed on Axis I, borderline personality disorder is diagnosed
on Axis II. Borderline personality disorder is understood to be a
disorder of fragile self-concept and disregulated emotional coping in
which sensitive people (generally who were abused in some form as
children) show a rigid pattern of intense interpersonally-directed
emotionality and unstable intimate relationships. Borderline people
also show pronounced mood variation, but this is thought to occur not
due to underlying brain chemistry problems, but rather to fragile
relationship coping skills and a tendancy
to view relationship partners in very high contrast "good or evil
but not a mixture of the two" manner any pole of which proves to be
difficult to sustain. Mood swings in the context of borderline are
thought of as 'software' problems brought on by changes in the
patient's perception and appraisal of their social situation.
If bipolar patients' rigid and unstable thought process have been in
place for some time (which in most cases it has been as the disorder
is thought to have it's genesis as an attempt to cope with early
abuse), then their personality (and even their evolving nervous
system tuning) grows up with unstable mood as a central feature.
After a while it becomes hard to say what is the product of the
unstable and rigid black and white thinking and what is the product
of having lived that way so long that it becomes normal for that
patient to be that way. In any event, a diagnosis of borderline
disorder does usually imply that underlying brain hardware is assumed
to be more or less okay. Not surprisingly, borderline personality
disorder is more likely to be treated with psychotherapy than are
bipolar conditions. Of course, this being America in the 21st
century, lots of medications are used for bipolar treatment too, and,
as they often prove helpful, this is a good thing.

Rapid cycling bipolar and borderline
disorders are not intended to be describing the same thing. It is
quite possible (and indeed is most often the case) that they are each
diagnosed in the absence of reference to
the other. However, there are these patients who seem to have both
things happening at the same time, and that is where things get
interesting. Exactly what does it mean if both disorders are
diagnosed to be present at the same time: Does it mean that one
diagnosis is more right than the other? Can a patient's mood cycling
be caused by more than one thing at the same time? The answer to the
first question sort of boils down to how much weight doctors making
diagnoses give to either chemical or interpersonal causal
explanations for why patient's moods are
swinging (which in turn is strongly influenced by their professional
training). The answer to the second question is most likely "yes."

Lest you think that moods can only be
caused by chemicals, you'd be quite wrong. The success of cognitive
behavioral psychotherapy approaches has established pretty much
beyond any doubt that thoughts are capable of influencing mood, and
that if a patient can be taught to think differently about his or her
depressive (or anxious) thoughts, his or her mood will lift. Knowing
this makes it perfectly plausible that
instabilities in someone's ability to feel secure in relationships
and someone's lack of knowledge with regard to how to sooth
themselves when they get agitated can
translate into mood swings as pronounced as anything chemically
induced. Both chemicals and thoughts are legitimate potential causes
of mood swings. It's a reasonable thing to disregard the influence
that thought and perception has on mood instability when dealing with
clear and pronounced 'hardware' problems (such as bipolar I), but in
more mild forms of bipolar disorder it is possible that chemicals and
thoughts - hardware and software - play a role in determining
patients' mood.

Fortunately, it is not really all that
important to get the diagnosis perfect - to disentangle
the possibilities of whether rapid-cycling bipolar or borderline
diagnoses are more appropriate. It so happens that the treatment
approaches used for one disorder are highly similar to those used to
treat the other disorder -at least in terms of medicines. This may
not be an accident, in that both disordered chemistry and disordered
thought may be pushing the same levers to move mood up and down -
the same levers that are manipulated by medications. It's hard to
determine if this is the case, but as per usual, more research will
ultimately settle the question.

To the extent that disentangling
rapid-cycling bipolar disorder from borderline disorder becomes
important, it make take creative assessment techniques to make it
happen. You'd perhaps expect some regularity to mood cycling if it
were truly uniquely caused by some underlying chemical disturbance.
In contrast, you'd expect more random mood
cycling, or mood cycling that is closely tied to events in patients'
emotional lives if it were caused uniquely by some interpersonal
problem. Right now mood cycling is basically assessed using
self-reports and it is easy for patients to just not know how
frequently or regularly their mood fluctuates in a given period. If
some future advance made it feasible to measure the proper chemicals
on an ongoing basis so as to establish cycling in a more objective
way, we might get somewhere. But that too will have to wait for the
future.

[Dahila]

Hi I will not give you a book to read, but I had lived with my ex husband and his bipolar. I know what you are talking about. She has a maniac episode right now and she needs to go on meds, otherwise you all find yourself on street. My best friend husband is dealing with it, and after they lost everything, he ended in hospital, they lost the house, family was broken, he decides to go on meds. He is in control now, what is the best he knows when he starts to act weird.
My ex is ex because he refused to go on meds. I had not choice but take children and leave him alone. If you are dealing with depression and anxiety, you do not need it. I was always suffering with anxiety but never to the extend, when he had his maniac episodes, high and down, depression, suicide thoughts..............
I would advice you to move out, for your own benefit, If your mom does not to want help herself , you can no do it for her. I am so sorry you go through it, I do not wish it on anyone

[Yellow428]

Thank you for all of your replies. She is medicated, but still has these episodes. Maybe she likes them and according to her when I am around she has to take more medication to "deal with me". I am loosing hope. What is the point in working full time and busting my ass if I can never move out. Its so depressing and I refuse to take more medications, drugs come with way too many side effects and I am very into fitness. I just feel like there is no light, I have been dealing with her all of my life and she makes me worse and worse.







Hi I will not give you a book to read, but I had lived with my ex husband and his bipolar. I know what you are talking about. She has a maniac episode right now and she needs to go on meds, otherwise you all find yourself on street. My best friend husband is dealing with it, and after they lost everything, he ended in hospital, they lost the house, family was broken, he decides to go on meds. He is in control now, what is the best he knows when he starts to act weird.
My ex is ex because he refused to go on meds. I had not choice but take children and leave him alone. If you are dealing with depression and anxiety, you do not need it. I was always suffering with anxiety but never to the extend, when he had his maniac episodes, high and down, depression, suicide thoughts..............
I would advice you to move out, for your own benefit, If your mom does not to want help herself , you can no do it for her. I am so sorry you go through it, I do not wish it on anyone

[careyon]

I have a couple of bipolar relatives, but I have never had to deal with them on a daily basis. That must be draining. Especially given you are dealing with your own mental issues. Does your mom take her meds? Perhaps you should suggest she talk to her Dr. about adjusting her meds. Then you need to focus on your own mental health. Seek professional help; a Dr. to evaluate your condition and provide counseling references. Isolating is likely not the best solution. I would suggest you participate in activities that you enjoy doing and that will keep you away from your mom's episodes and provide enjoyment for yourself.

[gypsylee]

Hi and welcome :)

I'm 42 and my mother is 75, and I've always had a very rocky relationship with her. I've done a lot of reading and she fits the Borderline Personality description perfectly. I always just thought she was "neurotic" but now I realise she's emotionally abusive (VERY inconsistent) and I think if I knew this 20 years ago I would have gone no contact with her. I know that's a really difficult thing to do but yeah, that's the advice I would give my younger self.

Hope you find some help here,
Gypsy x

[HookTheCodfish]

Deja vu!

Your situation was mine a few years ago. And I'm almost 28 now. I lived with my unstable, psychologically abusive so-called mother until I was 24. I cannot tell you enough how important it is to get out of that house. That environment is toxic and may kill you (if you're driven to suicide). Please, just get a job, any job, and move out. I got a job at a gas station and worked for a year until I could buy an incredibly shitty apartment and I LOVED it. It was so peaceful. No one screaming at me for spilling milk, no one judging everything I do, no unstable psycho to walk on eggshells around, and knowing this apartment was truly mine and I paid for it myself and was now my own person, my self esteem and mental health skyrocketed. I still need therapy and meds and will never fully recover from the mental scars but I'm telling you, moving out will save your life in more ways than one.

[LastAcorn99]

I’m so sorry to hear this. I can only imagine the difficulties you’re facing. I feel it will be good for you to move out of your parents place, and maybe rent a place with a friend if you can't afford one on your own. Sending you hugs and prayers. Stay strong, okay?

[Yellow428]

Thank you for all of your support and stories. To answer your questions, she is on medication but does not believe she is bi-polar and will not tell the Dr the truth. I do have a career, however i do not earn enough money to support myself and i struggle to work the 40 hours as it is a week. I have lived on my own before, a walkout basement apartment and I had a brak down and had to move home after 8 months or so.

I am actively working with a therapist and shes believes I can get the strength and tools from her to block my mother out. My father said in time he will help me financially move out as he can see the toll she is taking on my life. Last week I almost quit everything, its hard as i work so hard in therapy and two days/evenings around my mother and im spiraling down hill again.

Hookthecodfish- how did you do it financially? Did you sell everything you owned to keep your sanity? Also another issue is my parents pay for my medications, and in someway you could say that's controlling but my full time job does not offer benefits.

In the mean time I am working hard to stay positive. I am a huge gym rat and have been going more and more. I try to stay out of the way as much as possible to hopefully have less arguments even if over a pair of scissors to cut green beans with. Sometimes its the most ridiculous things.

As far as friends, I am almost 28 and all my friends are engaged, married or living with someone so that is not an option now. I was on kijiji looking for a roommate but gave up as they would be a total stranger.

[sarah171]

I'm sorry you are going through such a challenging situation. I agree with what some of the other posters said. It's best for your health if you could try to move out even if you have to move in with multiple roommates. Even if your friends are married or have their own place, spread the word about your need for a roommate because they might know of a friend or co-worker looking to rent for low cost. Maybe you can even start volunteering with an organization you like to make more connections and also to keep you busy so you don't have to be locked in your room thinking about your situation. I hope you find a quick and happy solution. ((hugs)) We're here for you :-)