
Family & Friends of Bipolar Support Group
This community is dedicated to parents, siblings, grandparents, other relatives and friends of someone who is Bipolar. The purpose of this community is to help families and friends develop greater patience and understanding, as well as maintain a positive, caring relationships with those diagnosed as Bipolar.

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MY momm suffered depression for the last 50yrs, only 10 days ago she was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. The past year has been hell, her disorder focused on my Father, in her eyes he was out to get her. the storys she tells me is heartbreaking and the SAD part is.. she truly believes them with all her heart. My question is: can someone be this mentally ill where she actully see's these things happening? my poor father suffers the most being the target. NOW the poor me part.. I often look at my father and question IS he doing these things?IS she really seeing these things? I know shes sick BUT I often question my beliefs.. is this normal?
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See my X is always going a muck about things my mother is to be saying back home. (He says he has peps back home where are from spying on her and the things she says) but, then he will turn around and cry to me that no one from back home will give him the time of day.
Which always related to the things he had said to me. And the things I talked to my mom about. My Mom is my bestfriend. I call her daily and I talk to her about anything everything!
Sometimes the BP mind can/does become over active. I am not sure, if its her bp of if she might have some other underlining mental illness.
Best of luck, i know how hard it is to swallow those big bitter pills.
He is the sweetest man, he does everything for her and just takes everything she dishes out. There have been times in the past where I believed the things she told me about him. But then I saw her physically, verbally and mentally abuse him over and over again. She leaves him chore lists to do everyday when he gets home from work (He works 4am to 12pm) which he does and then takes a short nap, which she berates him about. He is in his late 50's and has a bad heart but that doesn't seem to matter to her.
She can be very convincing and I believe that she believes everything she says about him.
I love my mom in law, she can be a fantastic person and is very generous and caring but I hate when she gets like this. She refuses to take any medication and claims that she can't because she is diabetic, but I believe that is just an excuse because most of the time she doesn't see the problems as hers but everyone else's.
She is very self focused, we are here to help her and aid her in life. b/c she clearly does so much for us, that we should be begging at her heels and fighting for her favor.
Neither of us knew about her bi-polar, or just what it ment. so we were constantly trying to protect her from each other. And then during the rages we would team up [on the rare occasion i was home] to protect each other and take shifts. Even with both of us trying to do everything on the lists, helping each other to do them exactly the way we were told. . .it was never enough.
I was constantly in a state of questioning myself [above all blaming myself] and then, questioning him, and then my mother.
something was very wrong, and i couldn't figure out why or what it was. Did i cause all this stress? is it just because i am stressing them out by visiting? Was there a rational reason for her to feel this way?? Is my new step-father really such a low life??
I think that when i reached this sort of a realization, I didn't even have to say a word to my step-father. We both understood, just by the long understanding look we would exchange at times. I wish i had told him some of these things before he passed. But in my heart i have to believe he knows, i don't blame him for a thing.
My mum does exactly the same with her hubbie as you describe..unfortunatley his way of dealing with it is to leave til she is stable again.
Also alot of her mania is directed toward me.
Yes, in her mind all the things she are telling you she believes are true, things get mixed up and mismanaged in her mind as with my mum.
Yes it is normal what you are going through, there is a certain amount of denial with people who have loved ones who have bp.
Whenever my mum starts going manic, I tell myself she isn't, when I know she is.
Ask your father for his version, see which rings more true for you.
Many bipolars have alot of paranoia (believing someone is out to get them) and delusional thinking, that to them is very real.
Perhaps with medication, those symptoms of her illness will lessen. Try to think of them as symptoms of the illness. She may not even remember most of what she accuses others of doing.
Now that she has a diagnosis, there is hope for positive changes. Everyone in the family may need some support or counseling to sort out all the years of undiagnosed issues.
It is normal for you to start to question your own thoughts... you hear something enough times, and no matter how odd it might be, you start to think *Am I the one whose thinking is wrong?*
Good luck to your family.
She also does this with other people. She was married before and I was told such horrible tales about how her ex cheated on her and beat the hell out of her. I heard all these nasty things about her mother-in-law and how she would do things to her and how only her next door neighbor was able to see these horrible things about her ex-husband and family. I personally wanted to find her X and kicked the hell out of him at first.
In 2002, I started doing a little investigation into her past marriage as my wife was institutionalized that year from having a bad bout with postpartum. I knew that these problems did happen probably happened long before her x husband as I talked to her former boyfriends and co-workers. My doctor was the first one that brought attention that there might be something mentally wrong with her when he heard what medication she was on. She was taking Klonopin which she said was for her inner nervousness and my doctor says that it is possible but he doesn't know of hardly any doctors that would prescribe that for that type of problem. He told me that I should be careful and this was when I was first dating her. So I had signs from the very beginning.
The next sign that I received that something was wrong was when all the things she accused her ex mother-in-law of, she was now accusing my mom of the same things.
When my wife assumes something then she can become psychotic depending on her delustion. One night, she was convinced that I was going to leave her and she grabbed the steering wheel while I was driving and tried jerking the steering wheel so that we would go into oncoming traffic when I was doing 60mph.
When she was hospitalized, I located her ex husband that lived far away. When I talked to him then it was like hearing myself speaking through him of all the crap that he experienced with her. I told him about the abuse that she accused him of and he was able to answer each of the incidences that my wife referred too in a very convincing and yet a very different take on what actually happened. He was able to supply documentation about physical abuse that he sustained while being with her. She punched him in the face during marital counseling and the counselor wanted her meds to be changed but she refused.
Her next door neighbor that supposedly was on her side thought she was a complete nut case. He told me that she would be home alone and would come outside and cry loud enough to get everyones attention. She was convinced that he was cheating on her and yet this is the same crap that I am accused of today. My wife didn't know that this neighbor was informing him of all of her paranoid delusions.
My recommendation to you is this, take all the negative comments that you hear about your dad with a little grain of salt. There might be a small amount of truth in what she says to you about your dad but I can guarantee that it has most likely been distorted. I cannot tell you how many times I have been defending my words, actions and thoughts to others and including my wife. Your dad could use a lot of support from you on this one as this causes so much stress. My wife loves to make me look like the bad guy and herself as the wonderful mother/wife who really is trying and I am only their to knock her down. This stuff will drive a person insane. She had me as such a psycho to her own personal psychologist that DCFS allowed her to see that he contacted my marriage counselor to talk to him about it. It was then that the marriage counselor set him straight and DCFS had a talk to this man about the woman that is bsing him and he is simply buying into it. Be there for your dad, he truly needs you! I can't tell you how lonely of a feeling it is here when I am stuck with a woman that sees the world distorted and I am a part of it.