Has anyone here had custody of their children taken away because of having bipolar, or rather, because of some of the behaviors of bipolar?

Has anyone here voluntarily given up custody (temporary or permanently) in the best interests of your kids?

Has anyone here identified the stress of being a parent as being a "trigger"?


I'm at a crossroads in my life and I'm not sure what to do. My condition is worsening daily without treatment. My kids are witnessing me going through horrific mood swings all day long and the behaviors and actions that go along with it. I do not abuse or neglect my children, but I know that witnessing what I go through with my mood swings is having an emotional and psychological impact on my children. I thought I had come up with a brilliant plan: I wanted to get my kids into a stable routine that my partner could manage without me, get support from friends and family to help with the transition, grant my partner conditional guardianship over my kids and name her power of attorney so she could take care of my financial and legal matters, then admit myself to an inpatient facility to get on meds and stay until we found the right combo to make me a functional human again. Though leaving my partner and my kids for an indefinite period of time to seek treatment would be difficult for all of us, I felt that the temporary separation would be well-worth it in the end, because if I could get myself stable, instead of being ill all the time, I would be a better partner, a better mother, a better person in general. I just want to get my life back together and be a functioning adult again, and this seemed to me to be a reasonable way to go about it.

Why would I want to leave home to get treatment if I'm not in crisis? Well I am sure many of you have experienced the side effects of trying new meds. For me, every medication has put me to sleep, no matter how high or low the dose, no matter how long I take them, that drowsiness never goes away. Even with the addition of stimulants, I can't stay awake and I end up living in a surreal dream-like fog, barely able to function. I can't be an attentive parent while I am going through drug transitions, just as I can't be an attentive parent with the constant mood swings.. I remember how scared my son would get when he was younger and I was on meds when I would just stare into space for hours, or sleep all day and no one could wake me up. I do not want my children to be scared of watching me go through the adjustments.

I also don't want my partner to have to watch me go through it again. It was a huge strain on our relationship. She couldn't get me to wake up in the mornings to get my son to school, and at the time she didn't understand that it wasn't because I didn't want to wake up, it was because I COULDN'T wake up. We used to get in fights about how "lazy" I was. I don't want to go through that again.

In addition to all that, the chaos of family life has become a major trigger for me. I will wake up in the morning chipper and ready to have a good day, but by mid-afternoon, I want to scream, cry, break things, cut myself... anything to relieve the build-up of frustration that I feel because I'm mostly low-functioning and can barely complete one task a day because of the constant interruptions. I have a toddler and a teenager, and between the two of them, I can't get a moment's peace. It takes so much energy to focus on completing something, and I can't get to that level of focus because one of the kids is in constant need of my attention. After starting and stopping the same thing 10+ times and still making no progress I start to fall apart at the seams. I feel like a failure because I can't manage to get one sink of dishes done, or remember to make an important phone call on the right day. I feel that the only way for me to get a true handle on my condition is to remove myself from the chaotic environment, get stabilized, then I can return when I am better equipped to deal with "real life".

I feel guilty for "wanting" to leave, but I feel it is for the best for the entire family.

My mother does not entirely agree with my plan. She agrees that at this point I should be institutionalized. I have become very unstable and unpredictable and she agrees that it is not appropriate for the children to be exposed to that. What she disagrees with is granting guardianship of the children to my partner (who has been their step-parent for the past two years, and was even at the hospital when my daughter was born) and feels that guardianship should only be granted to a blood relative. Although I somewhat understand my mother's point of view, if she were granted guardianship for instance, my kids would be uprooted from their home to go stay with her, the rules would be different, their schedules would be different, and on top of it all, they'd be removed from both of their parents, not just me. At least with my partner left in charge, there would be little change expect that I would be gone for a while and they would have to come see me in the hospital.

Another possible scenario is that my daughter's grandparent's might want to try to get guardianship of just my daughter which would remove her from her home, her parents and her brother, whom she is very attached to. My children have different fathers (neither whom can take full custody while I'm incapacitated), and my daughter's grandparent's would gladly take her, but my son would most likely go with my mom.

This would all defeat my primary goal, which is to keep my family together. In order to do that I have to get this illness under control so that it will stop controlling me and the people around me. I don't want to return from the hospital full of hope that things are going to be better only to find that everything has fallen apart, my children are angry and bitter for being abandoned, separated, and removed from their home. The whole point of this would be to prevent this type of separation being mandated without my consent. The goal is crisis prevention.

And the reason why this is all so relevant, is because where I live, when someone is nominated to act as guardian over minor children, all of the immediate family members (including grandparents) are called into court to decide what is in the best interest of the children. if the grandparent's object, even if both biological parents agree to the guardianship, the judge may choose to grant temporary custody to the grandparents instead of a same-sex domestic partner, regardless of the parent-child bond that already exists (especially between my partner and my daughter).

Here's the rant: while I was on the phone talking to my mom about all of these things, she made it very clear to me that I should go admit myself, leave the kids with their blood relatives, and implied that because there are no guarantees that I will ever be 100% recovered, that it might just be in the best interest of the kids if I didn't raise them at all. Thanks for the encouragement, mom. As if I already don't obsess about how everyone would be better off without me. Thanks for validating my morbid fantasies of death. Because that is essentially what she was saying... my kids would be better off without me in their lives. A large part of me believes this is probably true. My 13-year-old has suffered much as a result of my disease.... it is possible that he will have irreparable emotional damage as a result of being raised by an inattentive bipolar mother. But I want to change. I am making the effort. I am doing everything for the right reasons. Why can't she support me in that? Why does she have to give up on me like everyone else? I was trusting that she was going to be my ally and part of my support network. Now it seems she just wants to take on the role of raising her grandchildren for her fucked-up daughter.

So has anyone been in a similar situation? What did you do? What was the outcome? I'm so scared of having my kids taken away permanently, when all I want to do is get better so I can be a good mom, instead of a "can't-leave-the-house" mom. Any advice is much appreciated.