Hi,
You know, when you’re little, your parents have high hopes for you. In general, parents always have high hopes for their children. Not that they want them to become the astronauts or ballerinas or Presidents that the children themselves want to be…But they do want them to be successful and happy in life. That’s because they love them.
Well, if you have a loved one with bipolar disorder, you naturally want them to be just as successful and happy too. That’s because you love them just as much. But can you love them TOO much? Well, can a parent love their child too much? If you have children, ask yourself this question. Parents are accused of spoiling their children all the time.
I know a man who is a very successful and prominent attorney in Florida. In other words, he is very wealthy. And this man has two daughters. He has raised his two daughters to be what most
people would call spoiled. But if you ever talked to the two young girls (teenagers now), you would find them to be respectful and intelligent young women who had healthy self-esteem and values in life and good goals as well. So, is that spoiled? Yes, they’ve been to Europe and went to private schools and all, but they also learned to do chores and to respect their parents and other adults.
So it’s a matter of how you look at things. How you learn to look at things. You learned to look at things one way… While your loved one, because of their bipolar disorder, may have learned to look at things another way. They may have a very negative view on their days because of their past, what they’ve gone through because of their disorder. They may have come to expect more bad than good, in other words.
But for you, things are probably different. You probably have a better outlook on things. The thing is…If you give in to the way your loved one looks at things, you will be spoiling them.
It’s better to bring them around to your way of thinking than to let them bring you down into
theirs.
You may not have bipolar disorder, so you may not have bipolar depressive episodes, but that
doesn’t mean that you can’t still suffer from depression.
It’s all in how you look at things. If you let your loved one bring you down, you CAN suffer from depression, to be sure. You CAN get discouraged as a bipolar supporter. I know, because I went through it when I was trying to help my mom. I also know because I get emails and letters all the time from supporters who have loved ones with bipolar disorder who say that they are getting depressed and are scared that they are “catching” their loved one’s bipolar disorder.
Now, although it’s not true that you can “catch” your loved one’s bipolar disorder, it is true that
frustration and discouragement and feelings like it CAN lead to depression, even if you don’t have bipolar disorder.
So you need to keep looking at the bright side of things. You need to keep hoping that, as long as your loved one stays on their treatment plan and medication, that they will recover from their bipolar disorder and that things will get better.
Well, I have to go!
Your Friend,
Dave
Post responses below
David-
I do keep hoping that one day my daughter will come around. Unfortunately, she does not live with me, so I have no idea where things stand. She closed me out of her life almost three years ago. I have tried to reach out through e-mails and text messages to no avail. There was o big fight that lead to this, just a twisted vision, in her mind, as to the way things are. It has broken my heart, and made me ill in the past. Some months ago, I put it in God’s hands, as it is out of my control. She will be 28 this week. My prayers are that He keeps her safe, and one day brings her back to me.
Dave,
My Son, David, has bipolar. Recently has had two episodes. Was back in the hospital both times. My Husband and I are at wits end. He is 25 years old and still living with us. We are trying to get him straightened out and on his own. Is this good or bad?
Hello,
the scripture says “he who finds a wife (or life partner) finds a good thing!!!!
There is this man who is nicknamed Strong Son of God and he is equally matched with his sister in this sense — not only have they been spoiled by their parents but they tend to attract mates that have been spoiled by theirs as well (hows that for a surprise). As you would imagine, this leaves very little room for “life is not fair” syndromes and this very knowledge distracts from unnecessary disorders……either inherited or bad behaviors picked up from others. Listening is good! Sometimes you have to listen to when a person also says – that’s not my disorder – it was yours!
That article is so true but it is so hard not to get depressed. My grandson comes from a family of people who are bipolar. He will be 16 in a couple of weeks and for years I have tried to get help for him. No one would listen. (I was just spoiling him) Last year he got in trouble with the law. Even though another boy was with him he took all the fault. He ended up in state custody and put in prison (even though court doesn’t call it that). I am still trying to get him help. The judge ordered a full psychological. The psychiatrist interviewed the boy who doesn’t know the family history and called it done. When I asked in court again for a full they, the state acted like I was a pushy woman trying to make excuses for a spoiled child. They have not given him any medicine because he did fine locked up except for getting beat up for not shutting up. He now doesn’t think he needs meds. He is lost in the system who doesn’t care about juveniles. As long as they are locked up and not bothering the “good” people. How do I get help and how can I keep from being depressed?
I like reading the letters that you send me about people that support someone with bipolar, but could you send me letters that will help me, I have bipolar and am struggling. I am on my meds and go to counseling, but I sometimes feel like no one understands. THank you.
I have bi-polar and my mom and boyfriend who are the two people closest to me are the most negative, depressing people I’ve ever known. I work very hard at not looking at things with such hopelessness and put one foot in front of the other doing my best to just do the next right thing. I feel as long as I’m drawing breath I have to keep trying to live life as grateful as possible. It’s hard enough to keep depression at bay and it’s very hard to have my two main supporter’s always down and me trying to pull them up when I can. Sometimes I just feel like running away because I can’t do it. So, I do the best I can until I snap and tell them to wake up but by then it’s to late. I’ve recently started meditating and exercising, next is yoga. These things do help along with my meds and counseling. I have finally accepted that they aren’t going to change. All I can do is work on my coping skills. THANKS TO ALL THAT HAVE HELPED ME UNDERSTAND THIS.
I hope I have not ordered this course too late, as the situation with our 35 year old daughter blew up a few days ago. She has had three bouts with cancer, and I only recently realized that she is bipolar. She and her teenage son have been living with us for several years, and her son has been with us most of his life. She was going to take him to live with her an hour away from us, and it just could not happen due to her moods. We can’t take the criticism and anger any more, and he should not have to live with it either. Her Dad had her sign a temporary guardianship paper until he is 18, in order for us to sign a bond to get her out of jail, to guarantee she would appear in court. She went into an episode lasting three days, and left. She is very angry with us and says she won’t talk to us without an attorney, which she can’t afford, and neither can we. Several people have told me I can’t help her, but they don’t realize that this is an inherited condition, and their own children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren on down the line could also inherit this.
I prayed several years for a man and his grown up daughter who had suffered bipolar depression for years and he said his daughter’s life was ruined because of it. He said he was the meanest man as a foreman, that you could ever imagine. Then he found vitamin B8, sold as Inositol at health stores, as the doctors had never found a medication to work for either of them. It was like night and day, and both their lives are now happy. There must be something that will help my daughter also.