Shocking Story And Lesson For Bipolar Supporters

Hi,

I wanted to send out a quick story of something that just happened to me.

I was thinking of this story because of the resource that I sent out…

“How to Instantly Deal With Anger, Irrationality,

And Mania In Your Loved One with Bipolar Disorder”

Located here:

http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/specialoffer/dealwithanger

Here’s the story.

Okay, I had this person working for me. This person was doing a great job. I mean a great job.

All of a sudden this person started acting really weird. They would EXPLODE for nothing.

A few times they cursed me out. A couple of times they hung up on me.

It was disturbing. I kept wondering what the heck is wrong with them. It’s important to note this person is NOT a person on my staff that is known to have a mental illness.

Anyway, time went by and I noticed that the problems with this person went from me to others on my team.

It got worse and worse.

Each time, I tried to figure out how we could avoid making the person mad. Guess what? The more we tried the more mad the person became.

One day after being yelled at, I realized that my strategy of walking on egg shells and trying to keep the peace would not work and basically I was making things far worse.

I realized that I was violating my own rules.

So I decided to follow my own suggestions for dealing with someone that has bipolar disorder that is angry and manic most of the time.

I did and the results have been great. No more problems. It’s kind of odd that I forgot to follow my own system.

Well it’s not kind of odd, it’s easy to get caught up and forget what you have been trained to do with someone who is acting out in this nature.

I don’t know what illness this person has. I am not sure. But something is wrong so I went ahead and treated the person like a person who had an illness like bipolar disorder and was out of control.

The reason why I am writing this to you is because my situation reminds me of what so many bipolar supporters do:

-They try to keep the peace

-They walk on egg shells

-They try in every single way and many unreasonable

ways to avoid conflict

-They try to change themselves.

This is ALL wrong. ALL wrong. It doesn’t work. There are MANY strategies that work but these do NOT.

This will not work. I know there are thousands of people on my list making this mistake every day.

Don’t do it.

If you need help in this area, I have a resource titled:

“How to Instantly Deal With Anger, Irrationality,

And Mania In Your Loved One with Bipolar Disorder”

Located:

http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/specialoffer/dealwithanger

If you need it, get it. Nevertheless, I have to run and I will catch you tomorrow morning.

Have a good one.

Dave

  1. Could it be that the person was having a bad day/week/month etc? And doesn’t everyone have that happen now and again?

    If the techniques worked, that’s fabulous, but the part about “I don’t know what mental illness the person has,” doesn’t sit well with me.

    It’s implied that the person does have some kind of mental illness. But it’s not diagnosed. It’s presumed.

    It’s a distorted, and unexamined thought to label everyone who does something we don’t like as someone with a mental illness.

    Sometimes, people just mess up. They cause trouble. They’re hard to deal with. You have to deal with them the best you can, whatever that means.

    But it’s behavior you don’t like. It’s not mental illness unless/until someone well-qualified like a psychiatrist or a therapist study the person and determine it.

    This kind of confusion between what is truly mental illness and what is basically any human being causing us a real problem, being difficult, etc really clouds the true definition of bipolar disorder symptoms.

    I am glad the system/plan/technique worked. If I were dealing with a difficult person or situation like this, I would certainly use these same tools, IF IT WORKED.

    But the effectiveness of techniques some people use to deal with “out of control manic behavior” does NOT mean that the difficult person HAS bipolar or some other mental illness.

    I’m surprised it wasn’t stressed again that proper diagnosis is essential, and that someone was presumed to be mentally ill based only upon the way their behavior was interpreted by lay persons.

  2. I agree with Jane on this one, Dave. Unless properly diagnosed with a so-called “mental illness,” it should NOT be presumed that a person suffers with one.

    Although, if you have and USE a certain strategy for dealing with anger and disruptive actions, and it works for those with bipolar disorder, then it MAY work on someone who is just basically angry. Don’t “assume” that a person who is “mad with the world” has bipolar disorder. This could make them more hostile, because, as has happened with me in the past, if someone condescends to assuage my anger, I get DEFENSIVE, and become MORE hostile as a result. Any “anger issues” I may have had, I had BEFORE I was diagnosed as bipolar. And “walking on egg shells” just made me “hopping mad.”

    I am not going to buy your “special offer” because, fortunately, neither I, nor the people I deal with on a regular basis, have a hostile attitude. But I DO thank you for the offer 🙂

  3. Well if there is a way to deal with someone that is being irrational and out of control with anger I would love to be in on the secret. I have been dealing with this type of explosion from one person for almost two decades and finally had to leave and put in place damage control. People who are being irrational and out of control with mania generally love to be in control of everyone else and it feeds their anger allowing them to be in control and so out of control at the same time. They feel entitled to act in destructive ways to get their way and it is a difficult cycle to break that in many cases I’m sure went on since childhood. We’ve not only walked on eggshells, we have all but buried our own lives (the 3 innocent ones brought to the stake by one person’s bipolar) to deal with the out of control family member. The only strategy we had was survival – surviving another day around the anger and terrorizing behavior was all we could do. I had no idea I was being a co-dependent in allowing the behavior because I did not leave with the kids. Now I’m trying to put boundaries nad healthy rules to live by. If someone is raging out of control you call the police, not walk on eggshells. If someone is a threat to someone else you 302 them. If someone is making terroristic threats you file a criminal complaint. I’ve gotten some smarts through this whole thing. But the one thing that I must say has been the most difficult is wondering where the old personality went – does it just disappear and never come back? Always and forever a new person even if on medication? they are never really the same ever again? And the anger issues -that come out of no-where – while calmly sitting somewhere warching a ballgame – all of the sudden the intermittent explosive disorder rages a full 10. The only way to deal with it is detach with love. 3 c’s of al anon: you didn’t cause it, you can’t change it and you can’t cure it. The mnost important thing I learned was learning these threee things. Seomeone with bipolar is supposed to be held to the same accountabiility for their behavior as someone else that is not bipolar. Medsication helsp tame the beast but really it has to be leraned through behavioral modifiction therapy.

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