my daughter 21 year old found out she has bipolar illness in Feb. 2007. She is very unstable and makes wrong decisions and money issuses. I cant seem to get through to her anymore. She has been in the hospital once. The Dr.s and thearpist wont see her any more because of a medical bill she owes after insurance. I cant afford to pay for them. Any they dont seem to care. I dont know which way to turn as I dont have control. She has gone wild and makes moral mistakes and of course money ones.. Says I am 21 and I can do what I want. Are my hands tied or is there another way for me to help her. I just want her to be safe and happy.

Sharon, from MO

Dave, I’m on your mailing list and been wanting to write you for some time. I’m 36 years old, I have cerebral palsy and unfortunately, depression

I’ve been thru hell. I’ve carried the cross of depression for all my life (records go back to age 5 when I was “isolating myself”.) There was a lot of yelling in my house when I was growing up, as my father was very emotionally abusive. I was the family scapegoat because I had problems. He yelled at me for constantly crying (How old are we again? That was his favorite question to me while yelling). I was thrown out of school in kindergarten and punished and yelled for what I know were medical problems. I’ve carried a HUGE burden of guilt and emotional pain for….well forever. I felt a lot of guilt and shame because my father was yelling at me every day. They “outsourced” me to a psychiatric hospital at the age of 5 (I didn’t know it was a psych hospital at the time, just some place where parents dumped their problem kids) I was there for one and a half years, and have spent my life living with the stigma of that, and trying to forget the whole thing. My parents are STILL ANGRY at me for the whole experience of that and more. They claim I was kicked out for refusing to be helped. I was yelled at everyday. Both parents were guilty of this, but dad was much worse. I’ve been afraid of him since I was nine years old. I was threatened with institutionalization on a regular basis and told what kind of a life I could expect as a person with cerebral palsy who made things difficult for them and it wasn’t a pretty picture. All of this was going on when I was dealing with my physical handicaps. None of us were allowed to tell anyone about the yelling and I learned this the hard way. I finally left when Dad was yelling because I was still in severe pain from surgery after 4 months…the surgery in question causes incredible pain for the patient for at least a year afterwards, or so I learned later elsewhere. I now live 500 miles from my family and to this day, am scared to be in the same room as my father. I learned from another family member that my mom, an uncle, a brother and sister all have depression. I don’t know if I have bipolar, I do know I am depressed, have high prolactin levels and in severe physical pain, and because of that pain I am even more depressed and suffer from the longing to commit suicide. (And it is not like me to want to die, Dave) I see images in my head of my death many times a day and have to fight the urge to use any handheld item as a gun so I can do what I call “mimicking.” I live in near complete isolation from my depression and the only contacts I have are with nurses, personal support workers and my psychiatrist, and my psychiatrist can only be seen every two months and then just long enough to exchange plesantries and book the next appointment. There are very few wheelchair accessible psychiatrists in Canada’s capital…I have had no luck with medication for my symptoms and I am getting worse. I have no real “supporters” as you would call them, save a friend in Toronto who I write to every day (he rarely writes back, but he reads everything I write. He visits me when he can, but he lives too far away.) All my attendants and nurses can do for my depression is take notes and put me on more waiting lists. I have come to the realization that I have no hope of ever being freed of my depression and am slowly coming to the realization that I would be better off dead. I am too terrified to check into the hospital (I would have to go by ambulance and leave my chair at home. I have serious “issues” concerning hospitals, I wouldn’t last an hour in there. The last time I was in the psych hospital, when I was in the ER I got panicked and tried to leave, it took six people from security to restrain me, five to immobilize my 200 pound wheelchair and a threat to take that chair away and strap me down before I would give up the fight I haven’t been back since, but would rather die than go there.) I pray that someone will commit me before things get too bad, but this will never happen…and I have been begging for help for two years or at least trying to. And one specialist said my depression has reached a dangerous level. They are waiting for me to admit myself to the hospital, Dave…and I know I can’t do it.

I may have depression, but many of the things that happen to people with bipolar disorder have happened to me, including alienation from my family, not having friends or holding down a job, not talking about the illness in my family (My mother’s way of dealing with depression is “fake it till you make it. I suspect my dad is worst off of all for mental illness, but he would never admit it if he was sick, just yell about us talking about “private family matters.) My cerebral palsy need not have caused the isolation, joblessness and the alienation, I know people with handicaps who lead fruitful lives. But I will not be one of them, and this is NOT an issue of self-pity. I am so terrified of people turning vicious on me like my dad that I have virtually locked myself away, my fear of people has ruined my life, Dave. (The fact I have cerebral palsy was not mentioned to my siblings, so there was stigma just around that too, and in our day and age.) I rarely have contact with my family and we almost never talk to each other. My dad’s e-mails to me are two lines long usually and he comes down twice a year, to set up the air-conditioner in my place and do housecleaned, and then they leave. My dad told me what a disappointment I was to him. I do not have a whole lot of hope here and expect to be dead soon, or at least greatly desire it, and yet, I am the one making the decision to go to the hospital…and I have good reason not to go. I am on a pension and your course is out of financial reach for me, but I am an AVID reader…I am now doing extensive research on mental illness, because I had warning signs for years and no one ever knew. My mother and father would not know what full-blown depression looks like if it bit them and my mom is depressed and likely my dad! I have recently realized just how affected I am from this and I have taken far too much flak from it. I have no hope of reconciliation with my family or much else…and many people are trying to make suicide kosher for handicapped, sick and mentally ill people. I do not want to get into a firestorm here, but that issue means that my chances of getting good help for my depression, the way things are now, is zero. I do not wish to live now and think of death all the time. Many would praise the “rational” decision I would make if I kill myself. I have little hope that this letter would be read…but I am taking a chance…for the sake of my friend in Toronto and a great deal more, but I badly want to die or at least wheel away and disappear from all this. I have developped more medical problems and a burned out attendant is coming back soon after two weeks on vacation. She has two depressed family members at home and says it’s not fair she has to deal with me too. I also have overheard her say “I wish you would disappear” And whenever she makes a comment like that, I want to tell her: “I can end the problem for you real fast. Just give me a gun and walk out.” I have tried to tell my shrink about what is happening, but there is just no time. I wish you had a course for depression, I really do. I am desperate to end my misery, but have given up nearly all hope for relief. And my parents cannot be trusted to help or to even tell the truth, I had to pull my files to find out I wasn’t kicked out for refusing help. Why would they lie? Or say horrible things to their daughter? They don’t even want me to move to live closer to them. I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m sorry I’ve bothered you with this.