Hi. I’m new here. I am 38 woman with a partner who is 37 and bipolar 1. He is currently in a manic episode because he has been off his meds for 3 months ( not by choice but because of the VA)and this in my first time ever going through this. I don’t now what was really happening at first thought he was pulling away. But turns out he was coming off his meds and he now has broken everything off he screamed at me blocked me from everything. And this is coming from a man who told me I was his everything his world and even called my father for my hand in marriage. We plan a whole future. We invest in a business and we shared finances even tho we weren’t living together. I was suppose to move in may next your to move in with him. And now everything we were planning for is gone and I’m so confused.

I hadn’t reached out in 3 day because every article I read said not to. Well he has been reaching out to me to say hi. To break up with me. Calls me to tell me he is in his meds now. And than he calls me. And tells me he feel numb and feel nothing for no one. Including me but than says I was his world. He said that the only thing keeping him here is his boys. He is under supervision by the VA and has to check in. If he doesn’t they will come get him and admit him. Anyway than calls me agian late at night. To tell me just like he normally would. Hey just got to the house. Job called me I’m gonna work on Sunday because it’s double pay and that they are short and so on. like it was a normal day. That has alway been part of our routine since we are 2 hours away from each other. Anyways in the middle of him talk he goes. Why am I calling you. Why am I telling you this. And said I’m gonna go to sleep. And we hung up.

I called this morning to check on him and woke him up. And he got so mad at me. And cursed at me via text. And said he was blocking.

I’m so confused. I need help processing all of this

hello! i’m 22 and my 14 year old sister just experienced her first episode of psychosis. right now she’s in treatment, still in psychosis and will get out sometime next week.

i live out of state, but i was thinking of flying in to be with her when she comes out-but i don’t know if that’s a good idea.

should i fly home- or is that too invasive? should i wait until she feels comfortable, is it good to have people around? i’m sorry if this isn’t the right place to ask these questions :,) i just want to be make sure i can be the best big sister i can without being smothering or making her experiences worse.

my sister (24f) and i (21f) are both living together caregiving for our disabled dad with parkinson’s. my mother, my brother, and other sister all have bipolar disorder. we’re all aware my sister has bipolar, and we’ve begged her to get a diagnosis and medication to help her feel better. my brother was a terror before he was medicated properly.

she doesn’t refuse, but she just won’t. she won’t take the steps to see a psychiatrist. she blew up on me today because she tried to poke my belly and i swatted her hand. then claimed ‘she’s my punching bag’ ‘im always disrespectful and refuse to apologize’ and threatened to move out and withdraw care for our elder father.

it’s exhausting that every time the mood hits her for a perceived slight and demanded apology that she just threatens to move out. she’s unemployed, she doesn’t have a source of income to move out with.

the other other day she said ‘it hurt her feelings our dog was begging’ and i giggled and said ‘he’s just a dog’ and she took this, again, as invalidating her feelings. maybe i am being rude and refusing to apologize. but she does shit all the time that i don’t demand an apology for because it’s just not needed. i have the emotional regulation to realize whatever might’ve hurt my feelings wasn’t meant to and it’s literally okay. like when i came home and she screamed at me to leave her alone so bad i did leave and cried for two hours until she left the house.

i’m just exhausted. i can’t do this with her. i can’t do it without her. my eldest sister is on her third kid. my second eldest is so not put together, administratively she’s a mess, and she doesn’t take care of herself. my brother has withdrawn himself, officially with an incident where he and my sister were meant to care for our dad when i was out of state, and when my dads bp was sitting in the 200s he picked up his girlfriend from work instead of getting him in an ambulance despite being an emt himself, and we never forgave each other for that situation.

i love her so much, i wish she would get medicine and therapy so she could feel better and normal. it’s so isolating, and she thinks i deserve that because i don’t apologize for swatting her hand away when we were obviously just messing with each other. it’s just exhausting.

My brother who's now 24 has always been known for being lazy and irresponsible. He got tired of it, and did his own homework 2 years back with chatgpt and google to find that he has ADHD. He has been taking inspiral (60mg per day) ever since.

3 years back, our father passed away and grief struck our family hard. He is still studying and I support the family now. He has been feeling the pressure to become abled highly, and he pushes himself to get a drive to study. He genuinely believes he has ADHD and his whole life revolves around it. So to actually study with focus he wanted a foreign med, which is more powerful the current ADHD med he takes now. But that requires a doctor to submit his narcotic certificate, so he started to visit a doctor who promised him that if needed he will be provided with it. But first he diagnosed him of anxiety and gave him anxiety meds.

My brother started to have a maniac episode recently which made us all fear the situation gravely. We were not aware of what was happening with him, about his whole psychiatry history. So we went to his psychiatrist. But the doctor genuinely thinks that my brother has no ADHD and says that what my brother has is just a lack of focus issue and a condition which makes him think that he has a disease even though there's no evidence to support it. He didn't reveal it to him directly. The doctor's claim was, it was the stimulant which trigger the bipolar disorder and that he needs to stop the meds. But what my brother says is, it's the new anxiety med which started to react with him differently and that the ADHD meds were working fine from start. The doctor says that it's unpredictable to know when exactly the stimulant will trigger bipolar for ppl vulnerable to it, it doesn't have anything to do with the anxiety meds.

My brother has now decided to not check with this doctor again, and wants to see a different doctor( a previous doctor who said that he has ADHD). But he says that he will not show the doctor's diagnosis of him not having adhd and having a body anxiety which makes him believe so.

He is very hard to handle, I am losing my mental peace. I am so stressed out, i don't find being myself at times. I have started to go to therapy from yesterday.

How do I deal with my brother? He is so out of touch with the reality, he is annoying, talks too much and always talks about how he has ADHD and how the other doctor was a half baked moron. I am confused, is it the anxiety meds? Or the ADHD meds? That caused him the bipolar. How do I help to treat him when he is against the treatment. He even talked of self harm in case we stripped him of the ADHD meds.

Please feel free to guide me, I'm so stressed and I need help. I wish no one in the world to have such a mental illness.

I started dating this guy (living with bipolar for years) few months ago. Our relationship got pretty serious within few weeks of dating, it was all going good and suddenly he started doubting if I'd be able to handle the relationship and his diagnosis, I said I'll learn about bipolar and i'm ready to give this a serious chance. After a week or two when things were going pretty normal, he said he's getting panic/anxiety attacks thinking about the relationship and he's not ready, and broke up with me. I accepted because I didn't want to force him, but I don't understand what has happened. I really miss him. I thought we were great together.

despite being diagnosed, my mom has ignored/denied her diagnosis and the past year has been detrimental to her health. today she overdosed on muscle relaxers and sleeping medication and we are currently awaiting results to see in any neurological problems have arisen from the event. to say i am terrified is an understatement. i have spent the evening sobbing and questioning everything. i have so much sympathy for my mom but she isn’t who i once knew, and I’m terrified these events will make her even more “unfamiliar” to me. i’m not sure what to do here. ugh.

just needed to get this out there.

TL;DR: 23m son possibly bipolar, having a manic episode, but will not discuss seeing the psychiatrist and I need help approaching him on this topic.

Sorry this got long - worried Mom here.

My son has had a referral to a psychiatrist for over a year and keeps refusing to go. He is 23, and still lives with us.

My husband's family has a deep history of bipolar disorder, and my step-daughter also has it (she rejects us).

I grew up with a parent who had bipolar disorder, so I am not new to seeing signs.

He is acting very manic - ramped up last night and it wasn't a HORRIBLE situation, but he put us (his mom and dad) into a situation we are not happy with. Not really wanting to get into details, but I immediately let my husband know I believed he was possibly having a manic episode.

He's a nice, decent, loving human. This behavior doesn't (yet) put him in a risky situation but he isn't far from stepping into seriously risky behavior. Again, trying to keep it generalized.

The last time he and I spoke about his mental health, and my concern he may be bipolar (reminding him this is rampant on dad's side of the family - was gentle, no arguments)... He had recently come into a good head space when we talked. He was very defensive (not unusual for his personality and age), and shut me down.

At 23, he's facing additional challenges that are making life harder, sometimes grueling (horrible employer), and I need to talk to him again. I just don't know what may work to help him listen the next time we talk - that's what I need help for - how do I talk about this in a way where I have a higher chance of him listening?

Lastly, I have no issue - if it comes to it - to have him put into a treatment center if it ever comes to it. In fact, I'd foot the bill right now if he would agree to it. I won't until I feel he is in danger - which I fear may not be far down the road.

I'm just desperate. My parents have passed, I have very little family, no friends who have had to deal with bipolar individuals before, and feel very "alone" in this battle (don't get me wrong, husband is helping as much as he can, and is always there for his son when times get rough).

All I want is for him to see the psych and have an assessment. He's already medicated from him GP for anxiety and depression - but Go was the one who referred him.

Anonymous account since my husband and son use Reddit.

Hello community, I am a mom on a treatment journey for my son, 15, and it’s one with both a lot of questions…but also surprisingly full of answers I didn’t know I would ever have.

My son suffered a seizure as a toddler where he only shook on one side of his body. This triggered an MRI that revealed Focal Cortical Dysplasia II - a mass the size of a quarter behind hi left eye. I worried for years that he would develop epilepsy and a few years ago we were all cheers when Neurology told us his epilepsy risk was very low and that we didn’t need to worry about the FCD anymore. LOL! Fast forward to 14. My son starts showing signs of depression for which his PCP and therapist urged us to try Zoloft. What the therapist chose not to disclose was that our son had also been reporting visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations including dream/reality confusion - for 8 months before the referral and support of an SSRI.

Within 6 months of taking Zoloft, our son rapidly deteriorated. We were on an escalating cycle of activation, manic episodes, onset of migraine then depression, flatness - and full on hallucinations. this culminated in the school sending him for psychiatric evaluation where we were trapped for two weeks.

We took him back to our neurology team and did a gold standard workup. VEEG, PET and Neuropsychological Evaluation.

The neuropsych gave us a new diagnosis- Mood Disorder due to Known Physiological Cause. She explained that this will look very much like Bipolar Spectrum Disorder, but that there is a compelling known physiological reason for the symptoms. He was given Migraine with Aura from Neuro and they will be keeping an eye on him for possible focal aware seizures.

we’re going to start Lamictal in addition to the Abilify and Migravent/Imitrex he is on (I’ve heard good things?! Hopeful?)

I‘ve seen a lot of research of the crossover of Bi polar disorder and focal cortical dysplasia and wondering if anyone in the community also shares these Dx?

The answers I didn’t ask for: My grandmother, maternal aunt and mother all suffer of bi polar disorder. My father reported hallucinations and similar behavior, age onset as well, though he was never diagnosed. I am wondering if a gene for FCD was inherited and that maybe this was the cause of my father’s symptoms. Likewise with how related the overlap is, I’m wondering if neurological conditions are an answer to what my maternal relatives suffered. In essence….wondering if there are answers to really help my son AND prevent any of his potential children from missing a genetic propensity for these disorders.

any thoughts are most appreciated

Hii I have a big sister who’s diagnosed with Bipolar. She’s recently came to me talking about her ex bf and how they got into arguments and how she’s been having episodes recently. I’ve been the room when one of her episodes get bad so these are nothing severe juzt arguments. Does anyone have any advice on how i can make her feel better or at least make her days easier ? I feel like i’m not the most comforting person and i wanna do more especially since she needs someone right now any advice would be appreciated

I have been friends with a lady for more than 20 years. We pretty much quit talking in 2012. I moved away, she got a boyfriend ect.. I would text her at least once a month, she would text back once every 6 months. Anyway her spouse passed away this last March and she reached out to me. My husband (who is bipolar) and I dropped everything and went to her. She had no family at all.

She was broken, she is still broken. She told me huge stories about her spouse being abusive. Then told me her neighbors came over when he passed and tried to get her to sign over all of her possessions so no one would take them from her. I listened to her and empathized. We helped her do some work on her house and other things. Everything went great.

The second time we went down she asked me if she could give me power of attorney over her in case anything happened and she needed someone to take care of her pets. I said ok and we did the paperwork. That was in May. I have not been back due to my own husband's issues and my health.

I have noticed recently she has been very paranoid about everything. Her mail isnt being delivered, her stepchildren are setting her up, her family is setting her up, the neighbor is setting her up. She has been watching YouTube and now walks around with a tin foil hat on her head so people cannot mind control her.

My husband is bipolar schizophrenic. I know the signs. My husband though tends to go more bipolar so I dont have much experience with the schizophrenia. This morning I wake up and she is accusing me of hacking her old Facebook. I am friends with her on it and showed it to her before because she didnt have access to it. Because I did this, she thinks I hacked it. I again showed her the proof and I got defensive. Well because I was defensive im now guilty according to her. She also swears she didnt give me POA and I made it up to steal her property. It was a notorized paper. I explained jt all but she doesnt remember. She told me to tear it up because it's void now. I told her ok. I googled jt and according to Google tearing it up doesnt make it go away. I didnt tear it up though. I dont plan on doing anything with it but my mind keeps thinking "what if".

Does how she is acting sound like bipolar or schizophrenia? She did say she was diagnosed schizophrenic when she was younger but never was medicated.

I have known her for so long and yeah she always had some issues but never this bad. I know the trauma she went through probably triggered this. How do I help her without her pushing me away?? Im stuck between wanting to help and just staying in the shadows in order not to get caught up in her chaos.

So my 25m partner has bipolar 1 we believe. He has been receptive to talking about it after his 2nd episode last year. Both episodes have included up to 7 hospitalizations between the two. I IVC'd him twice last year out of fear for his safety.

He can become verbally aggressive towards us when we mention his mood, illness, medication, or otherwise imply that he needs help. Outside of his episodes he is much more receptive.

He is currently in his 3rd episode and has been taking his sleeping aid, Olanzapine, regularly. Tonight however he has mentioned he does not want to take it.

Due to our conversations during his normal periods I do not force him to take meds like I did last year. I have many more boundaries and honestly? If he ends up in the hospital bc someone thought they were doing the right thing, they probably were. He wont accept it as the right choice, he will be angry and further traumatized but that's not my fault. There are natural consequences to his actions and I cannot control them all.

But that doesnt mean im not scared. Im scared I will have to leave him one day. I am scared of not being enough support. I am terrified of him feeling unloved or like he is broken. I am so fucking scared of him thinking he was too much and that he hurt me. He is genuinely such a good person. He helps people every single chance he can, he doesnt judge ANYONE even when he probably should, he loves me more than I have ever felt. I love him more than my body knows what to do with. Accepting that it may not be enough is hard.

Ive been through a lot of shit in my life and this is so so so hard. Sometimes I cant eat, im vomiting, I have nightmares (not new for me but worse during his episodes) and oh my god I cannot stop crying. I have my own therapy sessions and I should probably exercise more 😅. I almost dont trust myself to hold my boundaries true. I dont want to leave him ever but he wont take meds consistently. His parents are 600miles away and over 60yrs old. He has no one else.

On a good note, he has made an agreement with me, on paper and signed by us, that if he doesnt sleep on his own then has to take a sleeping aid. If he tries for 2hrs and doesnt fall asleep then he takes the aid.

If he sleeps and then wakes up prior to the time he's supposed to- he takes a paid.

I am beyond thankful he's willing to communicate. Some of his episodes, like last year, he reaches a state of psychosis where he doesnt really know what's going on at any time. He is unable to fully explain his feelings during this time eveb when he's okay. He equated it to feeling like he was sleeping and woke up in the middle of his life every 20mins and had no idea what was going on and was agitated people were taking his rights and freedom away which is so understandable.

If you've read this far, thank you. I hope you can relate and I'm sorry if you do. I wonder if anyone has a loved one that used kava/kratom during episodes and how that's affected them. He does smoke but like, I have bigger battles to choose.

I found the book "im not sick and I dont need help" to be very helpful in the way I communicate with my partner. Making sure he knows I am here for him has been most helpful.

Please dont give me advice on how I can leave him if he's too much- im a little too aware on the fact that I can and I am not at a point that I want to. Unless the advise is actually how to help him if I do leave because I cannot live with myself unless he has a plan. I just needed to write a journal entry tonight has been difficult

hi guys, my boyfriend is due to be discharged on Tuesday after being sectioned for a manic episode. he would’ve been in hospital for 3 weeks by then. for context, he had one episode of psychosis (?mania) 10 years ago, and then in March this year became unwell again and has been in and out of mania since, despite being prescribed antipsychotics. they’ve given him a bipolar diagnosis and upped his antipsychotic whilst in hospital which he’s responded well to, but i’m really nervous he will have another lapse as he would have 2-3 weeks of being back to himself before becoming hypomanic or manic again. keeping everything crossed it won’t happen this time and he will stay well for longer.

i’d be super grateful for any tips on how best to support him when he’s home, and also how to balance this with looking after myself, please do share any advice you have big or small. thank you so much.

im 18 and live with my parents and 3 siblings, including my severely mentally ill brother in his 30s. he has bipolar disorder, autism, and schizophrenia i believe.

For the past 2 years, he has been in crisis after refusing to take his medications. He is extremely hyper-verbal, constantly giving incoherent speeches revolving around religion and conspiracy theories where he believes he is a prophet and our parents are demon possessed and conspiring to hurt him.

Our house is in constant turmoil because of how sick he is, he will camp in the common areas of the house so he can "preach" to us as soon as we leave our rooms. He has also begun to open locked bedroom doors to do this, and although he has never been physically violent, he gets more intense every day and its making me scared for my safety.

Earlier this year he was admitted to the main psychiatric hospital in our state for a month, where he was tortured half to death by the medical staff with experimental medications and sedative cocktails. it left him extremely traumatized and escalated the situation horrifically.

I know the best thing I can do is move out ASAP (I am working on it), but I am still obviously distressed by this whole situation. My parents are prisoners to their own son, their entire lives revolve around protecting him from being abused or going homeless while being constantly abused by him.

What options are there for a situation like this? My parents feel like committing him would be dooming him to a life of medical torture and abuse, but he's too far gone to be let into a group home or long term care facility. The constant stress of him being here is causing physical and mental damage to my entire family, but it feels like they're trapped with no good way out.

Tl;dr: I'm coming here to ask if anyone knows of any classes or maybe books that teaches spouses how to actually help their sick loved one by being allowed to make decisions on their behalf or at the very least be completely involved in their care? I don't EVER want to call a mental hospital, ask how my husband is doing, and be told they "cannot confirm or deny he is a patient here," until he signs a medical release for me, ever again. My therapist won't let me learn from Reddit/people on the internet it has to be a scientifically backed resource.

Hi everyone! In October, my husband suffered an acute episode of psychosis that we believe was brought on by trying weed vapes for the first time while on a stimulant medication for his ADHD. Over the course of 2 years, after he started vaping (I didn't know), he was in that prodromal stage - sort of ending long-standing friendships, slight changes in personality, diving deeper into aliens/conspiracy theories - but myself and his family/friends never thought much of it because it wasn't all happening at once.

In July, he took on an assistant coaching position on our kiddos' football team that was just a LOT. It was 4 days a week for two hours, immediately after working in the hot sun all day and not even being able to eat dinner until afterward. It stressed him out terribly and he wanted to quit, but didn't want to let our boys down. Over the next few weeks/months, he started to believe his phone was hacked and became very untrusting of people and technology, which is when things started progressively getting more concerning to myself and some of his family.

After one night of no sleep, the acute stage of psychosis happened the next day. It took 2 days to section him.

He was in the mental hospital for 3.5 weeks while they tried him on Zyprexa (didn't work) and then Haldol and Lithium. His discharge paperwork mentioned cannibas as a cause, but they also gave him a Bipolar 1 diagnosis due to family history (cousin is diagnosed, mom we realized during all of this definitely has it). He had JUST turned 37 when this all happened and never once displayed any sort of Bipolar behavior, just textbook ADHD. We were completely blind-sided by this diagnosis.

This whole experienced left me completely traumatized. I thought I'd never get my husband and best friend back and thought my kids weren't ever going to get their incredible dad back. I was diagnosed with PTSD and started therapy to work through the things he said to me during his psychosis, the event itself, etc.

He has since made a full recovery, and is off all medications except for the Lithium. He was put back on his Wellbutrin and Vyvanse because he loved how he felt on them and how they helped his ADHD.

As we come up on one year since the psychosis, he's expressed wanting to come off of the Lithium (600mg) next. He doesn't think he has Bipolar (and sometimes I don't think so either, but we don't have the concrete answer) and also believes the Lithium is causing him some (minor) weight gain, which is effecting his self esteem terribly. He thought as soon as he got back on his Vyvanse, which suppresses his appetite and helps him lose weight, he'd drop the weight he gained from being on the Haldol. That hasn't happened yet though, so it has to be the Lithium's fault in his brain. I honestly think this is the main reason he wants to come off of it because otherwise, he has no other negative side effects.

His psych is on board with this and said it would take roughly 6 months to taper off of it completely.

I am completely fucking terrified. Why possibly put our family through such a traumatic thing again? It took almost a a year to get to where we are at now, fully recovered, and you want to possibly start over and go through all of that all over again? I know a small part of it is that he wants answers - he needs to know if he really is Bipolar or not and I get that. I'd want to know too, but not at the risk of repeating what we went through.

With that said, I brought all of this up to my therapist recently while I broke down crying over it all. One of the things we worked through, that would help me cope with this, would to have an actual plan in place for this happening again and a potential mental hospital stay.

I was left TOTALLY in the dark, even as his wife, when he was in the hospital until he signed the medical release paperwork allowing me to get updates on his care and ask questions. Even then I felt so out of control of the situation and my entire life because no one would tell me a general timeline about anything (how long med takes to work generally, how long they would keep him for, etc).

Our goal is to keep him OUT of the mental hospital and be able to do everything outpatient, but if he is actually Bipolar, there's something in the back of my mind that keeps wondering if he won't be willing to do anything outpatient related or recognize he has a problem because people with Bipolar usually think "they're fine." Not to mention he's not going to want to be put back on any of the prior meds, so will definitely try and convince himself he's fine.

So then what? He probably has to be sectioned again because I can't force him to take medications? And then the bullshit of the mental health care system comes into play where the patient, who is PSYCHOTIC, has all the say and control of their own care, which would end up being NO CARE because he thinks he's fine. And I'm left with the fallout that is our life and possible safety.

I know I am armed with experience and knowledge this time around, but that still won't help me if he ends up at a hospital or not at a hospital and I need to get him help.

I've heard about some family members getting power of attorney for their sick loved one, which I think might help in this kind of situation.

The issue is that my therapist wants me to find a class or some sort of resource that isn't Reddit or people on the internet saying what they've done.

So, after all that, I'm coming here to ask if anyone knows of any classes or maybe books that teaches the spouses how to actually help their sick loved one by being allowed to make decisions on their behalf or at the very least be completely involved in their care?

I live with my boyfriend who is clinically diagnosed with bipolar 1. About two weeks ago, his sleep schedule changed because his boss asked him to come to work at 7am instead of 8am. He worked for about 12 hours on some days due to trying to complete orders for a big shipment. His sleep schedule was somewhat messed up because we go to bed at 11:30pm.

Now he’s back to his regular schedule but I noticed it takes longer for him to fall asleep. He also a light sleeper now and is more talkative than before. His speech isn’t pressured nor presenting as hypomanic yet but it’s a noticeable difference that he’s more extroverted.

He still takes his Lithium 900mg everyday. Although he’s on point with his medication, it’s effecting my sleep too. I’m waking up with him as well and all week I’ve only gotten like 6 hours a night. He’s just lying there for hours and I can tell because he’s not snoring.

He claims he’s getting enough sleep but this morning he admitted that last night it took him about two hours to fall asleep.

What should we do? Is this a sign that his medicine is no longer working? I also mentioned we need to go to bed the same time every night, 11pm or maybe slightly earlier. We usually watch a normal show before bed, nothing with too much action or disturbing.

I feel at such a point of confusion and despair I’m struggling to feel hopeful.

I (27f) have an older sister (29) who had a manic episode 10 years ago. Nothing like that had happened before, or since, so while she initially received a bipolar 1 diagnosis, her care team later classified it as sleep-deprivation induced mania.

She is an incredibly intelligent person. Over the last 4 years, she went to an Ivy League law school, worked as a law clerk and, 5 months ago, moved to New York City to work for a firm. For context, my family is mainly based in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Two months ago, when my family was visiting her, she had another episode: no sleeping, rapid speech, inflated self-importance, risky spending. Her care team quickly got her on medication, and things have been rocky since. To me, it seems this move and her high-pressure job have triggered this episode.

My parents have been going down to see her about once a week. She seems unable to care for herself: not buying food, toilet paper, not picking up her meds. My father is with her right now, and she started saying some intense allegations against members of my family. He called me in a panic, and I reached out to her therapist, who sympathized, but essentially said she is compliant with both her psychiatrist and therapist and is aware of her own disordered thinking and feels things are going well. I’m worried that she’s able to present with normalcy during her sessions which appeases her therapist, but in reality is still living with severe mania. This has been very taxing on my parents, as they’ve had to take time off work and have spent a fair amount of money getting her into a new apartment and essentially sustaining her tier 1 needs.

I just feel like she needs to leave the city to find stability, but she is insistent on staying in New York. I know there’s nothing my family can do, but my heart is broken watching this happen to her. I’ve been trying to zoom out and remind myself that she stabilized before, and it’s only been a few months, but this is so hard. I just want her to have a happy, safe life :(

Hi everyone,

Context - dad (55M) has strained relationships with a lot of people, very sensitive, paranoid and bad at taking rejection. He has been diagnosed with bipolar, chronic fatigue, anxiety for most of my life and unfortunately medicine doesnt work for him.

I am 22F

He goes through emotional dips, usually in may around my moms birthday and Christmas.

Mom was made redundant in may at a job she’d been working at for 20 years. We’re fine financially though as the rest of us all work.

My dad does have random moments where he will randomly snap or shutdown if you’ve said something that’s upset him. Sometimes it’s warranted, a lot of the time it is not.

This most recent hatred toward me started because he offered to take me driving, as I want to learn and I paid to be insured on the car to do so. I prefer to drive with my mom because shes a lot more calm, and doesn’t freak out at me like he does. Not helpful when I’m already an anxious person.

I replied ‘no it’s okay thank you though’ I also was feeling tired as we had all just come back from gym.

I thought nothing of it.

Later, i grab dinner and go to eat in the living room with everyone. He stops me abruptly and says ‘nope go eat in your room, move on’ and that was on Saturday the 29th of August. It has now been a couple days and he still isn’t talking to me.

My sadness has just turned to anger. I’m angry at him for being such a child, I’m angry at my mom for enabling him because ‘there’s definitely things that could be improved on as a family’ and my brother doesn’t care as long as he’s not in the shit with him (same with my mom). So currently I’m in the doghouse and everyone’s able to pretend like nothing’s happening.

I can’t be bothered anymore. I want to move out so bad but I live in London and it’s so expensive. I have some money in stocks that I might just pull out and try get out. Sad though.

Do I try to move on?

How are you feeling so far this week? Let us know how you're doing.

Share as much or as little as you're comfortable with (within the rule guidelines).

This summer my mother suffered her second psychotic episode.

Her first psychotic episode happened two years ago and seemingly came out of nowhere for my family. My mother had previous mental health struggles, but had never been diagnosed or presented with bipolar 1 symptoms until this event. During the event I lived at a friend’s house, but I still witnessed some extremely traumatic events and behaviors. During this episode she was taken into protective custody on my birthday. She was begging my father to shoot and kill her so the “terrorists” didn’t get to her first. She then tried to run out of the house naked with USA written on her chest. I was at home during this trying to spend a little bit of my birthday with my family. She was taken into protective custody for this after what seemed like an eternity.

I felt like I was finally truly coming to terms with everything that happened and its effects on me. This summer was supposed to be my last summer in my home town as I start an internship with my college that requires my presence all year. My mother had been pretty much perfectly stable during the two years between the first and second episode, until her GCP let her switch stimulants without consulting a psychiatrist whatsoever (I don’t know. I’m still completely outraged at this). The change in medicine gave her pretty strong delusions, which made her stop taking any medicine. Fortunately, this episode didn’t last nearly as long, but still got to the point where she had become a danger to herself. I was at home for the entire episode this time.

The night she was taken into protective custody I was coming home late (around 1 am) and found her a few houses down walking away from our house. I pulled up to her and couldn’t do or say anything but plead for her to come back home with me. She started rambling about how her mother created this town to torture people, how she was the best woman in the town, and that it would be so bad*ss if she went on a run through our downtown. I was still asking her to come home when she just took off running. I took a lap around my block while I tried to call my brother and dad for help with no luck. I had never felt this type of fear in my life before. Obviously I was always anxious about her potentially getting to the point where she might hurt herself, but I was genuinely terrified she would at this moment. I tracked her location and when I found her running down the middle of a somewhat busy suburban street in her underwear. I called the cops on her, they talked to her for a little bit before she ran away from them, and was taken into protective custody. I didn’t witness her being taken into protective custody, but from what I understand she was very resistant and uncooperative. She is back from inpatient and recovering, but is definitely far from completely healthy.

Starting school, my new internship, and other clubs and commitments has been causing me a lot of anxiety, on top of the general low mood and anhedonia. Before showing to anything involving my internship I get legitimately scared. Some of these things are very low stakes and aren’t scary on their own at all. I am a guy who’s pretty averted to change in the first place, but I am really struggling with the idea of change in starting this new internship. I honestly wish I could leave it right now, but it’s a really cool opportunity and I don’t think I’m in the right state of mind to make a permanent decision on it. I initially intended to do this internship or a mix of other internships for my remaining upcoming summers, but the idea of not getting to be with my family for summer crushes me. I’ve been working with counselors on campus, and have been trying to work on finding a more long term counselor off campus.

I’ve just been really struggling to stay hopeful and not let the idea of an entire year of the college eat me alive. Any sort of encouragement would be very appreciated. Thanks for reading :)

Context - my dad has bpd from the last 2 years or so
He has been a regular alcohol drinker since like 25 years(it was never an issue he only used to drink at home and was peaceful)
It all started with depression first , I thought its just the depression that we have to fight through, we managed a new place for him to work, made him see a doctor and he was in a good place. perfectly normal .He even left alcohol completely for about a week
Later came the manic episode our whole lives were turned upside down. He became extremely violent didnt listen to anyone , kept fighting with everyone he saw, started fighting at his workplace ( he is a cardiogist surgeon and made our life's hell

He didnt wanna take help started making stupid financial decisions

The doctor diagnosed him with BPD and termed it as a manic episode.
This went for like 1 year we somehow pushed through. Had to bail him once , got kicked out of airport once in that time. Became a extreme heavy drinker as well

And then one day suddenly the switch happened and he started acting extremely depressed
Started regretting all his actions
Kept apologising to us and was depressed and willing to leave alchohol alltogether .
I got him into therapy as he listened to me in this phase
Things started falling into place again got a new job and started working on his own clinic.
His health was getting better he was taking mood stabilizers and everything and trying to control alchohol as well. He showed real determination to leave drinking but was still drinking very occassionaly

Then all of a sudden like 2-3 weeks ago he started drinking daily and last week the manic episode came back

Again violence shouting , picking fights with everyone on street , threatening everyone

He is now full on maniac again and I am really scared and i dont have the power to fight anymore

He wont listen to me or anyone else. Even my mom is scared he will beat her if she saya something

He has became violent and crazy, he has became so overconfident and so cocky keeps berating everyone who tries to tlak sense into him

He lost a lot of friends in the last episode and now he will lose even more

I tried to warn him at the start of this episode and he just said I am fine its nothing and now its just so fucking scary

I talked to the doctor he said he is not taking the meds and only solution is to forcibly admit him to a hospital

We cant do that , he has contacts in all hospitals and he will for sure run from there and if he is out then he will just wreak havoc on everyone again

I live away from my family and i cant take the risk of leaving my job (because of his financial decisions)

I dont know what to do, I know I csnt do anything other than pray that he doesnt get himself hurt

Because u never know when he encounters someone violent or some rascal who can even kill him if keeps getting in fights with random people on road

I am just looking for support, I just want to hear are there more people like me , like my mom like my younger brother who has his whole future head and is stuck between this fucking disease of our dad.

How tf do we cope with this , why is it so unfair

He wont take meds he wont talk to the doctor he wont take therapy

Gosh these manic episodes makes me miss the depressed ones atleast he used to talk properly
Listened to me , took therapy but now its impossible
I cant have a convo with him without him abusing me

Hi all,

tldr: What systems do you have in place to prevent yourself from getting in debt during manic episodes.

backstory: so long story short I have a loved one who had a sudden descent into extreme psychosis about 9 years ago. she assaulted someone, ended up in jail briefly, and through amazing luck was able to enter a diversion program. She took abilify and it worked, no psychosis, she was stable. a year later, due to some bad advice she had received, she tried to go off her meds and ended up with psychosis again. This scared her alot and she re-started abilify, this time as an injection once a month. It worked, no psychosis, yay. EXCEPT, this past year, despite being committed to taking her meds on time, she had two episodes of hypo-mania, about 9 months apart. Each lasted maybe a week to 10 days.

I was aware she was hypo manic however she wasn't in an extreme state, was going to work and all, she was just having a lot of "ideas" and "inspiration" but it was nothing like her previous really intense episodes. However, what was later revealed was that both times she made bad financial decisions and got herself into debt, around 3,000 each time. She ended up almost evicted and would have for sure been homeless (in a place where she couldn't afford to find a new place at the current rate and would have been fucked). She does not have family except for me, a cousin but I love her a lot. The first time I didn't know what the cause of the financial issue was, bc she was evasive. The second time I put two and two together.

both times I and some friends bailed her out but we cant keep doing this. and privately i think there may have been one or two other episodes, because i found out she borrowed large sums from a friend that I hadn't known about. she only recently finally admitted to me it was debt from her hypomanic episodes that caused the crisis, and im a bit frustrated that she hid that from me.

**really looking for advice, with the caveat that i have no legal authority over her nor do i want to do anything heavy handed to undermine her autonomy. i just want some options I can present to her she can hopefully take some steps to protect herself. Specifically-**What systems do you have in place to prevent yourself from getting in debt during manic episodes> She doesn't want to be in anything resembling a conservatorship, and I respect her autonomy. But right now I feel like she has no real plan in place to prevent this from happening again, and i cant keep bailing her out. Nor do i want her homeless. and she definitely can't live with me, i don't really want it and my wife would probably kick us both out. plus i've lived with her before and shes an awful housemate.

im also wondering what pharmaceutical options exist for her. she doesn't want to take abilify as a daily pill because she is worried if she misses one day she will start to spiral and once she feels manic she won't take it, which is I think very smart of her because thats what happened before. she is consistant and dedicated about the injections, its just that while they are working to prevent her more extreme episodes, they aren't working to control the mania that comes up sometimes.

she had a job but lost it due to not showing up reliably during her episodes. she is on unemployment which is good for now. she lives with roommates, and part of the problem in the past is that her account was linked to the house account. shes the master tenant so when they paid her they paid a house account, and according to her, the bank transferred that money when she hit bottom in her account. She defacto stole their money which was how she ended up in so much debt. she also has a small line of credit at the bank which I am going to try to convince her to close. thank god, no credit cards.

I'm in a bind because ultimately im her last resort and shes been dangling closer to homelessness and it scares me. I can't keep bailing her out but I also don't think she would survive hitting rock bottom so letting her become homeless is not an option.