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When your mother is bipolar....(long)
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Hi guys
I'm a little nervous posting about this here as it feels like a betrayal, but it's now reached the point where I feel I need to talk to somebody who might understand where I'm at.
I'm pretty certain my mum is bipolar. She was quite seriously abused by her bipolar/personality-disordered mother and as a result has serious issues around the idea of being manipulated, controlled or dominated. I know that bipolar sufferers go through 'cycles' of mania and depression and this seems to fit. She's an artist and will frequently work herself to the point of sickness, working all through the night, often without eating, and being moved to tears by her own inspiration and creations. She has a real thing about being right, and will humiliate people by mocking them if their ideas/opinions differ from hers. She doesn't seem to be able to hear or respond to logical argument or explanations, instead trying to turn debates/arguments around into personal attacks on her 'adversary': "you're trying to control me" "but you're a bad person", or slipping into a childlike mode where she just stops listening and starts to do something else.
She also gets very very low and depressed, blaming everyone around her for the things in her life that don't work. When I was a child she 'opted out of life' (her words) for approximately nine years, during which she stayed at home/in bed, hardly ate, the house became a pigsty and I was forced to grow up pretty quickly on my own. She used to overreact to a lot of the things I did as a child - mistakes that kids make as kids used to make her so angry she'd scream and shout and tell me I was manipulative and a bitch, and then list all the things that were 'wrong' with me. Recently my parents have moved abroad and she went through a phase of calling me crying in the middle of the night, telling me she was lonely and that my dad didn't understand her and didn't love her, and that he was trying to control her.
For the past few years I have found it increasingly difficult to be around her, resulting in a very tense atmosphere between the two of us. I'll often snap at her or become very quiet when she's around, especially since during my recent treatment for depression I started to make links between my low self-esteem and self-doubt and her behaviour as I grew up.
She and my dad came to visit for the weekend and it culminated in a huge argument between myself and her; she couldn't understand why I was so distant with her, and told me that I was trying to 'bully' her and she 'wasn't putting up with it anymore'. I cracked and tried to explain to her how I felt, but she continually denied my memories of my childhood, belittled my reasoning and eventually started staring off into the distance, looking at me every now and again and saying 'sorry, were you talking?'.
It's resulted in me seriously doubting my own memory and feeling incredibly low and upset.
Because she's so terrified of becoming like her mother, she's never been diagnosed and nobody wants to suggest it to her because it seems it would result in nuclear fallout. I don't know whow to handle her anymore and I know that the way I react to her hurts her, but I can't figure out how to have a good relationship with her because she makes me so angry and upset.
Not sure what I'm looking for here exactly, just needed to vent, but if anyone has any advice/similar experiences, I'd really appreciate it.
I'm a little nervous posting about this here as it feels like a betrayal, but it's now reached the point where I feel I need to talk to somebody who might understand where I'm at.
I'm pretty certain my mum is bipolar. She was quite seriously abused by her bipolar/personality-disordered mother and as a result has serious issues around the idea of being manipulated, controlled or dominated. I know that bipolar sufferers go through 'cycles' of mania and depression and this seems to fit. She's an artist and will frequently work herself to the point of sickness, working all through the night, often without eating, and being moved to tears by her own inspiration and creations. She has a real thing about being right, and will humiliate people by mocking them if their ideas/opinions differ from hers. She doesn't seem to be able to hear or respond to logical argument or explanations, instead trying to turn debates/arguments around into personal attacks on her 'adversary': "you're trying to control me" "but you're a bad person", or slipping into a childlike mode where she just stops listening and starts to do something else.
She also gets very very low and depressed, blaming everyone around her for the things in her life that don't work. When I was a child she 'opted out of life' (her words) for approximately nine years, during which she stayed at home/in bed, hardly ate, the house became a pigsty and I was forced to grow up pretty quickly on my own. She used to overreact to a lot of the things I did as a child - mistakes that kids make as kids used to make her so angry she'd scream and shout and tell me I was manipulative and a bitch, and then list all the things that were 'wrong' with me. Recently my parents have moved abroad and she went through a phase of calling me crying in the middle of the night, telling me she was lonely and that my dad didn't understand her and didn't love her, and that he was trying to control her.
For the past few years I have found it increasingly difficult to be around her, resulting in a very tense atmosphere between the two of us. I'll often snap at her or become very quiet when she's around, especially since during my recent treatment for depression I started to make links between my low self-esteem and self-doubt and her behaviour as I grew up.
She and my dad came to visit for the weekend and it culminated in a huge argument between myself and her; she couldn't understand why I was so distant with her, and told me that I was trying to 'bully' her and she 'wasn't putting up with it anymore'. I cracked and tried to explain to her how I felt, but she continually denied my memories of my childhood, belittled my reasoning and eventually started staring off into the distance, looking at me every now and again and saying 'sorry, were you talking?'.
It's resulted in me seriously doubting my own memory and feeling incredibly low and upset.
Because she's so terrified of becoming like her mother, she's never been diagnosed and nobody wants to suggest it to her because it seems it would result in nuclear fallout. I don't know whow to handle her anymore and I know that the way I react to her hurts her, but I can't figure out how to have a good relationship with her because she makes me so angry and upset.
Not sure what I'm looking for here exactly, just needed to vent, but if anyone has any advice/similar experiences, I'd really appreciate it.
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My parents are still together; they split up just after christmas and then got back together again.
I have spoken to my dad and he agress that she might be bipolar but seems unwilling to take that idea any further. His take on it is: I can't change who she is, I can only change how I react to her. She won't become another person, the things that have happened have happened and there's nothing that can be changed there, so it's a case of working forward and trying to create a new relationship with her. Which is true, and it's a principle I understand and adhere to in most other areas of my life. I just can't see a way forward with this one.
I ended my therapy last week (ironic, huh?) and in all other ways I'm fine now; it's just my relationship with her that's really difficult to negotiate.