My son is bipolar

This is my first blog. We have a 30 year old son who we just realized was bi-polar. He has a wife and 3 beautiful children. We thought his problem was mostly due to addictive behaviors (he has been addicted to Robo and alcohol) and he went to rehab for 6 months at the Salvation Army Adult Rehab Center. The good thing about that was that he had access to counseling and a Psychiatrist and was able to break his Robo addiction. (What is Robo? It’s Robitussin cough syrup, or rather the ingredient found in it - dextromathorphan.) The bad thing was he was diagnosed as Bipolar and no one told us. Had I known what I know now I would have recognized that he was having a manic episode and needed psychiatric care. (Addictions and bipolar disorder often go together and for that reason people often don’t get the help they need as soon as they need it. It’s also called Dual Diagnosis and compounds the problem. Be sure to follow the link below for a list of symptoms of bipolar disorder.) After rehab he came to live at home because his wife had been through hell and needed him to demonstrate some stability. He was able to get his old job back and did well for several months, but a couple of months ago things started falling apart again. Since we didn’t know about the diagnosis he wasn’t getting on-going help, which he should have had.
There are so many things to complicate his treatment! Since he believes Robo was his addiction he’s never been willing to admit that because he’s also an alcoholic he should not drink. In fact he insists that he will drink and drink responsibly. Add a bipolar diagnosis and manic behavior to that and it’s almost impossible to know how to help him.
If we were dealing with an addiction only we could set some limits and boundaries, but when there is also a brain disorder involved it becomes much harder to know what to do. That is the hardest thing for me - not knowing what to do to help him. This is such a painful journey for me and finding information is helping. A great website for information on Bi-polar Disorder can be found at: http://www.moodswing.org/famcoping.htm If you follow all of the links you can spend days doing research.
I’ve also been greatly helped by the NAMI web page at http://www.nami.org/ When I don’t feel I have anyone to talk to who understands I can sign into the Discussion group on Understanding Bipolar Disorder. There I find comments from family and from those with BP. It’s so helpful to see both perspectives!

Living with a manic person is like trying to stand up in a hurricane - like the wind is always blowing 300 miles an hour and it’s all you can do just to stand up straight. It’s very draining. It’s hard to separate the person from the illness, to realize it’s a disease and not their choice to behave like an idiot. Anyway, I’m posting this in case there are others like me who may relate. Starting out in the dark is hard. Having a light to follow, to guide you on some path to understanding, helps. I’ll add more as time allows. Just being able to express the feelings I’m going through helps.

Want to know what rips your heart out? Seeing your child, someone you love with all your heart and soul, being turned into something/someone they aren’t. Manic behaviors - they make a person feel they are the center of the universe. It’s all about them. And they love being manic. They can’t see themselves like we do anymore. He feels ’special’, he enjoys the high, he feels it gives him a super-creative edge. He’s gone from being a loving son, husband and father to a self-centered ________. Who do I cry for? Me? Or him? For his wife and kids? I cry because I hate it that sometimes I have to stop and tell myself I don’t hate him, but that I hate what this disease has done to him. I hate it that he can’t just stop and be loving and kind again, can’t be ‘normal’ again. I hate this whole thing. I hate it that I can’t just love him back to normal or pray him back to normal or push him back to normal. I just don’t like this. (In case I haven’t said that enough). Well, wallow, wallow, wallow. It just hurts right now.

Aug. 27 Last night I just lost it. I did everything wrong. I got so angry at my son and I just couldn’t separate him from the sickness. Everything I’ve read or heard about what I should do I didn’t do. I didn’t stay calm, I was mad and I was not being nice to him. I was mad at the sickness for stealing my son from me. I was mad at him because he won’t go to a hospital, I was mad at myself because I was losing it. I started crying and I just couldn’t quit. I don’t know if it’s because I let it build up for too long or from lack of sleep or both. Perhaps it’s writing this stuff down. Sometimes I just don’t want to feel this. I know when it starts the floodgates will open, but I have to be strong and calm and on top of this so I can somehow find a way to help him. So I try not to feel.

I don’t know how he functions on the couple of hours of sleep he gets a night. I see what it does to me and it’s no wonder he can’t think straight. I want to monitor how much he sleeps so when I hear him come in at night I wake up and look at the clock. Then it’s a few hours later before he actually comes up to bed and I wake up and look at the clock and I can’t go back to sleep. It’s good praying time, but after awhile it catches up with me, I guess.

My son is so intelligent, so witty, so much fun to be around when he’s ‘well’. He has the most beautiful wife – inside and out – anyone could ever ask for. His children are so precious and sweet. His wife is such a wonderful mother and he has been a great dad. I loved seeing them parent those kids – it’s such a great feeling to see your children with their children. And those children are not just ‘cute’ kids, they are great kids. They are polite and respectful and loving with each other and so smart (I’m not just saying all of this because I’m their grandmother) I know a lot of it is because of their mom, but my son has contributed some good to their lives, too, I know. They love him so much. They want their family back together again. That breaks my heart.

Even now, as sick as he is, he tries hard to be a good dad and wants that more than anything. Yesterday, for the first time, he said he wasn’t being a good father and that his kids shouldn’t be around him. I know how that must make him feel. When the manic behavior cracks open the tiniest bit I see the self-loathing there, how much he hates himself. He feels like such a failure and he doesn’t want to fail anymore. He’s been so lonely and he goes looking for people, strangers who will admire him. We, his family, don’t know how to comfort him. Literally. I listen to his manic ranting and I don’t even know what to say. Should I act like it makes sense to me? Should I try to ‘shape him up’ with a verbal slap in the face? Neither, I think.

When I hear and see him like this it hurts so bad – it’s like watching a bird that has fallen out of the nest flopping around with a broken wing, trying to fly, unable to. He thinks he’s soaring through the sky just fine. I can’t even find the words for how much it hurts. And because it hurts so much I can’t really listen, can’t really open myself up to him, can’t comfort him. He’s too sick to decide to get well. He knows all of the things he should and shouldn’t do and I think he does try, but he can’t do it. If he won’t realize he needs to go to the hospital, we may have to put him there and I really don’t want to do that. I keep trying and trying to convince him he needs urgent help, but he feels that’s an accusation that he’s ‘crazy.’ He won’t do it.

We can’t let this go on. I told him he’s like a child on a merry-go-round. When it’s moving slowly it’s fun, but then it starts to go faster and faster and it’s not so much fun anymore and when it goes fast enough he’ll fly right off. He’s so close to flying off, but he’s convinced he can hang on, that he can slow that merry-go-round down himself. And in lots of ways he doesn’t want to slow it down too much, doesn’t want to lose the mania. That’s what he’s afraid of, I think. Afraid of going back to the black hole of loneliness and despair.

Today he came in and said, “I can’t die, I have too much to do.” That really frightens me. Why would he talk about dying unless he’s thinking about it?

Aug. 29 - There is hope on the horizon! My son has a friend who is a Dr. and I was able to speak to him on the phone. He truly cares about him and knows he needs help. He agreed to speak to him and tell him he must make some changes or he will commit him. He said he has power to do that and will do so. You can’t imagine what a relief that is! Just finding someone who is willing to take a stand with me. Thank you, God! He wants to first try to persuade him to take the additional medication the Dr. wanted to prescribe, but said that if he won’t do that he will do the commital. What a weight is lifted from my shoulders!