14 of 25

Yes

Write now Article Tools

My mother has suffered from Bipolar Disorder all my life. When I was a child, she was not yet diagnosed or treated, and her mood swings were frequent and severe. She became very angry, and extremely irritable sometimes, for no apparent reason, and, being a child, I did not know that I was not causing the problem. I thought for some time that she hated me, and that the reason she was sometimes abusive, and took her anger out on me, were because of something I had done.

When I was an adolescent, my mother began to seek treatment for her Bipolar Disorder, which had finally been diagnosed. She went on medication, which she would take sometimes, but not all the time. She gained weight from her medication and sometimes would refuse to take it for that reason. Like many people with this disorder, at times she did not believe she was sick and did not want to take the medication, so she would go off it.

Life was always chaotic in our household. One minute, my mother would be playing with us like she was one of the kids, and acting giddy as a five-year-old, and silly. The next minute she would be throwing a chair at the wall, screaming about how horrible I was, or how horrible my father was, or some other complaint. I never knew if it would be safe to bring friends home, because I did not know how she would be behaving on any given day. For this reason, I rarely brought friends home at all.

My mother's angry outbursts caused me a great deal of stress and fear as as child. I believe that, aside from Bipolar Disorder, she actually also suffers from some sort of personality disorder. I say this because, even when my mother is on medications that seem to help her, she still has horrible "bad moods", during which she blows up at anyone and everyone. She also has no ability to keep a job for more than a couple weeks, so she has gone through countless jobs, and never liked any of them because she has always been paranoid and believed that people were talking about her or conspiring against her behind her back. She usually leaves her job in a huff, then calls the CEO to complain that the other employees all harassed her and she wants her job back. Eventually, she is completely broke (again), and comes begging me or her parents for money to pay the electric bill or keep the water turned on, in her house, or buy food. I have learned how to deal with these urgent requests better through experience, and I generally never lend money to mother anymore. Generally, she does

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Can mothers diagnosed with bipolar disorder make good parents??
We want to hear your view. Write now!