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My mother had always lacked compassion and empathy, she would ridicule and emotionally abuse us and that was her way of joking with us (myself and my sister). She was litterally obsessed with naturopathic heathy and medicine. I was always slightly chubby as a child and grew to be about 20 pounds overweight in my teenage years. She harassed my daily about what I was going to do about my weight problem by lecturing and insulting me. My mother had a short temper and would easily jump to conclusions, she made everything seem like a conspiracy against her too make us feel guilty and ashamed. As the older one I took the brunt of my mothers abuse and as the younger one my sister got to occassionally see her good side. The insults and screaming fits would fly throughout the house mostly directed at me. I'd be called incompetent, lazy, boring, stupid, fat. My mom had an inability to communciate without raising her voice to me, she pushed me to become and overachiever and to develop and eating disorder and finally she pushed me to drugs. My sister got the compassionate side of my mother, however she did not encourage her to achieve any thing so my sister became kind of the underachiever and also as a result of my mothers emotional neglect, eventually turned to drugs.

It was strange how my mother had two completely different faces towards her children almost as if she was bipolar. With me she seemed mean spirited, irritable, and angry, with my sister she seemed passive, uninterested, and lackadasical.

Well my mother doesn't have bipolar disorder. However when I was eighteen I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I struggled with medication and I struggled and won.

I am now married and I have FOUR children who are all well cared for, healthy, happy, motivated, well behaved, and well looked after. Thanks to support from my doctors and my husband and my family such as it is. I am raising a wonderful family and I think my experience with my own mother have made me the person I am. There is no reason a person with bipolar disorder cannot treat and control their illness just the way a person with diabetes or epilepsy can life a long and productive life with the proper care, a person with bipolar disorder can do the same. Just because you have bipolar disorder doesn't necessarily make you a drug addict. I haven't touched drugs or alcohol since I was 19 years old. And having bipolar disorder doesn't make you a bad mother. There are plenty of mothers out there who do not suffer from any kind of mental illness who are simply not fit to be mothers. There are plenty of people without mental disorders who put their own needs and desires before the wellbeing of their children. That constitutes a bad parent not having a mental illness.

Learn more about this author, Sarah Miller.
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