Bipolar mum?

[Bethbehappy]

My son of 42 has been diagnosed with bipolar 1, and has lost everything. He is homeless and is having to rebuild his life bit by bit with little paper trail. Its heart breaking to watch him struggle. I have often believed that it was a condition that explained my own up and down behaviour but in recent years I have been diagnosed with untreated thyroid problems, heart failure, pots and lots more goodies. Would it help my son to seek to seek a diagnosis for myself, I am now 67 so it's of little use to me but would it help my son for us to look at history. I am also now extremely concerned for my younger son. What is the best way I can help him. He is staying with me at present so I am at least able to to do that.

[ML0223]

Don’t despair. It’s not the end of the world. He has a diagnosis now which hopefully will lead to good treatment with a psychologist and medication. I have bipolar too and have been out of work for 4 years living off disability pension (in Australia). I’m now much more stable and accepting of the ups and downs of my condition. I’ve been on all sorts of meds, and am accepting of my current meds (though I feel it would be ideal to reduce my sleeping meds). I’m now looking for full time work. It’s beautiful how much you care about your son ❤️

[Bethbehappy in reply to ML0223]

Thankyou. I have suspected for years that I was bipolar and yesterday had a fascinating chat with my 97 yr old mum about her mother and uncle. My family fractured when I became I'll leading to diagnosis of heart failure,thyroid etc, and I worry about the health of my daughter and son, but we are not in contact. My big gentle giant went to teach in the university in vietnam for over a year and of course covid must have taken a great toll mentally, and he returned home last christmas and then he began to malfunction and finally went missing. The police tracked him to Berlin but he managed to board a train with no money, passport, no shoes and ended up in paris! How resilient is the human heart.... love to you, would love to hear more about your journey....beth

[ML0223 in reply to Bethbehappy]

It sounds like he has a great time but it could have been a ‘high’ or manic episode as my psychiatrist would have called it. I had a similar episode when I through the royal Thai family were surveying me to be a potential royal princess. It was fun but tiring… after a week of paranoia and grandiose delusions, I had a car crash and the police took me straight to the hospital ward where I was seen by a doctor. Since then I’ve had no grand delusions as I have insight now. I was on lithium for 5 years which kept me ‘stable’ but zombie like. I’m off lithium now and more mature with my thoughts, so I just take Abilify (anti-psychotic) and a sleeping pill. I’m still not normal, as my days are ‘unstructured’ so hopefully with more activities, the serotonin and dopamine will create a better mood naturally some psychiatrists say bipolar is a life long condition. But I think you can recover from it!

[ML0223]

As part of my journey I’ve been an inpatient in a nice private hospital (covered by health insurance), learnt CBT, DBT and ACT skills. I withdrew completely during Covid, but getting myself out there a little bit more now xxx night!!