Bipolar Central
Your One Stop Source For Information On Bipolar Disorder

My Story

I put together this web site to help people who are living or supporting a loved one with bipolar disorder. Why did I do it? Here's a bit about my life story that will help you understand why bipolar disorder has become so important to me.

My mother has had bipolar disorder her entire life. While I was growing up, I remember her having a number of episodes. Each time, my father, brother and I would just pretend everything was okay. We would just let the disorder "fix itself" temporarily each time, or we would leave it up to mom to get help. That was a big mistake, but it wasn't the only one we made. Eventually all of those mistakes caught up with us.

In May of 2003, I noticed that my mom seemed angry a lot of the time. She wasn't sleeping and she was spending a lot of time by herself. When I talked to her, I also began seeing signs of paranoia.

For example, once I asked her "How's the lawn doing?" and she immediately thought the lawn was a mess and needed to be completely redone. But I had just been trying to make conversation with her. I saw these signs, but didn't do anything about them, nor did my father or brother.

In November, she was worse. She had gone to my brother's house and they got into a heated conflict. From there, everything started racing downhill. As time passed, things moved from worse to terrible. Still, all of us sat back and did nothing. We just assumed things would work out on their own like they always had in the past.

By the time December rolled around, my mother was not eating, sleeping, or coming out of her room. Things were so bad that my father even had to start sleeping on the couch. At this point, my mother was in a full blown bipolar episode.

We still didn't do face the fact that we had to do something . . . yet. Like ostriches, we were sticking our heads in the sand.

In January of 2004, I realized that someone had to intervene because my mom needed to go to the hospital. She was already yelling at me three times a day and saying things like "I don't want you to be my son anymore!" so I figured I'd try to persuade her to get help.

When I told her she needed to go to the hospital, she refused. She even lied and told me that her support network didn't think she needed to go to the hospital. I tried first to argue with her, and then tried reasoning with her, but neither approach got me anywhere.

After two hours of trying, I decided to try something else. This approach worked, and she agreed to go to the hospital. Then, my father and I realized that we had no idea which hospital she should go to. We didn't even know the name or the phone number of her doctor. After searching everywhere, we luckily found her doctor's business card and were able to contact him.

After my parents left for the hospital, I stayed behind and thought about what had happened. As I was trying to recuperate from the emotional and physical exhaustion of trying to deal with my mom, I realized how ridiculous it was that I didn't even know the name of my mom's doctor. It was ridiculous that we didn't know more about her problem, especially since my brother and I had been dealing with it our entire lives.

We didn't even know the correct terminology for her problem! We'd been calling it manic depression, and I didn't even discover that the term was out-dated until I started conducting research. Can you imagine that? We've been dealing with this problem for years and we didn't know what to call it!

At that point, I decided it was time to stop pretending that my mom's problem could fix itself and it was time to start learning how to help her. I literally took off from work for six full months to devote all of my time, energy and money to learning everything I could about bipolar disorder. I talked to dozens of people in medical fields, read almost every book available, attended support groups regularly and did everything else I could think of to find answers.

During my research, I learned that there simply weren't any books available to help individuals, like myself, who are trying to support people who have bipolar disorder. I also realized that very few of the books available on bipolar disorder covered any of the topics that both survivors and supporters desperately need, such as information on reducing debt, restoring credit, finding doctors, buying homes, dealing with stress, etc.

As I continued learning more about the disorder, I began building this website so that it would provide usable information for anyone who is trying to deal with bipolar disorder. This site will provide practical, common sense solutions for some of the real life situations you will face while coping with bipolar.

My goal with this site is not just to inform you, but also to prevent you from making the same mistakes that my family made. It took me almost thirty years to realize that my mother couldn't manage this disorder alone. It cost us thousands of dollars because we simply didn't know what we were doing. I don't want to see anyone else go through what we went through, especially not when simply having a plan to deal with the disorder can prevent it.

This Week's Bipolar News

4 graduate from first Canyon County Mental Health Court
KTVB Boise CALDWELL -- A Canyon County judge says 16 percent of the nation's prison population suffers from a mental illness. Now that same judge is doing her part to help inmates get help, instead of serve time. On Tuesday evening, four Canyon County residents graduated from the first "Mental Health Court." They have all been diagnoised with either bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or major depression ...

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The Memphis-based National Bipolar Foundation today will celebrate its new initiative with the MedicAlert Foundation. Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. is ...

Your Career: More disabilities to be protected
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Changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act are redefining the definition of disability to include a host of workers with conditions such as epilepsy, diabetes or bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder - Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 - Health - Mental Health - Disorders

Click here for all Bipolar News.

Featured Article:

The Holidays are Coming
by Michele Soloway Sexton

Yes, the holidays are coming, as you can tell by all the Christmas decorations that have been up in stores since before Halloween! So you are probably already feeling some nervousness or pre-holiday jitters concerning your loved one with bipolar disorder.

There is no reason that bipolar disorder should stop you from enjoying the holidays the same as anyone else. You just may have to do some extra planning.

For example, if you are in a gathering of people and you notice that your loved one is having difficulty (acting stressed or anxious) in the situation, make sure that you have a way to leave early without offending anyone or drawing attention to your loved one.

This is easily done ahead of time by saying that although you are glad to be included, you might not be able to stay long, or that you may have to leave unexpectedly. You don't have to give any other excuse than that.

Click here to read the entire article

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