Bipolar Lesson: Feel like giving up with your loved one?

Hi,

It's 6:45am on Saturday and I am dead tired. I have a ton
of things to do today but I wanted to write you really quick.

I received a rather interesting email from someone named Tam on my email
list.

She wrote:

"I've been reading everything I can get my hands on, and thanks for all the f.r.e.e info and stories that you share, however one question, and no I don't know the answer.

How can you give support, advice or just be a good lean post when you have nothing left to give? My daughter 17, diagnosed 1 year ago and it's been a road with all kinds of twist and turns and the latest mania episode pushed me over the edge and I feel that I can no longer be the guide, because I feel I have been broken finally.

Now who does she turn to? My cup runeth over, and it's spilling. Thanks."
-Tam
=============

The big question is, Tam is asking is, how do you find the strength
to keep supporting your loved one?

This is a VERY difficult question for me to answer via email.
I could do a better job on the phone, one on one with you
or in a group setting. However, let me try as best I can.

I hope what I say make sense.

But first let me tell you a story to explain how I learned
the secret to strength with bipolar disorder.

When my mom first started going into an episode, it started
off slow. She yelled every now and then. She was angry some of
the time. I could take it. But then as each month passed
and December hit, she had a total melt down. She became a
totally different person. Screaming, yelling, throwing things,
etc.

Now at this point, I did NOT have a system or course like
I have now at:

http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/report11

I am writing this because some people incorrectly think I
had like a book, manual or personal advisor that told me
every single thing I should and shouldn't be doing.

All I really had was my aunt. I use to speak to her every
day about what was going on. We would talk about what I was
seeing and hearing and she would try to offer me advice.
She was really worried but there was nothing she could do.

Why? She had an illness about 12 or 15 years ago that left her
paralyzed so she couldn't jump on a plane and come and help. Not
to mention she had two younger kids.

Each day, I tried to absorb all of what my mom was doing and
saying. At first I could and then eventually it would get to
me. I would yell back. I would get really mad. My yelling
caused her to yell and scream.

No matter how much energy I had, she could yell longer. And
then she began saying things that didn't even make sense.

Then I was mad all the time. I kind of felt like I was
turning into her. I would even start yelling at my friends
and people I knew because I was annoyed 24 hours a day.

If you are caretaker, has this happen to you yet?

Then I started to realize, I was arguing with someone who was
not even in her right mind. Where was my dad? Well he called me
in to "help" with my mom and he would leave early every day
and slip in late at night so he didn't have to deal with it.

I don't blame him. He has a heart condition and he had
fought bipolar for more than 30 years and had clearly lost and
surrendered years prior.

I think at some point, my dad simply gave up and felt he could
not defeat bipolar disorder and bipolar disorder, had and would
continue to defeat him. So he basically enlisted me to "help"
sometime around December at which time I did.

There's a lesson here so please keep reading.

Where was my brother? My brother refused to call me back.
I called time and time again.
One time I called him on cell phone with a prepaid phone card
so he couldn't see it was me and it would show up as a local
number but not mine. He picked up, and I said I need help
mom is really sick and I don't know what to do. He said, "I'll
call you right back."

I waited on the side of the road for 42 minutes and then realized
he wasn't calling back.

So understand, I was totally alone myself.

Christmas that year was a total nightmare. Then January came
and I was determined that my mom needed to go to the hospital.
My dad agreed but didn't know how to get her there. He asked me
to call my brother and I told him Stephen will not call me back.

My dad said my mom had a doctor she went to sometimes when
she wasn't feeling well. (He didn't even say psychiatrist
or that my mom had bipolar, he called it not feeling well,
sick, etc.).

We looked for the number and didn't find it. My dad remember
it was in a certain city in New Jersey. I went online and
didn't find it. Eventually I found it in a telephone book.

The doctor was no help at all.

Then I invented a technique of getting my mom into the hospital.
It's the "look for a window" technique that I speak about in
my course at:

http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/report11

It takes a while to explain so don't think I am hiding something
from you. It takes pages and pages to describe and I can't make
this email super long.

In my material, you know that I write there is no easy way to get
someone into treatment and I discovered 21 ways to do it that do NOT
involve involuntary commitment. I discovered some on my own and most
from emailing a survey to over 25,000 people who are on my mailing
list, and who were supporters of bipolar disorder.

When I had the same technique used at least 5 times from 5 different
technique, I considered it a technique to be included in my system.
After a massive amount of time that's how I got 21 methods.

Now before I confuse you. I created these techniques AFTER my mom
was doing well and stable NOT before. I did however create/invent
or come up with the "look for a window" technique when my mom
first went to the hospital.

So to be clear, some techniques came from before my mom was totally
stable when I had no course at all. Others came after, when I decided
to create a course.

I created my course after my mom was stable and I wanted to give
back and help people to not suffer like we did.

I hope this makes sense.

Anyway, back to the story.

After my mom went in the hospital, I had some time to think. I
decided that I was sick and tired of her illness (I didn't
know what it was called at the time). I decided at around
9:00am the morning my mom went in the hospital for the first
day, I would know everything there was to know about her illness,
how to prevent it, how to control it, if it took me years to
figure it out.

I decided I was going to stop work and focus 100% of my effort
on this goal. It took me 9 months of massive research to develop
first a philosophy of what had to be done.

Then I started putting my techniques into action and seeing
amazing results.

Hopelessness turned into hope. Defeat turned into little
victories and then bigger victories. Fear turned into
faith.

I slowly started gaining strength and realizing bipolar
was controllable and that my mom could do well.

Finally, I knew what had to be done, even if my mom wasn't
doing perfectly well, I felt eventually in control because
I had the right knowledge or information.

I knew I had arrived because I was 100% convinced my mom
would do well and I knew how to help her. I had never been
like that ever.

Even when she had bad days as she was recovering from her
episode, I never wavered. I knew exactly what had to be done.

I real secret for having the strength to continue
forward is knowledge and information about what to do.

If you remember Tam's email to me, that was above in
this email, she just doesn't know what to do. That's
what's giving her a feeling of hopelessness.

Right now, if you feel you can't
go on, it's probably because you don't know what to do,
how to do it, and how to help your loved one exactly.

Not knowing is slowly wearing you down. Day by
day you start to consider "should I give up?"

Or, "is there any hope for my loved one?"

One of the reasons I have so many interviews in
my course is because I wanted you to hear real people
that suffered, almost gave up, and then that turned it all around
and exactly what they did to do so.

I want you to understand, I am not saying get my course, rather
get information. It's okay if you don't get my course. It
really is. You can do this:

-Contact doctors

-Contact therapists

-Go to many support group meetings

-Call hospital social workers

-Read all the books you can
(especially ones that tell you what bipolar disorder really is, ones written by real doctors NOT people who have long sad tales to tell and want you to feel sorry for them.)

-Talk to anyone and everyone that is connected to bipolar disorder

-Read and study material related that could help with bipolar disorder. You are going to think I am totally crazy but this is 100% true, some of the systems that I thought of that work come from how Ronald Reagan, former President of the United States Of America, handled the Cold War
and Soviet Union.

You probably think that I am totally out of my mind. But, think
for a second, the Cold War involved a threat to the US, bipolar
is a threat to you and/or your family. See the connection?

AND THIS IS HUGE:
Find successfully people who have bipolar and ask lots of questions. Don't get bogged down listening to the ones that only complain and aren't doing well. They will make sure feel worse. Avoid those people like the
plague.

I have to run now, have a great day.

Catch you tomorrow.

Your Friend,

Dave