The Bipolar Emergency Revealed

Hi,

How's it going? I have to make this kind of
short today because I have an 8:30am appointment
and it's 7:45am already.

Today I wanted to talk briefly about a concept
I cover in my courses/systems called "The
Bipolar Emergency" and how I deal with
it.

Here's the situation. With bipolar disorder,
it's a mood disorder. So it affects people's
moods. I know that. I see it live and in
action with a) my mom b) all the people
who work with me who have bipolar disorder
and c) people who I know with bipolar disorder.

It's a tough thing to deal with sometimes. But,
if I look in the case of working with people with
bipolar disorder, I have found the few times
there are situations and mini episodes are minor
in comparison to the great job they do on the
other hand. BUT, keep in mind, the people who
work for me, have gone through a multi step
screening process so I must admit, the are
the best of the best.

Anyway, I was thinking yesterday of how
I use to get so mad about the bipolar
emergency that would happen all the
time to myself and my family.

What's a bipolar emergency you might be
wondering.

Well it's one of two things. The one that
is super annoying is when something
that is NOT and I repeat NOT important
or an emergency is made to seem as it
is.

The second bipolar emergency is the one that
IS important or an emergency.

Let me explain so you don't think that
I am crazy.

As a side note, I had to tell Jen who
doesn't have a mental illness that she
has to be perfect for the rest of her
life working with me because if she
does anything wrong, people will think
she is crazy like they write me and tell
me when I make a mistake, have a typo,
etc.

She laughed.

Anyway, let me use an example with my
mom. My mom, when she wasn't in the right
treatment and wasn't stable would call
me about something that was an emergency,
crisis or major problem.

If I didn't respond, I would get 25 phone
calls that compelled me to respond. When I
found out what it was, the problem didn't
seem like an emergency to me but to her
it was. She demanded that I take action
of some kind. Generally it was doing
something like paying a bill, calling
someone or going somewhere.

EVERY single time, it was a MAJOR and I mean
MAJOR burden on me. The simplest things
turned into emergency that required all
my help.

It use to drive me crazy. Right after I got
out of college 1999 through let's say
2005 there were so many bipolar
emergencies it was ridiculous.

BUT, then on the other hand, there was
one real bipolar emergency which was
when my mom cut her foot in the kitchen
and had to be taken to the hospital.

Other than that, every other bipolar
emergency wasn't an emergency. What happen
was that we were always running around
doing things for my mom, putting out
fires, fixing things, spending money
to fix problems year after year.

My dad said he had done it for decades.

When I told him I was going to write this
to you today, he told me all these stories
how he had to seriously walk in snow to
get to a certain place to do something
for mom OR how he had to skip work,
cancel business meetings, turn down
deals for work, etc. because of all
these emergencies.


When I stepped in with my new system
that I speak about in my material, I cut
all of this out.


I told my mom, she had to fix her own problems
and take personal responsibility for thing
things

I also stopped urgently returning non emergency
phone calls right away. I finally figured out
the reason my mom did this to me when she
was in an episode was because it worked.

If you call me a 25 times to get me to
run around with my head cut off to fix
a problem of your own, and I do fix
the problem, then next time, you
do the same thing because the strategy
has been proven to work.

There was one time, that I got so mad at
myself. It was this year. My mom had a
bad day early this year. And she found
out that her current insurance was not
going to be working with this major
hospital. So the insurance expert person
recommended we change to another health
insurance carrier and all would be
perfect with her bipolar disorder.

He then sent her 3 options on which ones
to choice and that was fine. She made a
choice and then my dad and I made a choice
and we all agreed on the same plan.

Then we had weeks to get the paperwork in.
So my mom who is excellent at filling out
paperwork, a gene I certainly didn't get.

SIDE NOTE: My mom can be in a major episode
and fill out paperwork perfectly. I have no
idea why. And she can edit perfectly in an
episode as well. I can't do either when I am
not in an episode and I don't have bipolar
disorder. Hmmm? If you are a researcher on
my list, research that and let me know what
you come up with :)

Anyway back to the health insurance and
bipolar disorder story. After we agreed
on the plan, my mom filled out the paperwork
in one day.

Then she wanted me to sign it. I couldn't
because I had things to do and wasn't around
I told her I would come by to sign it at the
end of the week. It was the beginning of the
week. We had like 3 weeks to get it in.

Here's where the bipolar emergency started. My mom
then called me at least 10 times in one day to
fill it out. She then told me how it had to be sent
in in three days. That was the deadline. She then
cast total doom on the situation saying if
it wasn't in, like 17 bad things would happen
and then getting health insurance at the current
rate would be impossible.

She put all these negative things in my head
through voicemails and phone calls. I was
super annoyed. I called my dad and asked if
he knew the deal. He said no but he said
it didn't make any sense that we went from
three weeks to three days. Of course he asked
me to deal with my mom.

YES for all you therapists on the list, I am totally
aware that this is not right and my dad shouldn't
be putting this stuff on my. But that's another
problem for another day and when you are running
4 businesses you have to prioritize. I say
this because I know I will get at least 100 comments
from therapists on my list, telling me about how
that's not right with my dad
and pointing out how we need to all go to therapy
together :).

Okay back to the story, I couldn't call the insurance
expert person because he was out of town. My mom
claimed she spoke to him right before he left
and he gave her this "new" information.

She then left message saying they (my parents)
were not going to have health insurance and
that I didn't care about them.

I was so confused and so tired of getting all
these phone calls, my mom finally broke
my will and I drove from a meeting really
fast to her house to sign all the stuff.

I didn't let it go there

After a few days of getting caught up with
work, I did a careful investigation and
found that:

a) there we no emergency
b) we had weeks to get the paperwork in
c) there was no rush
d) my parents were not in danger of never having
health insurance again
e) The rates were not going to go up if
we got the paperwork in after three days.

I was super mad. But at who? Me not my
mom. I let my mom create another fake bipolar
emergency. I also was pressured into signing
papers I didn't let go through my normal
policy of allowing at least a week to
go by to catch anything bad that will work
against me.

I can tell you over the years, my family
mad so many bad mistakes because of the
rush of coming to a decision. For some
reason, major decisions always went along
with my mom being in an episode and her
bipolar disorder caused her to not think
correctly. My dad would just go along
with her to get along and every time
it produced a disaster.

My parents are still paying for the disastrous
decisions years and decades ago today. It's
sad.

I write this to you the support and the person
with bipolar disorder to not let this happen
to you.

I am NOT saying that you ignore all of what
your loved one might tell you. There may be
real emergencies with bipolar disorder but
I have personally found that 98% of the
time, the thing my mom thinks is an emergency
is not.

At this point with me, and this is for me
only, and don't bother writing that what
I am not about to say would not work on you
if you have bipolar disorder, I do NOT
respond to the vast majority of things
my mom calls emergencies.

That has worked great for me. I know that
I will get flooded with hate mail saying
I am mean, evil, a bad person, God hates
me, on and on and on because I told you
this. Nobody tells you this kind of thing.
Look at all the books out there. You never
see this kind of stuff.

BUT you need to know it.

Since I changed my policy and so has my dad,
my mom solves her own problems and there are
far less bipolar emergencies. And anytime
my mom has a serious problem she knows
she has to sell me on it. And she knows
if it's a problem she could handle herself
and she involves me, I will be mad and then
the chance of me listening the next time is
close to zero.

So she doesn't abuse me. It works for me. I know
that I will hear from people with bipolar
disorder how this is just so mean but it works
for supporters. I am not saying it's going to
work for everyone.

WHAT'S MY MOM SAY ABOUT THIS?

She told me that she feels better about herself
that she can fix her own problems, she is
says she is sorry over the years she pressured
us into bad decisions and she says she is happy
that I don't do everything for her. She told
me she wants to fix her own problems and
not be a burden.

So she is okay with it. This is a strategy
that I cover a length in my courses/systems.
And if you have bipolar disorder and you are
reading this and saying, "I don't want to
do this to my family, what can I do?" You can
take a look at my course/system for those
with bipolar disorder.

SUPPORTING AN ADULT?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/report11

SUPPORTING A CHILD/TEEN?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarparenting.com/

HAVE BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.survivebipolar.net/


Have a great day.

Your Friend,

Dave

P.S. Check out my F.ree blog with copies of emails
that I have sent in the past and lots of great
information for you:
http://www.bipolarcentral.com/supporterblog/

P.P.S Check out my F.ree podcast. Hear me give
mini seminars designed to teach you information
you can't learn anywhere else.
http://bipolarcentral.libsyn.com/