My mother was probably bipolar as well.......she had some whoppers of mood swings that she often claimed not to recall later. She also drank like a fish, and was downright mercurial---I NEVER knew where I stood with the woman. Some of my major screw-ups, she was really casual about and would let it go with a "Just don't do that again"; but at other times she'd scream at me literally for hours on end when I did something like get into the cookie jar without permission. She accused me of having sex YEARS before I actually did......but then, there were the other times, when we'd go places and have a blast, going to movies and the beach and laughing our heads off at silly things we thought up. It was like she was two totally different women: one I loved and worshipped like a queen, and one I feared worse than death.

I wish we'd all known then what we know now about mental illness, how hiding from it only makes everything worse and doesn't protect the person from the slings and arrows of a fearful society. If she had gotten help, it would have spared her a lot of grief and me a lot of emotional abuse, and I'd have known much earlier in life that I'd inherited her illness.