Hi, DarkHeart. Thanks much for your reply. I too am a bipolar parent, and both I and my wife agree that I'm a very good dad and very capable of caring for our two special needs children, so I completely agree that a bipolar diagnosis and being medicated or not doesn't equate to being an unfit parent.

However, from what I have seen and heard from him and what the mother has told me, the concern is mostly because of things he has said and actions he has taken that are not necessarily with direct regard to their daughter, but are issues. I can honestly say that if I were separated from my wife and acting the way he is, I would hope that there would be supervision required when I was with my kids.

So to answer, he is not abusive at all towards the child, but seems verbally abusive to his wife; it is not known yet whether he is neglectful, because for the past 3 years he has only seen his daughter while with his wife - he has hardly interacted with her at all until the last few months; while he has not threatened to kidnap, he thinks both he and the child are geniuses and that the mother is inferior and not able to care for her - meanwhile, she has managed to work full time, support her daughter, deal with her husband's issues in getting him in and out of hospitalization, all while providing the best environment possible for their little girl who is a very bright, happy child. He has said that he may just take her from daycare when he feels like it and thinks her daycare is not challenging her enough with her a genius, so I would call that a possible threat. It is not known whether he might leave her somewhere because he has not been able to take her alone in her entire 3 years - he could barely take care of himself until recently.

Examples of questionable actions though: 1) pulled out a huge hunting knife at a hair salon when talking to a younger girl about how to stay safe when going out in the city and recommending she get one; 2) bought a gun secretly when they were living together and very suicidal, then moved out and left it on a shelf in the basement - he admitted that to me randomly and I told him to call his wife immediately to have it removed, which I made sure he did; 3) said he is running for president and can't talk about the campaign because the phones are tapped; 4) said that he started smoking because it makes him smarter.