I read this thread a couple of days ago and it has been bugging me ever since. I’ve wanted to respond but haven’t been sure how.

Many of you said that you stepped up to do your job as a parent because you had no choice. That you could fight your bipolar and win, gain enough control over it to be a good parent.

When you say it like that, I feel like that means I wasn’t able to parent my children the way I would have liked because I 'chose' not to.

Maybe you had better luck with meds or maybe you are just stronger people than I am.

But I feel that I also didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t control my BP. Sometimes getting out of bed wasn’t an option. Sometimes for me parenting wasn’t an option.

Does this mean I was weak? That I wasn’t committed enough or that I didn’t love my kids enough?

Or does it mean that I have a physical illness that kicked the **** out of me and took over my life?

I had my kids young and they were middle aged before I was finally diagnosed and medicated, so I was very ill when they were little.

I was a mess when they were younger. I was a single parent and had it not been for my parents’ help I wouldn’t have been able to keep them. I mean, who would have had them while I was in the hospital?

My kids were used to me sleeping a lot. I remember being barely able to move with tears coming out and feeling like I wanted to die because I had to go pour a bowl of cereal. I remember resenting them for needing me. I remember resenting the fact that I had to stay alive for them.

In the early years of my children’s lives I was not treated. I was a wreck. I was in and out of relationships, my moods were crazy and they got dragged along for the roller coaster ride.

In a hypomanic episode I married a complete stranger and moved my kids across the country to live with him. He was an abusive monster who dragged my little boy out of bed and told him to wake up, that his mother was going to kill herself and he was never going to see her again. My kids lived with the constant fear of me killing myself and probably still do.

My kids were used to the house being dark and dirty with me lying around on the couch, or me irritable and angry, while obsessively cleaning and organizing every inch of it when I cycled up.

I did not choose this.

Without help, I would not have been able to keep them. And that would not have been my choice.

Fortunately for me my parents were very close and they shielded my kids from much it. They took them on weekends, they took them when I was unstable, and my mom was there to help me do things like pay bills and get groceries.

Then later I met and married my husband. He was an awesome parent and he was our rock. It was after I met him that I finally got treatment.

Don’t get me wrong, I have many good qualities as a parent and in spite of my challenges I’ve done a pretty good job, especially as part of a team with my hubby.

I got to keep my kids because I had the good luck to have the help of some very supportive people.

But that was luck. Not any choice I made. Not everyone is so lucky.