My twin sister and I are adopted. I had what I guess you could call a 'priveledged' upbringing. We belonged to the country club, I went to an expensive private school. I had a really happy childhood and was pretty spoiled, but my family was always very into appearances. Once I started into my teen years things got really hard. My parents divorced when I was 12 and it was really ugly. Lots of tug of war between my parents and my sister and I were always in the middle. Also my teen years meant I had to live up to expectations of what a young girl in the upper crust of society was supposed to be. I was never skinny enough, pretty enough and never fit in like I was supposed to...and I was told this all the time, especially by my father and grandmother. I was constantly berated because I didn't conform to social norms for my parents social circle...ie I dressed weird, I didn't do my makeup right, I wasn't interested in the thing that 'normal' girls my age were. I was ostracized at school for not looking like I jumped out of a J. Crew catalog. It was pretty nightmarish a lot of times.

I also spent a large quantity of time trying to have a superset identity from my sister. We were always referred to as a unit and if one of us was invited to something people always felt compelled to invite both of us. It's been a life long struggle to create my own identity from her, and still continues to be. I can't shake it and it makes my psychological problems worse and causes me much stress.

Although I didn't realize it at the time when I started having manic episodes my mania seriously impacted my relationships with my parents. I would lash out and isolate myself from them, often going months or years without talking to them.

My relationship with my dad has been especially tumultuous. I got pregnant with my son when I was 18. He didn't speak to me for 3 years because she was angry that I wouldn't get an abortion or go out of state to live with my grandmother to have the baby then put him up for adoption. Things I refused to do. He said I was tarnishing his reputation in society because I was s teen mom.mOur relationship has been a roller coaster. He's not speaking to me at the moment because he's angry I loved to Europe and married someone he didn't approve of (meaning he's not a doctor or lawyer and super rich). My sister is his spy and tells him everything that I do. She told him about my BP Dx and about my recent suicide attempt. My sister contends that he's super worried and scared for me, but he hasn't even attempted to contact me, which shows me he doesn't really give a s***.

My relationship with my mom now is great. She's super supportive (even thinking about moving to Sweden). She's become one of my best friends even though we've had issues in the past. ( which I now know were caused by my BP)

My sister...well...that relationship is a nightmare and I'd have to write a novel to explain what's going on there...but long story short it's so bad that my shrink wants me to cut off all contact.