I am in complete sympathy with you, it's a tough spot. I am bipolar, my mother too, and her mother. (I suspect the chain is generationally unbroken, but its not the kind of information traditionally passed down with the family tree)

My grandmother is in her 90s and is finally in a secure medical facility due to the onset of dementia which has rendered her no longer able to insulate herself with her wealth. But she has been as crazy as a fruit bat her whole life. She has always resisted any help and denied all dx's. Sweet.

My mother is also pretty strange due to being bipolar. Her twist on the denial mode is to say that she has "conquered" the disorder through medication and therapy.

I dread being called upon one day to care for her. While I love her like one only can one's mother, my irritation level with her is off the charts within an unreasonably short time. Memory lane for me is often like being lost in the wrong part of town. I'm guessing you might have a dose of that yourself as it is such a natural biproduct of the life bipolar.

There is probably something to be said for involving another set of eyes on the situation for you. If not professional, perhaps someone close enough to care but removed enough to "see" where the need and manipulation begin and end.

Being bipolar isn't "wrong" but the feelings we have about some of the destruction it can cause aren't "nothing" either.

Good luck to you and your mom.