My Support Forums - View Single Post - Bipolar Check-in #82

Blueberrybook · Sep 22, 2024 at 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scooter9

I'm still feeling pretty low.

I really have to do things this week and I'm not sure how I'll be able to do them. I guess I'll have to grind it out, as my kids would say.

I'm finding that my family just doesn't understand the variability of bipolar and doesn't appreciate the energy needed to appear normal when in reality I feel awful.

I've been living with this disorder for more than 20 years, you'd think that they'd have at least a basic understanding at this point. But, no, they do not and advice like ' drink more water' isn't helpful.

I had a similar situation with my husband just not understanding bipolar even after severe manic & psychotic episodes. IDK, the only thing that seemed to help him was at one point he took classes to certify as a high school teacher and there was a mental health class with workshops that demonstrated aspects of bipolar like what racing thoughts were like what mania was like and I think an input of info on depression, anxiety, panic disorder, ADHD, etc. and somehow by some miracle, he actually seemed to get it and he seemed to get it even more when he had students diagnosed with various disorders who would confide in him. After that, he suddenly seemed to become more open to understanding what bipolar is like and that I actually do need to be on meds (well once I got on the right meds he saw the overspending decrease drastically, which was one of his big concerns and which he did not understand). But I got married in my mid-20s, and I was around 40 years old before he started to become more understanding. For me, it really was a miracle that he seemed to accept my diagnoses, but yeah, not having family understand is awful