Ways to Help

Here are ways that you can help someone with bipolar disorder:

Become educated. The first step is to become educated about bipolar disorder, so you have realistic expectations and coping options. There are books, brochures, and videos on a variety of topics.

Make this is a family matter. Acknowledge that one member’s depressive disorder affects the entire family. Everyone in your immediate family needs to learn about bipolar disorder, its symptoms and early warning signs, how it is treated, and what the side effects of medications may be. And to whatever degree possible, each member should participate in the caregiving process. Being a caregiver is stressful, and it is important that family members discuss their feelings and opinions. Sometimes it helps if a skilled family therapist facilitates these discussions in group sessions.
Be a partner in treatment. Find the right treatment for each individual bipolar sufferer usually means going through a process of trial and error with multiple different medications. Patients also need talk therapy to heal. Finding qualified clinicians (e.g., psychopharmacologist, psychiatrist, psychologist) is essential. As a family caregiver, you can help by finding the best clinicians in your area, scheduling appointments, keeping track of medications and making sure they are taken as prescribed, and being an early warning systems by reporting changes to the clinicians.

Meet with the patient’s clinician. Make sure to meet with the clinician treating your family member from time to time. Try to go with your family member and if needed, set up some appointments on your own. Although clinicians have to maintain patient confidentiality, they can listen to you and you can report issues you are having caring for your family member.

Be understanding. Let your family member with bipolar disorder continually know that you care. People with bipolar disorder have negative thoughts and are hopeless in a depressive state. They need to be reminded that you and others are concerned about them and that you are working together to help them get well.

Take care of yourself. Set healthy boundaries on how much you do so you don’t burn out. Take a vacation from caregiving from time to time. Many caregivers develop depression, so don’t be afraid to seek medical help for yourself. You also may need help processing and dealing with your emotions.

Find social support. Dealing with bipolar disorder can be lonely and isolating. You’ve watched the healthy person you once knew deteriorate and suffer. Your friends don’t understand bipolar disorder, and it is difficult for you to go out. Make sure you find sources of support such as a bipolar support group in your area.

Develop a crisis plan. Talk to your family member with bipolar disorder about what you will do if the person becomes manic or suicidal. For example, some people with bipolar disorder and their families decide that it is best for the person with bipolar disorder not to use credit cards. Also, determine what you will do if you need to hospitalize the person. Put your plan in writing.

Have hope. Remember that in most cases, bipolar disorder is treatable and can be stabilized. The condition is usually cyclical, so be prepared for it to worsen and/or improve at times. Finding the right treatment can be a drawn out process, but in time, a solution will be found.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!! This is incredibly helpful

Yes, this is an ideal approach. It is so unfortunate though that many family and friends do the exact opposite to all this. They would rather sit with the stigma, ignorance and actual abuse that is the approach of so many to a family member or friend with mental illness, including Bipolar. And thus the terrible rejection and profound isolation that many of us experience.

I actually read quickly through the information because it is so painful to me, the way I have been rejected and marginalised by family and friends due to an illness I did not bring on myself and for which I work at a rate of 100% in psychiatry and psychology. I have offered all the education and have asked for the level of support reflected in your material, but to no avail. That, though does not diminish what you have proposed here and I hope that it can be passed onto family and friends of people with Bipolar, or taken up with those family and friends who avail themselves of this material in this thread.

Thanks for posting this - just wondering what background you come from to have compiled it, or where you found it? I really do find it helpful - I just wish people in my life were a bit more receptive to this kind of literature and to implementing it.