[bitterdregs]

Hi. I have a daughter. She's adopted. She's now 29 and has a 3 year old son living with her. I adopted her when she was 17 and pregnant with her first child.

She is bi polar. Extremely bi-polar. Until about 2 years ago, she was able to not neccessarily control, but recognize the onset of her rages and remove herself and use some techniques I taught her to calm the rage. It does'nt remove the bi polar but it does help to put her into a calm state more quickly.

Recently, she has been unable...even unwilling to recognize she has a problem that needs to be dealt with. Instead she is using "bi polar" as an excuse to hurt people. She has become cruel, completely self absorbed even when she not having an episode. She has begun lying about everything. If she makes a bad decision, she will completely destory someone elses character just to convince people she was wronged thus making the problem " not her fault". She is very smart and very convincing and has hurt many people by staging things and spreading untruths. She is completely disrespectful to me unless she wants money and if she gets the money she becomes completely disrespectful again once she has it.

her bio mother is...I don't know the diagnosis but she's bad with it whatever it is.

There may be something other than bi polar that is creeping in as she gets older but I have no idea what. She refuses to get help. The free mental health places want to throw drugs at her within 15 minutes and I agree that's wrong. They should at least talk to her a few times before they diagnose and prescribe. But she finds the money to go to 120 dollar ticket concerts and goes on road trips etc... but she won't use the same money to get a real shrink.

I have stuck with her all this time. I have let her ruin my reputation and still I love her and have helped her and stood by her. Even though it is a psych problem... I gotta say I am at the end of my rope with her. I will honestly say I want to remove her from my life. I don't want to talk to her or email her or see her. I have panic attacks just thinking about talking to her. But I will always love her. I am concerned about my grandson. He lives with this daily.

I don't know what to do.

[blueoctober]

Hi bitterdregs; I'm sorry you are struggling with this. Does your daughter take medication? It's really important for her to get Professional help, but in saying that the effort and work is done by the person who is diagnosed i.e. I have to take my medication, exercise, eat healthy, go to therapy, go to work; put effort into my life etc. No one can do this for me, but I appreciate my support team (Psychiatrist, therapist, a few friends, and my horse)

It's also important for you to set boundaries with your daughter. Yes at times people can say and do horrible things to each other. It may or may not be a symptom of the bipolar and in reality it doesn't matter. You decide how to react and whether to engage with her. The book in my signature is for families, spouses etc. and it's excellent. I hope it helps.

With your grandson that does cause me more concern. Does your daughter have people in her life that can help care for him when she isn't well?

[lonegael]

Another thing to think about is is she also using drugs right now? Drug usage can cause some of the changes you mention. Unfortunately, Many people with bipolar disorder have problems with drug and alchohol dependancy as a way to self medicate. Even more of a reason to make sure that your grandson is safe. Huggs to you and blessings.

[lotusflames]

unfortrunatley you can't force her to get help if she doesn't want to.

from what you've said, she's never seen a psych so how do you know it's bipolar?

[IndigoRose]

Most people that are bipolar, even if they're in denial about it, try very hard NOT to us it as an excuse to do the things you've said your daughter has done and is doing. I think she needs a real diagnosis, because clearly there's more wrong there. She may have "inherited" whatever her biological mother has.

[bitterdregs]

No, she saw a shrink for awhile when she came to live with me. She's bi polar. very bi polar. That part is not in question. She's always had the same behavioural traits but now they are exxaggerated x 10.

Well, I just got an email from her. Evidently she let the free shrink dole out some pills. She said she was on seroquil first but it was in her words " nasty". She says now she is on Nortryptaline which she says is not helping much but it's not messing with her. She is limited to email by phone so she only writes sentences and until tomorrow I canT phone her. I'm never sure how much of what she says is true though. I don't know what this new shrinks diagnosis is. I'm appalled that they diagnose so quickly barely having a conversation with her once. She has a tendancy to try to get people to like her and hide the worst parts of herself. She is a genius, very charismatic, exceptionally beautiful. You know come to think of it she never said it was the free shrink. It may just be the doctor that she has a crush on giving her pills. He's given her valium before. sigh.

Yes I am sure there is something else going on that when combined with the bipolar, makes for a monstrous personality. Unless she gets to a good shrink, I don't know if it will ever be diagnosed. If i could just win the lottery or something.... There IS a really cool person underneath all of this. If there were not, I could'nt have hung on this long.

She's not going to do anything i suggest.

Thanks for the book reference. I think I'll pick up a copy, read it, and send it to her.

[blueoctober]

bitterdregs; from how you describe your daughter it sounds like Borderline Personality Disorder. Not to say that she doesn't have BP, but it may be a dual diagnosis. Just a thought.

In reading your posts, bitterdregs, I was very much thinking the same thing as blueoctober about Borderline. Also, I noticed in your posts that there was no mention of her behavior being connected with either depressive episodes or hypomanic/manic episodes**. That cyclical and connected factor is one of the very biggest indicators for BP. Also, rage is not diagnostic for BP. Neither is lying. These cover a number of the problematic behaviors you describe. It sounds like her behavior is pretty consistent (though as you note it is seeming worse) as the way she operates all the time. You said, "She's always had the same behavioral traits..." Borderline is one's way of interacting with the world around them...(maladaptive though it may be...) which, to me anyway, is pretty well the definition of behavioral traits. I'm not so sure that the BP is a given (and if I may be so bold, I'm not reading much evidence of BP here -- I definitely don't mean that to be harsh, just a striking observation). If she only saw a "shrink" for a short time, a quick judgement might have been made. It's been known to happen. (If one just looked at "mood swings", this could easily happen and why people sometimes confuse BP and BPD. There's quite a bit more to both.) Also found curious your descriptions of "staging things" and "destroying other people's characters" (like idealizing someone then suddenly devaluing them??) Right here on Psych Central there is an article that you will likely find very interesting.

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/sym...lity-disorder/

Lonegael brought up something important too -- a lot of these behaviors occur with substance abuse too, so that'd be worth looking into as well.

Hope I didn't come off as too ... something. We can't diagnose (obviously), but in reading your posts, they just sound so descriptive of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), that I can't help noting it. If in any way this can help steer you in a direction that might help...

You've been in a very difficult position and my heart goes out to you.

**(When you used the word "episode" it struck me in sense of having rages.... forgive me if I misread this.).

[bitterdregs]

Well, I kind of thought it went without saying. Everyone here knows what bi polar is like. yes depressive and manic episodes. The manic can be extreme rage or hyper happy ( happy isnt the right word. I'm not sure what is. Like she will take the world by storm. Top of her game. ) I used to be bi polar myself, but it was a different type. can't remember what is was. ( yes used to be. It disappeared with a bout of brain damage ) It's one of the reasons I could handle her when previous foster homes could not. I understood because I've been through it myself.

So bi polar/ borderline perhaps. I'm not terribly familiar with borderline. When she was 17/18, both a psychologist and psychiatrist dianosed her as bi polar. At that point in time she refused to take meds so I taught her a few techniques to help.

I did'nt think rage was part of bi polar either but i was watching discovery health and they had a show on bi polar and they say it is in certain cases and showed examples. She fit the examples. I was thinking perhaps the rage was part of whatever else was wrong with her and overlapped those manic episodes at times. So I don't know what to think now.

"devaluing"...no. She maintains their value for herself while destroying their reputation with everyone else. Always in order to make herself look better or innocent in a given situation. I will read the article though.

Evidently whomever she is seeing now also says she is bi polar. So that's 3 diagnosis plus my observations from having been bi polar myself. BUT I do think there is a personality disorder on top of this. OH..she may have brain damage as well. never had an MRI done. her step father when she was about 12, put her head through a glass cabinet into the wall. She says she was different before that. Her biological sister who she has'nt seen since she was 12 also has a diagnosis of bi-polar.

Absolutely no substance abuse. She's scared to death of drugs which is why it took her this long to agree to psych meds. She took a VERY occasional valium only when she could'nt get it together. That was just for a couple of months. The doctor only gave her like 15 of them. They practically had to be force fed to her. She also has to take regular drug tests for work. Keeping a job though is not her strong suit. The one she is at now, she seems to be doing very well with though.

I think if she's borderline it's on top of the bi polar. I am going to read up on borderline, so thank you very much !

[lonegael]

Good luck Bitterdregs. Thank heavens there is someone like you there for people like your daughter and your grandson. Strength to you!

Originally Posted by bitterdregs

I did'nt think rage was part of bi polar either but i was watching discovery health and they had a show on bi polar and they say it is in certain cases and showed examples.
Absolutely no substance abuse.

Well, yeah, rage can certainly be a problem for many with BP (myself included, no doubt about it --meds have helped hugely), I was just saying that it's not diagnostic (as in DSM criteria).

I'm sooooo glad to know there's no substance abuse (as if things wouldn't be complicated enough already, right?!)

She was certainly very lucky to have been adopted by you!