Advice Needed

Hi all,

Thanks for welcoming me to the community.

I really need some advice. I live in South Africa with my fiance (proposed on Tuesday - hoorah! ). We're having a bit of a problem. His mom has come to visit us from another country and she's just not right.

He warned me before that his mom has bipolar but didn't go into too much detail. For the first few days while here she was fine, we sat up late chatting, danced in the lounge and just got on like a house on fire. It was wonderful! About five days in, however, things began to change. It started with her not wanting to drink anything but sterilised water and no one else could open her water. That evening (the Friday) she woke us up in the night needing to make a phonecall. She phoned them while in our room and had an ordinary, 2 minute conversation and wondered out again. A few hours later she burst in again saying she couldnt sleep in her room and wanted to sleep on the floor of ours. She slept facedown without a mattress on the carpet.

The next day she was worse. She danced in the lounge for about an hour, staring out the window, changing all the lyrics of the beach boys to religious words ('Help me God, help me get these things out of my head'). We took her to a wine farm and she brought odd things out of the house (like a towel) even though she didnt need it, and was confused about it later.

At the wine farm she kept getting frustrated if things didnt go her way (like she couldnt have the wine she wanted) and on the drive there and back she moaned constantly at my fiance for driving so fast (when he was driving so incredibly slowly) and made us listen to the same CD over and over. At one point she threatened to jump out the car and then cried for a while. Then suddenly was fine again.

I can see in her face she is not herself. On Sunday we took her to the waterfront but before that she had to write a list of everything she had done since being in SA (my fiance's sister believes this is because she thinks she is being poisoned as it went into great detail about food and drink and who had managed it - apparently the being poisoned fear is a common one with her). At the Waterfront she got quite mean, telling her daughter that she could see up her dress and it was disgusting and that her and I were going to get wrinkles cos we smile too much and that her daughter walks funny etc. Eventually she completely freaked out and shouted at us all to get away from her. You could see she was actually petrified of us.

In the car on the way home she eventually told me and my fiance that we sound just like his father and his new wife (who she doesnt like) and he got very irritated and we went home.

Apparently she has been diagnosed as bipolar and has medication, but she refuses to take it, saying it's not her, it's her kids.

I want to know, does this sound like bipolar behaviour to you? Or is it more? Also, if someone won't take their meds, how should we be behaving towards her and also, when she does go back, do you think it is safe for her to fly?

Can no one help me?

If she doesn't want to take her meds, that's her right. She's safe to fly by the sounds of it but, maybe she'll get arrested. Depends on how self aware she is, how intelligent she is and if there are any exagerations in your story. Her life is not your problem.

Does this sound like bipolar? Because I've been doing a lot of reading and can't help but wonder if it's not paranoid schizophrenia.

Are there any psychiatrists on this site? My head is just spinning.

Green-Orange, Yes, it does sound like something is very wrong, and with this erratic behavior, I don't know if they will let her on a flight, much less make it all the way back to her home. If she is acting out, they may refuse to let her fly. I don't know about the airlines by you, but the ones up here are pretty skittish about anyone acting other than calm and quiet. As for what's wrong with her, I can't diagnose, but to me, her behavior sounds paranoid, and bipolar, with maybe some psychosis thrown in. But, like I said, I can't diagnose, so that's just one bipolar person's opinion. Hang in with us through the day, and some of our more experienced members will chime in with their opinions.

By the way, when you posted your request for help, it was the middle of the night in the USA, so don't take the silence as no one wanting/being able to help. It was nothing more than a time zone problem.

Welcome to PC!

I agree with Buggs on this.

Welcome to PC, someone will have more advice for you just stick with us. She sounds like she is in a bad place. She is paranoid and probably scared. I hope someone else responds to you soon. Maybe your fiance should call her pdoc and leave a message. Sounds like she is in psychosis or something to me. I have been told that I take on a different look when I am manic. I guess I have different facial expressions. Is that what you mean she doesnt look like heself?

There isn't anything to do. Mother in law has every right to deny her illness and refuse meds. If she is an unpleasant nightmare to be around, choose not to be around her. If the fiance cannot choose to cut back contact with mother, perhaps rethink the relationship. His unhealthy choice could cause unneeded stress and all sorts of problems. My advice to live your life means to choose who you want in it.

All anyone can do is live her own life. Other people do the same and choices about others? Who we want to contact, how often and obviously, procreation. You can't change people. People can change themselves but, that isn't your responsibility.

Hey Green-Orange,

What does your Fiance and his Sister think/feel about their Mum acting like this? How much info do you all know about her Bipolar. We are all different in the sense of our depressed/manic and hypo-manic phases

@ green-orange... i would have to agree with the others that her behavior suggests possible bipolar disorder with some psychosis... it sounds like there's a LOT going on in her brain & if she's like most of us, sometimes it's so overwhelming that she can't contain it... and she probably doesn't understand most of it...

rest assured, most people diagnosed with bipolar disorder (at some point) struggle with taking their meds... we get to a point where we're fine & it becomes crystal clear (to us, in our own heads) that we don't need any medicine... even while it's glaringly obvious to everyone who knows us that we do, in fact, still need our meds.. it's a vicious cycle... one that many of us have survived... albeit not without scars of some sort...

i don't have the answers for you as to what she is suffering inside or how to best handle it.. i wish it was that easy... that any one of us would have the right words to tell you to make this situation more bearable & bring a positive resolution...

with a friend of mine who is often reluctant to maintain his medication regimen... all i can do is be there... occasionally, when he's just skyrocketing beyond hyper & i know it's because he hasn't taken his meds, i'll ask him GENTLY if he's thought about taking his medication that evening... i can only do this because he and i have an understanding (being that we both suffer some of the same problems) & there is a tone about my voice when i express my concern... i am always supportive.. even when he's taking on eighteen projects at once & his speech is so fast, i'm probably the only one who can make out what he's saying... and it goes over ok with him when i mention his meds because he is self aware enough and intelligent enough to be able to step back and recognize that even for him, his behavior is somewhat extreme.. he has also already come to a place in his life where he has accepted that he has certain mental illnesses.. and lucid enough to understand my asking as an expression of concern... not as an accusation or ... well, anything negative

that is tricky though... for someone that you're not especially close to... repeatedly asking someone if they've taken their meds, or constantly nagging them to do so.. is like throwing gasoline on a fire... you will get burned...

as out of control as she is, i hate to say it, but hospitalization may be best for her... although she will resent you & possibly even hate you for it...

you should prepare yourself, however, to accept that she may never acknowledge that she has any sort of mental problem.. in which case, it is highly unlikely she would ever willingly take the meds that it sounds like she so desperately needs... i know that's heart breaking to hear... but sometimes it's just the truth.

Well said, touchingSaturn. Well said.

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for your advice, I appreciate it more than I can express. I've been feeling quite desperate and scared to be around her.

My partner's mother started taking her meds the other day and seems to be a bit better. She seemed almost 100% two nights ago and then seemed a bit out of sorts again last night. Apparently she has been quite nasty to her daughter but nothing too irrational.

@moremi, yes what I meant by not looking like herself was that she has a strange look in her eye. When I first met her she was well and had a very warm look to her, but somehow she seems to harden up when sick? she has twitches as well, mainly the sides of her mouth. I can't tell whether it's a tic, her smiling, or her trying to smile to cover up the fact that she is so scared of everything. Which is very sad.

@cocobeans, luckily she lives very far from us. It's a 24-hr flight and quite pricey so I don't think we'll see too much of her. Bit worried about the wedding though. I'm prepared to live a life with her in it, I know it's not her and she's sick and I want to support my fiance, but she has to be on meds.

@MissLaura, it's a sad story actually. My fiance and sister were raised almost single-handedly by her. They recognise she has a problem and get extremely frustrated by it. I can tell it hurts them a lot. They say she has been diagnosed as bipolar but his sister also acknowledges some paranoid schizophrenia in there. They both want to place a distance between them and her now, after this holiday, because she won't admit she has a problem. I find that so sad though, because it's no one's fault, and the idea of them not having a mother in their life is very sad as well.

@touchingsaturn, thanks for everything you said there. She doesn't seem to respond to anyone telling her to take meds. I don't know, I find it completely overwhelming. I've never seen anything at all like this ever. I don't know whether to laugh or cry and I really want to back away from the situation but at the same time support my guy who is struggling himself with dealing with it.

She leaves for home on Monday. I'm really hoping she is fine by then as she is taking her meds consistently. We're going away for half of this weekend and taking her with. I hope she doesn't find the trip too stressful ... is there anything that might trigger her getting sick?

Thanks so, so much guys for all your help. I really can't tell you how much better it feels to touch base with people who know what they're talking about and who understand what I'm talking about. It's hard to talk to my fiance about it because I can't tell him his mom petrifies me, so you have all made me feel not alone anymore.

Green-orange,

it's so completely fantastic that you care so much for your future mil, and are patient with her right now when she's obviously not in a good place. Not too many daughters in law are like that, so hopefully when she's better, she'll recognize that.

Being so new to this forum and dealing with my own dx, I can only tell you that one of my huge issues is travel of any kind. Being out of my own home and routine always sets me down a dark path for a while, so I have to be really aware of how I'm reacting to things while I'm gone and for a while after I return. Since she's visiting you at the moment, there may not actually be a whole lot that you can do to minimize her stress, other than be patient with her when she seems to be the most ill or acting out.

Again, you're doing something really wonderful for your partner and for her.

i completely agree about how amazingly awesome it is that your instinct is to want to reach out & help in whatever way you can... rather than withdraw completely from her in abject horror... so many people don't have that ability when they are around mentally unstable people - their fear of the unknown outweighs their compassion... the world needs more open hearts like yours...

i also wanted to mention that one of the most important things to maintaining stability for many bipolar patients is ROUTINE... i don't know why exactly... i just know disruptions in regular patterns (perhaps because they add an amount of stress... whether good or bad).. can affect bipolar patients adversely... i might reconsider taking her out and about if i were in your shoes... while i know your intentions are good, consider how many uncontrollable variables you will be exposing her to in your travels... for someone who is already mentally unstable & very fragile in many ways, this could spell disaster for her... i'm not saying that it definitely will, just that it's a possibility...

try to make whatever environment you spend the rest of her time with you guys as safe for her as possible... i don't mean "hide the shiny sharp objects"... although that's a good idea, too.. but make it as unstressful & welcoming/warm and secure as you can... allowing her to find some security and stability in her physical environment has the distinct probability of translating directly into better mental stability...

however you choose to spend the weekend, know that we're all here for you whenever you need to talk