I'm being eaten alive

Hi, as some of you know I have BP1. I don't post in the forums often, but I wanted to get all this out.

First of all I've been super depressed lately which is triggering my behavior. I'm also an addict in early stages of recovery.

So today my sister's boyfriend came to stay the night. Now he's lived with us for periods of times at points and it makes me uncomfortable and annoyed to have somebody else in my house that isn't my mom, my sister, and I. So I got mad at my mom and my sister and asked them why he was here.

My mom then preceded to get super mad at me, spilling all of her problems with me. She said "you make everyone around you feel like ****" and "you don't care about anyone other than yourself and your girlfriend" and "what motive would you have for those texts, I don't understand". So I try and explain to her that I feel like **** which sometimes comes out on others and that I try so hard to be the best I can be. I told her sometimes my illness manifests in ways that hurt other people and I don't mean it. She then precedes to say "maybe you should be in the hospital" and then questions if my relationship with my girlfriend is healthy (which it is).

I go to group every week, I hold down a job, I take my medication everyday and she says "why don't you do more to get yourself better, maybe you need the hospital". It just makes me feel terrible, all of this. I try so hard everyday and then my mom just made me feel like I'm not doing close to enough. She questioned the thing that makes me happiest, my relationship, and every time I bring up my illness as a factor in the way I act she says "well then maybe you shouldn't be making life plans"..."maybe you should be in the hospital".

This is a wall of text and I don't know what the point is, I just needed to get it all out. Thank you for reading this.

I'm so sorry your mom reacted that way. Sounds like you are doing a hell of a great job with your life and your illness! Do you think maybe she just reacted and said those hurtful things in anger? Does she ever do that? I don't have the whole story but it doesn't sound to me like you need to be hospitalized at all.

Thanks for the reply. She did reply out of anger, but then she got mad at me for reacting and replying out of anger. Every time I remind her I have an illness she's like "i thought you had it under control, well maybe you have to go to the hospital".

I'm completely aware that I'm not anywhere near to crisis mode and I don't have to go to the hospital. I know I hurt her, but it hurts so much when she reacts in anger and makes me feel bad about myself. It makes me feel like she doesn't appreciate how hard I'm trying.

She would have far more empathy for you if she had any idea what you were going through. This insipid "Maybe you should be in the hospital" stigmatizes your need for treatment and uses the hospital as a threat and a dismissal. "Well then maybe you shouldn't be making life plans"? Thanks for the support, mom. WTF? Forgive them their ignorance but your illness is indeed potentially life-altering, and if your mom and your sister fully appreciated that then they wouldn't risk needlessly triggering you with the live-in boyfriend stressing you out. Next time your mom suggests that you be banished (to the hospital), you could suggest that you would need to be in a hospital only if you were triggered into full-blown mania by a severe stressor, like a prolonged period of inappropriate and invasive sleepovers. The transition from home to hospital is not always according to plan and doesn't necessarily leave others unscathed.

Hang in there, MattBemis!

Hey Matt, we're all "walls of text" so no apologies necessary!

For me, I have found it healthy to move away from trying to please everyone. I get in big trouble if I spin myself in circles. In the long run, my approach may ruin a few relationships but so be it. There are a few people in my family that don't accept my condition......my mom is one of them. She is probably an undiagnosed BP herself (up and down all the time, could be very angry, mean, and violent) but she grew up in a generation where showing "weakness" was weakness and people dealt with things differently back them. On top of that, she had always hoped I'd be a brain surgeon or something like that. Combining this, she doesn't really accept me for who I am. In fact, she never asks how I'm doing, just asks about things like my kids and asks all sorts of annoying, probing questions. I fell WELL sort of her ideal for me but that's OK. Now, I focus on ME and let the other things just happen around me.

Keep on with the sobriety, brother! I am sober from booze for a few months now! Drinking was a part of me trying to "please everyone". Quitting has been a huge help to me. We shall walk the road! Pax.

Matt, what comes to my mind is that you should just tune that out, put in imaginary earplugs, until you see her looking at you with love and concern, which is the actual appropriate way for a mother to be. This other stuff--I think that's not exactly her, not the way she really feels deep down.

Thanks guys, I'm really glad about the support. I know she loves me, she's my mother, she'd do anything for me. I don't think she knows how to deal with my illness.

It doesn't help that I have a job that I hate, not too much money, and my girlfriend is 2000 miles away. I try so hard and everything gets harder and harder. When do I get to "make it"?

Your mother doesn't sound helpful. Try to tune her out.