I'm just looking for advice of how to help my mother cope with bipolar disorder. It's a real struggle because I'm just 19, trying to make it through college, and I have no financial means to offer her aid.
My mother is an alocoholic, and we started realizing something more was wrong after she had been to rehab 7 years ago. I'm 100 % sure that she hasn't had a drop to drink since having gone through treatment. However, I am concerned that she is abusing pain relievers that she takes for her fibromyalgia. Is it possible these might be interfering with medications that she takes for bipolar disorder?
Another issue my family and I have working against us is that my mother ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT admit/ talk to us about the fact that she has a mental disorder; she will only communicate with us about having depression.
Last summer the sheriff's department forcibly removed her from her home and took her to Bryce in Tuscaloosa. Just a few months before she was taken to a horrible facility in Union Springs. She refuses to release her medical information to anyone in our family. We have no idea what's actually going on - we've never even had the confirmation from a medical personel that she is in fact bipolar.
My mom will stay medicated for a few months - just long enough for you to believe things are going to be okay- then, she gets manic and winds up being taken to these facilities. There's no way of getting a straight answer from her. I'm afraid my family is on the brink. We've been struggling with this for a decade now, and have made no progress.
Is there no follow-up therapy when you leave a mental health facility? How do we go about getting my mother to admit to us that she has bipolar disorder? No one knows what to do.