People with Bipolar...

Thanks for your reply. Having been dealing with this for over 50 yrs your situation may not be too severe. The fact that you discovered it and are dealing with it is the first big step. My wife never wanted to talk about it until much later in life even though she has been treated since about our 4th yr of marriage. Don't mean to bore you with my problems but frankly, I need to talk, even thru e-mail. It somehow helps to do so. I do go to a weekly support group for families of relatives having bi-polar condition.

On a personal note, I see you are from New Jersey. We lived in Denville, NJ before I retired in 1993.

I knew from your name, jersey cherries that you were probably from the Cherry Hill section of Jersey. We lived in several states while I was working and St. Louis happened to be on of those places. Lived in Maplewood, Mo. a surburb of St. Louis.St Louis is nice--but coldest place in winter and hottest in summer, at least I thought.

Glad to hear that you have a good husband. That will be one of the main keys toward your continued health. Always take your meds even if you feel you don't need them. That's when trouble usually happens. As to what causes panic attacks, manic behavior, etc., after 50 years I still don't have a real fix on it. Some say stress triggers it. Maybe I'm a stress carrier for my wife although I hate to admit that. By the way I'm 77 yrs old and wife is 78. Spent about 2 1/2 hrs at nursing home this morning. Hate those places. Am working on getting her home and have home health care type people come in during week to assist when needed.

This is not what either of us envisioned for our "golden yrs" but it is what it is. Complaining doesn't help. Talk to u later.

I watched my Grandmother go thru this in the sixty's and without med's they handled it with to be percise 47 electric shock treatments and several visits to the state mental hospitals. As most people know those weren't change to human places till the mid 70's. They would keep her tied down to her bed pretty much 24/7. Try a few more shock treatments and eventually she would come home not quite the same grandmother her lived with us, it would have been impossible for her to live on her own. I was about 8, so I can't remember how many trips she made to Western State Hospital, but I can always remember when they came and got her.

The terrible thing is I have bi-polar also as well as my seventeen year old son. It been a long road since he was diagnosed in about the fifth grade, it was a little eassier to diagnose him because of myself and his great grandmother. I have two other children both grown and I have been married to their Dad for 29 yrs. The older my youngest son gets the worse it gets living in my house. He too doesn't believe in  medication, and I bet we spend 5 nights a week, 2-3 hrs a night with him screaming at me about how I don't understand him, don't respect him, don't love him,... how he would be better off if he just committed suicide, he's worthless, he's know good at anything, he doesn't ..... fortunately I learned early on not to ever raise my voice to him, it just sets him off in an never ending rage, so I sit, I listen, I try to build on his achievements, or I just sit quietly night after night, my husband is on the road all week. With both of of us being bi-polar I'm not sure if were both going to make it till he is eighteen next April.

So in the long run maybe good old fashion shock therpy would be better than med's cause I remember my Grandmother being kinda cantatonic for several months. I can endure his treatment of me as long as I know he is safe, but honestly after all these years I just wanted to run my car off the road and make it look like an accident!  Guess I really needed to get that out.

Sorry it was so lenghtly, Monotdid