Recently a received a message from someone who was very distressed because her family wouldn’t accept her because of her mental illness. Her family hadn’t cut her out of their lives, necessarily, but they didn’t understand bipolar disorder and just waved her off telling her to “take her meds.” They made no effort to support her dealing with her mental illness.
And to this woman, family was everything. She didn’t think she could live without the support of her family.
And while I know that family is critically important to some people, I’m here to tell you: you can live with a mental illness, with bipolar disorder, without the support of your family.
Family Support in Mental Illness
I’m the first one to say that support from loved ones is incredibly important when dealing with a mental illness like bipolar disorder. And yes, those loved ones typically include family. But here’s the thing – it doesn’t have to. Yes, in an ideal world our families would embrace us, support our mental illness challenges and help us to get better, but our world is not ideal. If you have the support of your family through your mental illness consider yourself lucky, because, certainly, not everyone does.
Living with a Mental Illness without Family Support
I lived with a mental illness, bipolar disorder, without family support for a long time. It took years for my mother to come around and be what I would consider to be “supportive.” But I survived all those years. Because while family may be something, family is not everything.
Supportive Loved Ones Come in All Shapes and Sizes
What matter is not blood relationships, what matters is that people care about you and want to support you through your mental illness. It doesn’t matter to me that my friends are not related to me by birth – they are supportive and that’s what’s critical. And it doesn’t matter that some of the people who are related to me are not supportive of my bipolar disorder struggles. Because you can’t control who you’re related to and the relationships you were born with will not always work out.
Cherish Any Support in Mental Illness
In fact, those that care about you might be professionals – your healthcare team. Certainly a therapist and psychiatrist are quite capable of caring for a mentally ill person’s welfare. Their support of your mental illness journey should be cherished as well as the support offered by your loved ones.
Because placing too much value on one person (or people)’s ability to support you is not a good idea. When you tie your reality to this – you give that person control over your perspective and that’s not healthy. You control your perspective and survival irrespective of what some other person does.
Yes, it would be great if the people we cared about radically accepted us and supported us and our mental illnesses but that just doesn’t always happen. What you need to know is that you can survive, and thrive, anyway. You have it within yourself to stand because others (such as everyone else with bipolar disorder) will always be with you. No matter what.
Even after all these years, my mom still doesn’t get it. I don’t expect much from anyone, it’s okay if they don’t understand, but my mom has been there with me all along, why is she denying my illness now? I wish I didn’t need her help, but I do. She’s the only person left in my life. I used to feel so close to her, why the hell does it feel so different now? When I was doing therapy, she seemed so hurt and tried her best to support me, but once it started getting worse and I quit therapy, suddenly she acts like she doesn’t know about my diagnosis. My mental illness has destroyed my life and I’m afraid it is destroying me now, so I keep asking for help. It only makes everything so much worse. I know she’s sick of my bullshit because she told me so today lol but I need it if I want to live. I understand why she feels so disappointed, but I can’t help but being this way. I know, maybe I should have tried harder to be as normal as my brother, but I can’t. We fought today and now I’m on the edge, I really can’t take this anymore. I don’t know what to do to make her understand that I never meant to hurt her in any way. Although I didn’t ask to be born, we can’t run from our responsibilities, now can we? I really… lmao I don’t even know anymore. I wish she was more comphreensive. Instead of yelling at me, why can’t she sit down and listen to me? I mean… fuck you, dude… I’m sorry, alright? Shit. Also thank you dad for ignoring me and then trying to make me look bad in front of your family
You poor thing, my family hopeless too & friends & my health insurance doesn’t even cover mental health I am wild,
My family is completely selfish about mental health issues..my mum just says dont be silly and pull yourself together!! If only it was that simple!! Ive attempted suicide a few times and although my sister has bi-polar and as done this herself also..she says its a selfish act so im thinking she asnt really been suicidal at all because when your in that state your not feeling selfish you just want to go and be at peace for once!! I have bpd severe depression and severe anxiety disorder which limits my life so so much!!
Yes I know how u feel, my health insurance doesnt even cover mental health, what’s the point of having health insurance?
My family hopeless so is my bestie, I am gng to come right even if I do have to pay for it, so annoying then they wonder why u commit suicide maybe if they looked after us better there would be less of it
Hi, I was diagnosed with scitz, anorexia, manic depression and generalized anxiety. I told my family about my depression and anxiety because they are accepting of “normal” mental illness. But recently close family members have mocked eating disorders and it really hurt. I have been misdiagnosed often in the past and as a result nobody believes me. Now I’m to afraid to tell anyone about my ED or scitz.
I find it funny how when I was in hospital after my third suicide attempt I was told they would be there for me however now only one month later nobody believes me. My doctor wanted me to go to a mental hospital last week because of suicidal ideation and a large dip in my mood however none of my family would let me go (I dont drive) so instead I’m left with no support. The only social interaction i get is from my weekly gp visits.
Dealing with stigma is difficult but it’s so much worse when it comes from family members.
Can u call an ambulance to take u or a taxi or uber
I am a diagnosed paranoid schiz, and have bipolar 1 along with manic depression. I have always caught my sister telling her friends that I’m “crazy” or “not right in the head”. My family seems to think that I cannot accomplish anythinh, and that I should just live off the government for the rest of my life.
I thought my mother was the only blood family of mine to fully support me, but I just found out that she also doubts my abilities. She told a friend of hers that she is afraid I will finally get my job as a teacher and “go crazy on the kids”. I was horrified to realize that she also saw me as my illness, and not for me. I feel like once you are diagnosed, that society puts a mask on your face, and it is labeled with your disorders, and that is all people will ever see you for instead of the person you are behind that mask. I want people to see ME, not my illness! I feel like I have nobody but myself, but that is more than enough to keep me going. I am NOT my illness, or the sterotypes that society thinks I am. I AM ME!
I forgot that this isn’t the only post from me on this page.. Brain isn’t working so well but my last post is what going on with me and how I have felt for a while. All posts from Michael on this page are me. I would like some coaching, as you can see by my most current post right under this. I feel like I am slipping. I wish us all some peace
I have only the support of one person and that is my wife. She is getting really tired but she is by my side,, Everyone in my extended family and all the friends I had have dropped me like a hot potato and some have even questioned my motives for calling them and not one has ever called me. Being treated by the extended family with such disdain and hurtfulness really hurt me hard…Basically since I cannot work, . All I wanted was some interaction. What does one do in this situation.
Hi Michael,
It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve finally come to the conclusion that extended families are overrated, especially siblings. One sister I was close to has descended from simple ignorance to willful ignorance, from criticism to disdain and contempt. That’s why I stopped contact with her recently. She’s an unhappy person who projects her misery onto others and has always been hypercritical of people. I feel much less stressed from not having to deal with her smug style. I’m fortunate to have a very supportive husband, two terrific sons and their partners. I also have a few good long term friends, but I’m careful not to burden any of the above with my health issues – nobody wants to hear about chronic illnesses – it wears people out. I’m typically an upbeat person, considered good company and fun to be with. I try to keep it that way. Friends are so important to me though – I think loneliness and boredom are horrible afflictions.
So what do I do with the frustration and stigma of being no longer able to work due to BP & Complex PTSD, my subsequent financial problems, and having a son with BP & GAD? Well, I’ve found a good therapist – I see her a couple of times/month. Also, I have found a terrific support group in a peer-led DBSA, and I try to go to weekly meetings as best as I can manage. A handful of the DBSA group members have formed an off-shoot group for BP and depression sufferers who have both young and adult children with MI too. We’ve formed a solid bond – we gain insight from each other and strength. I think I could form a good friendship with one or two of the attendees now if I chose to. It was really hard for me to start attending a couple of years ago, but I’m so grateful I did – I find it invaluable now. Do you have a DBSA chapter nearby or any other support groups you’ve tried? Any luck there at all?
I’m glad to hear how supportive your wife is and I know you’re concerned about wearing her out too. Forming new outside bonds at this age is slow & hard work, but it’s been worth my time and effort (when able to.) In closing about family and friends, I saw a sign in a shop recently that appealed to me. It said, “One loyal friend is worth 10,000 relatives.” I agree with that sentiment more and more these days. I wish you peace.
Hi. My name is Thandeka from South Africa. I’m super frustrated because no one seems to be willing to understand. I’ve explained, had therapists contact my family but my mom tells me that I’m not sick. She’s a Jehovas witness, to her as long as I attend meetings, pray and preach my life will go back to normal. 4 weeks ago I ended up in ICU (ER). A day later she says I’m not sick. Then there’s my sister who I’m putting thru to college, I was a mother to her when my m…. I’m so tired of trying. I go for therapy every 2 weeks. I’ve been on so many medications. Epilem, seroquol, trezodone, cilift, Edco Alzam. I’ve been poor. Molested from the gage of 3 years old till I was 7. My parents were buy fighting each other everyday yo notice. I’m 27 now. I only told them about the abuse last year. I have endometriosis, chances are I will never be a mom. I had a corneal transplant which my body is now rejecting. I have no one. My prayer every night I’d that I die on my sleep. I’ve done all that I can for my family to understand but they just refuse to.. I have no streanth to go on. I don’t wanna go on. The flash backs , the nightmares. How do I believe in a god that watched a 3 year bring molested. I’ve tried everything but thus I’d a losing battle. I just don’t wanna feel anymore. I hurt my family by being sick. My only way put Is death. I can’t do it anymore. I tried.
My family has deserted me. I am all alone having a nervous breakdown and struggling to work a full time and part time job to support myself. I am in the process of leaving am awful abusive narcissist husband. I have been suck for years but my family are ashamed if me even tho I finished high school college with bachelors degree always worked. I feel I am too sick to work
Right now but now one to help me I cry all day at work will prob lose job and be homeless
Totally in despair and I have bipolar 2 so I rarely ever get up or happy. Awful life and no support makes me hopeless
Susan
Are you doing better?
I think this article is both interesting and useful and I would like to see more on this subject. I went through my entire childhood undiagnosed and still suffer the consequences of that (isolation etc), even after being recently diagnosed bipolar 1 (as an adult), the dynamics mostly remain the same. I’m not looking for answers to the problem just insight into moving away from it keeping the parts that work. I come from a large family but at least I have some understanding from my mother and one sibling. I just discovered this blog site and I’m happy to have done so.
and am also an adhd girl.
so itz impossible for me to accept a society or culture dat i dont like
it will suffocates me.
it will be like am living in a place wer there is no oxygen
nd eventualy i fell into depression
i am in my medication nd counsiling section for one nd a half year
but wen am depressed none of dis will hepl me
i will be alone in dat pit
feeling empty
at sometimes i will feel very enthusiastic…, it will be like impossible to control my energy. i will find happiness in almost everything…, it will be really hard to satisfy my needs…., it will be almost impossible to make me stop. i will be lyk jumping running laughing all the time.
suddenly due to some small tiny reason (or say without any reason) everything will change into exact opposite .
will start feeling my life is empty. nthing will make me happy. i will become suicidal.
i wanted to do manny things in my life. i want to go night parties. to watch city lights at the night, hangout with lotz of frnd,drop collage nd do wat i really want to do, be independent, get a tatto, dance in a rain, watch sunrise. nd many more.
bt i cant do ny of dis. nt becoz my family is conservative, becoz my society is conservative…, so i dont have ny frndz with whom i can do ol dis stuff,
so i thought dat i will leave my native place.
bt am in a middle of my engineering course. so giving up now will be lyk wasting my last two nd a half years hardwork.
bt i still have one nd a half year left…,, i dont kow wat shud i do.
i will be left with no degree if i drop the course.
bt life in here is so unbearable dat i want to runaway.
bt am nt cofident abt doing dat
nd how could i do dat to my family
my life is boring…., der is no spark in my life. it is better to die dan living like dis.
At this point in time my family have abandoned me completely. My wife and kids believe that I am a sociopath and that the only way to deal with me is to avoid me altogether. I am not a sociopath, by the way, having been diagnosed at the Ottawa General Hospital where I spent over a month in the Mental Health unit.
Once I was diagnosed, I felt a large weight was lifted off my shoulders. It was also the starting point for my wife’s plan to get rid of me. First thing, once released she wouldn’t let me in the house. She changed the locks just to be sure. Second, she tried to rip me off in the proceeds of the sale of the house, and third, she moved to a location that I am not aware of, has an unlisted number, and neither her or my son or my daughter will return any form of communication.
How can people be so cruel
I cant speak for your wife nor the relationship but STIGMA is what we deal with every day.. People cannot understand what we have unless they have it, too. My wife is very loving and took her about three years to finally understand I would say about 90 percent of what I have.Also , the divorce rate is extremely high in families that have a bipolar spouse. I can understand why. We went to the doctor tonight and she really level set my wife. I wish you peace and hopefully some success in getting things straightened out.
I am going through this right now. I was diagnosed with BP 1 12 years ago. I had up and downs mixed episodes. But recently I had a mixed episode last 3 day. I am also diagnosed with PTSD I grew up in a family with an alcoholic father whom was abusive to my mother. Raped …YES raped my cousin as a young girl. My mother died when j was 15 from sudden cardiac death. I found her. My cousin males ted me at around 5 yes old…my dad males ted my now 20+yr beat friend at a sleep over when we were little..mi mean it goes on and on. Thing is I left at 17 on my own worked since I was 12. Got a career for 16 yrs…got married moved. Now it has been 4 years since me and my husband got married. So nothing this bad w the BP so far. Till now. I have been having mixed and I have been “losing time” (blacking out) during this time I get angry and fight w him. It’s aweful I don’t remember any of it. !! My dr told me it’s the ptsd wow I never thought it could effect me to this degree. In the middle of a manic attack he looked at me and said…he couldn’t take anymore. I was in the middle of a sentence about my cousin males ting me and I was balling my eyes out. Then he said that. It felt like he deserted me. I never been so SICK. But he looks at me and doesn’t see sick. He sees a normal looking person and he gets mad. ..I don’t know if we are gonna make it. Fyi I moved for him to his home town fate moving w him the first time out of state so I have not had anyone close to me in 4 yrs. Uggg stress SUCKS
Kim… I wish you peace.. I wish all of us with this dreaded malady peace.
Yes Natasha,U r very true..support for mental illness people is the first remedy..A fine article !!!!
Listen to no one else but yourself!
Family is not the only thing you must get support. You can always get support with people who have mental illness too and I tell you, support from this kind of people is always special and there is care because you are the same. They really understand what you feel and what you need.
Wow, am glad to have stumbled on this today. My brother suffered for 18 good years and I only found ot this june he had been diagnosed with bipolar and Sch affective disorder. I wasn’t leaving with him in the US and had always been against this my family’s denial and superstitious attitude around his illness. He died last month – am actually writing his book. Now, I also suffer from depression and PTSD and some members of my family think I have the plague. I now understand much more. I refuse to wear the signature smile he wore just so as to have tears shed at my funeral. I mean, I saw people who didn’t even as much as want to talk to him while he was alive, shed the most tears. wtf. I am cutting them off regardless of the degree of affinity. There is much support to be found everywhere and not only in blood families or whatever.
STIGMA and hypocrisy.. I wish I knew better and cut my family and best friends off first. I am left with nobody in my life other than my wife and son… Its quite lonely but I don’t have to deal with the disbelief and ridicule and guilt. I have too much of my own guilt for putting my son and wife through this. You are in my opinion a very wise person to do this. If you are going to be alone, do it on your terms. It will still hurt but you know that it was your choice and you wont be made into a victim.. I wish you peace.
A fine article which got right to the point and showed all the considerable research and interpersonal experience you have with other BP sufferers.
I am lucky my family were supportive but I must qualify it by saying sometimes the support can be limited as people take mania/depression behavior to heart and react defensively and feel like they should be apologized to.
This makes me sad my parents are my best support and they have been through hell and back with me through twenty years of mismanaged bipolar 1 psychosis. However, my previous husband was very unsupportive and often told me that we couldn’t afford my meds or my therapist and I would just have to tough it out. Also, after post partum psychosis he took away my meds and gave me pot. Fortunately pot was a decent drug for me,, but it was illegal at the time and it was given to me without a doc’s knowledge. I don’t mean to sound whiny, but a supportive family is crucial. If your blood kin don’t support you, find some elsewhere. Feel free to check out my website for a casual place to connect.
I get no real emotional or physical support from my spouse. Family? Forget it. They either ignore it, or think it’s just bullshit/fake/attention-seeking/selfish crap. My spouse won’t talk about it. He seems to think I’m ok because I’m not lying in bed crying all the time, or in the hospital constantly, or OD’ing now and again. He has no concept of PTSD, agoraphobia, to go outside alone, the inability to work, anxiety, panic, mania, bipolar depression, bipolar… He won’t really read up. He’s so sensitive that he takes one thing I say one time to heart as rule, and doesn’t hug me or hold me unless I initiate it, then he doesn’t want to do it for long. Friends are too far away to get out to visit and have issues too. So friends are supportive, even online. There are some terrific people out there that you might get lucky enough to “run into” on the ‘net. Immediate family sucks, never has supported the fact that mental health issues – disorders – are REAL, and that I am affected. They brush me off like they want no “drama” in their lives, or want no responsibility for the result of some of the harm done. I just want some justice in this universe, or wherever, and evil punished painfully, twice as badly as I was done wrong and had to live with.
In my case, my Family of Choice is ever so much more understanding and supportive than my Biological Family. I think part of this is due to the fact that in my family, NO ONE is mentally ill and my talking about it drives them nuts as it’s a constant reminder that YES, there is mental illness in our family…in spades! I am in contact, basically, with one brother and believe fully we are in touch because we are both bipolar! The “normies” in my biological family do not care to have anything to do with us. That’s their poor choice.
What I am left with today is hoping for understanding from those I must associate with and the knowledge that most have not read the first thing about mental illness and I must proceed cautiously. My friends and my husband “get it” and are solidly there for me. It’s the ones who pretend to be my friend, who pretend to care and understand, but ultimately they can only pay lip service to any type of understanding. They usually have an image of what a mentally ill person looks like or is capable of and it certainly is not an image that is productive to me and puts me down rather than uplifts me. Just this last week I was told by someone I thought “got it” that if only I didn’t have bipolar, I could do and achieve this or do that. I was stunned, I thought she understood and supported all I am trying to accomplish this year. Days later she went on to state that a legitimate concern I had was really only my bipolar getting the best of me! Yes, insulting, but it only demonstrates just how much educating remains to be done to dispel old, out-dated ideas of the mentally ill and exactly what we ARE capable of. Most importantly, others need to understand that loving me means loving all of me and I would hope for the sake of our relationship you would bother to know something of my illness in order to know me better. …in a perfect world…
With thanks to tons of good therapy, I can say that “family” isn’t always blood and friends put on masks, too. Your well-being is up to you so discover who you can trust so that those connections are made. It’s worth the effort, even if it is only one other person. Life seems more manageable when others are by your side and definitely feels less lonely and isolating.
“You have it within yourself to stand because others (such as everyone else with bipolar disorder) will always be with you.”
It’s true that it doesn’t matter whether those who are supportive to us are our family or our friends. As is often pointed out, we can choose our friends but not our family.
But what makes you think that everyone who has bipolar disorder is supportive of others with the condition? I see no reason to believe that.
I’ve pretty well managed to isolate myself from my friends. My wife refuses to believe that I’m not faking to avoid responsibility for some horrible things I did, especially in the midst of hypomania. She doesn’t believe in taking psych meds and constantly refers to my anti-anxiety meds as “stupid magic pills”. She tells me that I just need to change my attitude and focus my energy on a better reality. Oh, and I should go for Reiki treatments rather than therapy. My only real support from my family is from my six year old son who, whenever he sees me upset, or depressed, or anxious, just silently comes over and hugs me.
The other support I have comes from my therapist that I see every week and the nurse practitioner who handles my meds. I’ve had to invent my own support so I started writing after an extended hiatus. I started a blog and discovered other blogs to follow. Through our posts and comments it’s become a decent community. It’s someplace I can find out how other people deal with similar situations. I don’t feel so alone and ostracized. There are others like me, and that makes things so much more bearable.
Dec 10th 2012 I was diagnosed with bi-polar I. To get support from my family I had to show that I was trying to do something about it and not make them suffer from it. Personally I don’t believe in this diagnosis. Maybe I am in denial of it.
I just don’t choose to admit that because I was diagnosed with BP1 I have an excuse to behave a certain way. I still have bad moments. I curse things and occasionally break something. But, I break my own things. Only blow up in private and noone else has to deal with it.
Fact of the matter is that when I do it in front of people I look like an ass. And no-one wants to support an out of control jackass.
Hi, Michael. Yes this is a lonely disease. Just remember that basically, all humans are alone throughout their lives.
The NAMI courses for families are no doubt very useful, but there need to be family members willing to go! My wife refused, so that’s that.
I get lukewarm support from my family. My two daughters are great, but live far away. My mother is sceptical, and my wife wants nothing to do with the subject. Other family members have their own problems and are more or less neutral.
But I have managed with the help of my psychiatrist and many peer support groups over the years, plus some great self-care help with CBT and DBT classes. As a result, I’m mainly in “remission” now (except when I over-react to major stress and have breakthrough episodes.)
It sucks when the people you love most in the world won’t give you the support you would give to them if the roles were reversed. But that’s the way the universe works, sadly, and we must adapt. They don’t truly love you any less; they’re just ignorant or scared. Everyone charts his or her own destiny.
All I have left is my wife for support.. The support team I used to have are more concerned now that the check doesnt bounce.. My extended family including my sister are gone. I was cut out of the will and I am close to broke. took my wife quite a while to truly understand. I am surprised she didnt leave me. What I woudl do to have a family support network let alone all those friends that I used to have that have vanished. Hard to have a therapist be so supportive when at the 45 minute mark they go times up, I will see you nest week and I have to hand over 150 dollars because no good psychologist around here nor psych doctor takes insurance. I am tapped out after spending close to 100,000 for help and I am worse off. I wish I would have met a therapist who had bipolar because they would truly understand. NAMI has classes for families…. So does the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) I would see if any are around where people who need their family support live. Just remember , please remember, we were born innocent. we did nothing . Its a raw deal when your family cant even be by your side. I know. I pick up the phone to call someone and I have no one to call. This disease is a very lonely one.