A
female
age
36-40,
chigirl
writes:In order for aunts and question askers to see who they are getting advice from, I will continue to write some more about me, and where I come from. The things that I draw on when giving advice, what type of experience I have in life. This article is about my family. I come from a family with mental health problems. I had a mental disturbance myself as a child, something that has been proven to be inheritable. In my family, I guess as in most families, there is a lot of secrets concerning what happened to whom/who is struggling with what, and everyone likes to keep things to themselves. Especially mental health is a taboo. And I have promised not to tell anyone what they have told me, which is hard to do. Their burdens weigh down on me too, either from just knowing, or from the consequences it has to be around someone with a mental health problem. The only promise I have broken so far is the one I gave my father. He has bipolar personality disorder, something he recently got diagnosed. Growing up with him was a struggle, and when talking about myself it is hard not to mention him. It is also hard to keep his secret, because to me, telling others he is bipolar explains so much more than to explain every scene he has caused, every oddity about him. Everyone I know has heard about his episodes. But only you people online, and my boyfriend and ex’es, knows he is bipolar. I had to tell someone some time. Having him as a father was always rough and I don’t think I’d manage it if I couldn’t went out to someone every now and then. Me and my father work as magnetic poles, pulling energy between us. That is at least how my psychiatrist chose to explain it. I am his opposite, the only one who can stand up against him. The one who gets closest to him, the one who dares to fight him. Many a times he said he’d never speak to me again, and I couldn’t care less. But then he keeps coming back. As a child I didn’t love him, and I didn’t care for him. Only after “waking up” emotionally could I begin to love him. I keep sticking by him, even though he has put me through a lot. I was often used by him as the bridge between him and the others in my family. As a child he held me responsible for what my younger siblings did. I can never forget this unfairness. Neither can I forget that he used to pull me by my hair and lift me off the ground like that. Or lift me up by pulling my ear. He also gave the occasional slap across the face. But most of all, he has a temperament. He is easy to agitate, screams and yells. He is a large man, and can be quite intimidating. My younger siblings depended on me, needing me to shield them from his aggression. If I was not there, my siblings were without a shield, and would get his full blown rage upon them. If we were alone with him I was the only shield between him and them. If another grown up was present they would be our shield. My father saw no difference between children and a grown person. All the time growing up I couldn’t wait to be older, so I could tell him “enough”. He tried to put the blame on me for his own actions, and when things went wrong. I think I was 12 when I for the first time handed the responsibility for his own actions back to him, and refused to take any blame. I still remember the look on his face, he was dumbfounded. His temperament and aggression didn’t stop, but from then on I was his opposite, the only who who said “no” to him. Even his own mother and siblings (my aunts) couldn’t do that. As for the other family members, I will mention that one was sexually abused as a child. The other has depression, has had suicidal thoughts and does not function in daily life. My mother and father split up when I was 3. My mother couldn’t handle my fathers temperament and jealousy any longer. He didn’t want her to as much as talk to other men, and was always suspicious. I don’t blame my mother for not wanting to be with him, but I can’t accept that she could opt out of the bad situation, while we, as his children, had to stick by him. She was free, but we could never leave. And every other weekend she handed us over to him, with no means to protect ourselves. For that I don’t know if I can ever forgive her. To this day I don’t understand how a grown human, who can’t stand the situation and frees herself from it, can send children into that very same situation. Every other weekend, half of all vacations. My brother and my father are no longer speaking to each other. My father got too controlling with him, and he couldn’t handle the pressure any longer. My mother and father hadn’t spoken in over 10 years, and have only recently had contact with each other. Mainly because my brother stopped talking to my father, so my father went ahead and started contacting my mother for information about my brother. Which is funny in a way since my mother stopped talking to my father after he started phone terrorizing her. He had also tried to choke her on another occasion. She even got a secret phone number back then, resulting in me and my brother having to have cell phones just so our father could contact us. Sometimes I think I am the most sane person in my family, and being different as I am already this points out just how beyond “normality” we all must be. I am the only person in my family who is not living on the border of poverty, lives off the state, or is deep in debt. Two of my family members are on social welfare. Not to say they haven’t done great things in their lives, but they are not stable, and can not offer any financial support. They can barely support themselves, if even that. As a single parent, my mother could not afford things for us that other kids got. I try not to grow resentful, but instead appreciate what I did get. I try hard not to be jealous of others who had parents who can/could support them financially. It is hard, but I try. I wish my own (future) children will not have to grow up poor. We can not study what we want to, even getting a drivers license is difficult because they are so expensive. I want to be able to give my future children the things I couldn’t have, even if they are luxury items. I got my first job at the age of 13, and bought my own clothes with my paycheck. In the previous article I wrote that I got picked at in school, and much of the picking was because of my clothes. The clothes my mother got me were “practical”, and I could have never fitted in if I didn’t buy my own clothes. I moved out when I turned 16, and have paid everything for myself since then. I have not received any financial help from anyone but the state, and that financial support stopped when I finished high school. I worked, started studying, and luckily for me the state supports students with loans and scholarships, so I was able to pay my way. I am better provided for now than when I was a child. The result of this is that I have become an extremely independent person, who struggle with not being jealous of others who have it easier. I also struggle with relying on others, and sharing responsibility. These are things I must learn. But hopefully, what I have already learned in life can help others.
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female
reader, Aunt_Rita  +, writes (11 July 2010):
You are indeed brave - life is hard and sometimes very long. If we can respect that and slow down to understand the curb ball it continues to throw at us
We all have hopes, desires and dreams to be one day fulfill these...but only lucky few. It could be YOU
God bless.
A
female
reader, chigirl +, writes (21 June 2010):
chigirl is verified as being by the original poster of the question Thank you both anonymous and Samantha. As far as being angry goes, I can't deny it. I am angry. I am angry that these things just go by unnoticed, that no one picked up on what was going on for me when I was a child and just thought I had trouble socializing. Which wasn't the case, I had not developed feelings I guess. And I am angry at secrets. To keep all these secrets in life, when if it all came out it would be so much easier. I am upset that people who have a personality disorder think it affects only them, when it is quite the contrary. I am angry that no one told me my friend was anorexic before she was dead. I am angry no one told me my other friend had a psychic disorder.. I am upset I have lost so many to secrets.
I am learning to cope with my anger however. And to go from someone who couldn't express anger, to someone who needs to hold it back, is quite a change. I went from being numb to wanting to show everything and blast it in peoples faces. I am not yet there where I am able to show all my emotions, but they lurk underneath, and writing this is an attempt at releasing them. Then I also listen to others who say to keep things a secret, to keep things hidden. Trying to find the balance.
But yes, people who date bipolars can break up with them. I can't. I never can. I won't do what my brother did and leave, because this is family, and the wound would be much deeper if I cut the bond.
Maybe I am just complaining, time will show. But already I have experienced the loss of two of my friends. One to suicide, one to cancer, when they were 15 and 16. And another had cancer, healed, but had a psychic disorder so that I lost contact with her. My father being mentally disturbed, my whole family for that matter. All my grandparents died. I went to 3 funerals during one Christmas when I was 17. I hope I have seen enough, but I have a fear that this is only the beginning.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (20 June 2010): Having dated a bi-polar girl I know a fair bit about the disorder, but I can only imagine what having a bi-polar father would be like. At least if you are dating someone who is BP you can break up, but family is different... You really have to know somebody who has BP to fully understand how destructive it is to families, friendships and relationships.
I hope you are proud of yourself, because you should be. So many people get depressed about problems in their lives and stay that way because they wallow in self-pity, but you sound like you've used your family problems to get angry, get motivated, set goals and basically "drive" yourself to have a better life.
Thanks for the story :)
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (16 June 2010): I can see a lot of similarities in your family to my own. And a lot of the experiences and situations you described are things I have experienced too. The only difference is that it seems we both handled those situations in different ways, based on our different personalities.
I had a very unpleasant and unstable upbringing, and felt a lot of resentment for many years, particularly towards my father. He has always been very angry, very controlling, very aggressive and verbally abusive. Luckily, we have a better relationship now. I also used to hold a lot of anger towards my mother for allowing things to happen. But again, that has improved.
I think that, because of what I went through, I learned things and became a stronger person as a result. And I think that is the same for you. I think your last paragraph here says it all. You sound like a very strong, determined person, and I think some of that may have developed from what you went through with your family. I am amazed at how you have changed things for yourself, and become so independent and strong. So maybe there is some good to come from it all, like how I try to believe that there was good to come out of what happened to me.
Thank you for another moving and inspirational article. :-)
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