Bipolar Support Group

Yes he often had insomnia, and I can remember my mother talking about it quite often. He is now in a nursing home, and has been evaluated by geriatric psychiatrist. The chronic depression has been confirmed, but he is so late stage with this that I think it is now hard for them to distinguish the bipolar from the alzheimers ie he still has difficulty sleeping but this is also a component of alzheimers disease. He can't seem to get going and get motivated to do anything, but again - this could also be alzheimers related, due to brain damage he cannot cognitively assess how to carry out tasks anymore.

Another thing - he was always supersensitive to medications. Imovane made him hallucinate. And he had thyroid problems all his life (underactive I believe) - I have seen a few posts on that connection.

One of those things I guess - the past is the past, but it is easier to forgive if you know what is causing the behavior. Although, I have a friend whose father was an alcoholic, who regularily beat and sexually abused his small sons before he was hauled off to a mental hospital. How do kids forgive this??

All of them, especially the older ones grew up with a lot of issues, some of them never recovered. Yet, they all made peace with him before he died. This too happened about 40 or 50 years ago.

I wonder if we had less stigma about mental illness would things turn out differently. Would people feel more open to talk about the stuff going on in the home with the family doctor. Would interventions and treatment start at an earlier point. Perhaps my father should have been hospitalized at the time, but fearing for his job, he refused to go. His employer never ever knew there was a problem. It was always treated as my Dads illness. We never had any family counselling. All of us grew up having problems to overcome. (for example, even though I don't suffer from a mood disorder, I made a lot of bad choices in relationships because that was what I was used to. ie my first boyfriend used to beat me, and I thought this was normal. The next one was an alcoholic with intimacy issues. The one I married had a drug addiction. I saw all this going on in my own home and my mom and dad stayed married, so I never looked for a healthy relationship)

Am rambling a bit - its hard to get stopped - its been bottled up for many years because not a lot of people know what you are talking about. My second husband is a wonderful man with strong values, but he cannot comprehend half of the things that go on in my family. He keeps offering to talk to my sister for example, and 'sort things out. Doesn't understand at all, at all that reasoning does not work when she is in a manic stage.

I agree that there is too much stigma out there even today about people with mental illnesses. Most people don't educate themselves about things unless it is directly affecting themselves or someone close to them. Some don't even bother to learn about it. They should make it mandatory (as some kind of health class) in high schools that they have sensitivity classes for all students on all sorts of subjects. They could learn all about different things, from mental illnesses to AIDS and homelessness. Maybe then we wouldn't have generations of insensitive, ignorant, apathetic people out there. That is my just my thought.

I will have to agreed with you there, more open communication is required to make this world a better place to live, even just teaching basic compassion for those who suffer with illnesses would sure help,