I think my sister is bipolar

She has many problems -1)can not be trusted anywhere near money. She is always having money problems and almost caused my father to go bankrupt when she ran his business for awhile. 2)It seems at any one time or another she is being sued by someone (money related) (unlawful dismissal by employee) (harassment allegations by employee) 3)She has great difficulty with personal interactions and has few friends - she works at driving people away. Then doesnt understand why they are mad, but will buy nice expensive gift to make up for her behavior and can't understand why people are still mad at her. 4)She also always has to be right about everything. She will go to great lengths to prove she is right, even jeopardizing family/friendships. The friends she does have seem to be not very good influences i.e. just as troubled.

In the past she has been treated for depression, but she does not talk about either her therapy or medication. However has a lot of vague complaints like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia which she will talk about forever. So I don't know if she is taking anything or seeing anyone related to her mental health.I think she would hang up the phone if asked. She has never been hospitalized that we know of, but she can have these episodes she goes through where she is a complete and total control freak about everything and she gets very obsessive. For example, a few years ago, she decided that her family should eat a healthier meal. So she started making muffins in the morning. But she went completely overboard. She made dozens and dozens of these thing, all different kinds, every day for weeks, and then one day her husband didn't want a muffin or asked for something different and she totally freaked out on him. She will get involved in something and that is the only thing she will think about or talk about.

Since my Mom passed two years ago she has become more and more difficult. I suspect my parents enabled her behavior a lot. They never set any boundaries - like if she wanted to call them 6 times a day starting at 7 in the morning up till 11 at night, no one ever said no. She could phone and scream at them one minute, and then be nice as pie a few hours later, and no one ever said - this is not right. I suspect a lot of guilt (my Dad lived with major chronic depression his whole life and sometimes was not very nice to us kids) Now Mom is gone no one knows how to handle her. My Dad has Alzheimers and he is frightened of her. Her behavior can be very threatening towards him.. ie he has a girlfriend now, and she spends a lot of time screaming at him.

This is going on a bit, and I could probably write a book, but I am trying to summarize. Anyone else think there could be problems here? What do we do, she is not speaking to her family most of the time, however does share a power of attorney for care with two siblings regarding our father who has advance dementia. However, p of a is jointly or severally, so she has been acting on her own without consultation. ( it is kind of ironic - she thinks my brother and I are incompetant to make care decisions for him,and that we don't know anything about his condition and she is the only one who can do anything right.. the ironic part is that I work in a nursing home - go figure)

I am worried that she is going to hit the wall so to speak and has pushed so many people away. I don't have any hopes that I will ever have a sisterly relationship, but don't want anything bad to happen either.

Any suggestions, Can this be talked out???

If this is the case, and she also thinks she is right all the time, it may be hard to get her to get some therapy and probably a stabilizing med (or meds, she sounds pretty far out there) without a full blown intervention involving a lot if not most of your family and other people in her life.

I'd like some advice for how to get someone to go to talk honestly to a psychiatrist as well; my mom has been driving me nuts as far back as I can remember, and its only been since I've started medication that I've noticed how unusual her behavior really is.

What is a good way to talk things out to people who need psychiatric help?

Just wondering - are you bipolar as well. Do you see your mother as having a mood disorder too? I am curious because it seems to run so rampant in families. On my Dads side its every other family member.

I think my sister lies to her therapist. I am wondering - I thought these people were trained to figure this stuff out?? I thought they were supposed to see through the lies. I guess it can be buyer beware.

One time my sister went to see an 'industrial psycologist" whatever that is. According to her; the doc convinced her it was her parents who were toxic, and he had her write and give a really nasty letter to her parents. Which, to this day, I am still trying to find out how that could be helpful - cutting off one of the few sources of support and love she still had, even if they did enable a lot of her behavior. I have a suspicion that she misinterpeted the assignment. She was probably to write the letter but not give it to them. At least I hope that's it - his later behavior in dealing with her problems was not helpful.

For your mom, could you suggest family counselling as a guise. ie the doctor needs to see her, to help you?

I often wonder why the whole family is not involved anyway. When my sister was seeing the first therapist, he refused to return my parents calls, even when they were really concerned about things. However, he later took on her boss as a client, and she went to joint therapy with her boss because their work relationship was so toxic. They both ended up on Prozac. However, he would not talk to my parents. Weird.

Thanks for responding to my post. It was helpful.

I do not know much about mental illness but have been recently getting a crash course since my wife's diagnosis of bipolar. My wife also was a huge spender and could not be trusted with money. The biggest concern I would have if in your position would be her joint and several p of a for your father - Does this allow her unrestricted acces to his money? If it does you should talk to an attorney to see if you can have some restictions placed upon her access to his money using her past judgments and money problems as evidence of her unfitness in that regard. My wife was only mean and unpleasant to me but was very good at putting on a nice face to the world and very convincing at making people think I was a bad guy until people started seeing some of her true behaviors with regard to me as they were exposed. I had a friend for a number of years that was BP (mostly unmedicated) who was just like your sister. He would do and say very provocative and presumptuous things to people and turn them off. If you did not agree wiht him or remember the same things he remember the same thing he did, he would go nuts and get very upset though he never got physical. In both cases, with my BP wife and BP friend, both were huge liars. My wife would make up blatant lies and think nothing of it. If you are worried for your father's physical well being you need to talk to a lawyer to see if you have enough evidence to get an order restraining her from having contact with him. I hope you are able to get her to get help but you may have to force the issue legally by putting her mental state or past actions at issue. From what I have seen and read, many people with BP and similar mental issues do not believe they have a problem thsu will continue to deny it. Good luck, BPwifeinNW.

My Ex brother in law went through something similar to you - she was very nasty to him and said horrible things about him before and after they split up. All of which were untrue. We knew the difference though and kept in touch and stayed friends with him. Now she is running around the remaining relatives, and whats left of my Dads friends saying horrible things about my brother and I, because we are trying to do the best for Dad and carry out his wishes, which means we sometimes have to butt heads with her. Its not pleasant at all to go through. You have my sympathies and support.