No, I'm not bipolar...

[Woody]

Smoking pot and drinking alcohol...
Let me put it to you this way. Lets say you have a sore foot. So you put your hand in a drawers and slam it shut. Now your foot should not be bothering you any more
We both know that this is not dealing with the problem, and that is what need to happen.

[schmadrian]

Woody;

You're preaching to the converted. (I neither drink nor do drugs.)

But we're not talking about me, we're talking about her son. And as it's been pointed out, negotiating with someone with bipolar is hardly the same as with someone who doesn't have bipolar.

So my head-scratchin' question is: If it's hard enough to get the person to concede/admit that a) they have bipolar, b) they needs meds to manage the condition, and c) they need to stay on the meds and be ready to make the required efforts to find the right combo for them, at the right levels...

...then isn't it going to be 'additionally hard' to get a pot-smoker (who believes that THEY can control 'whatever's going on' with the use of pot) to get to the above points?

Because this is where my friend is with her son.

[Ambe]

Hi everyone. Schmadrian, I can relate to your friend because my daughter, 28, has schizophrenia. It has been an ongoing battle with her since she was diagnosed in her late teens. She has gone through periods where I thought she was accepting her illness, but is again at a stage where she is using pot to “quiet the voices”.

I think it’s great that you’re trying to understand his illness. I don’t mean to be rude and I’m just stating my opinion. Even though I’m open with my close friends about the troubles I’m having with my daughter, these friends try not to offer me advice, but are there for my support (to acknowledge how I feel). In fact, I don’t like people telling me what to do, especially if they haven’t been in my shoes. I am better accepting advice from professionals, but then I am seeking their help. I don’t want this to sound harsh, it’s just coming from my experiences.

Many people advised me to do the tough love stuff and I did for a while. When your adult child ends up in a big city like Vancouver, with no place to stay and has had no food for a few days and you know this child is starting to hallucinate again, tough love is not the way to go. If I had not brought my daughter home and something had happen, I would never have forgiven myself nor forgiven the people who encouraged me to continue with the tough love.

I know your friend is in a very difficult position and I know you want to help her. The best thing you can do for her is to encourage her to go to counseling. Remember this is just my opinion.

I wish there were more people like you, who are trying to understand people with mental illness then the stigma would not be as prevalent.

Take care
Ambe

[schmadrian]

Ambe;

You're not being rude. (Even though I get the message, loud and clear.)

I don't tell my friend to do anything. That's not my place, and besides; I don't get a vote. What I find out here, I pass on to her. I'm only trying to learn. In the end, what I might intuit could be entirely different from how she goes forward. It's just not for me to say. (For the record, I have been trying to get her to be more proactive since all this began. Our biggest arguments were her saying 'I don't know what to do!' and me replying 'FIND OUT!' LOL)

Anyway, thanks.

[Ambe]

Your welcome! Keep on asking questions. I'm learning just as much as you are!
Take care
Ambe

[schmadrian]

"In fact, I don’t like people telling me what to do, especially if they haven’t been in my shoes."

Of course, even if they have, even if they've had exactly the same experiences as you, they still might see things entirely differently. So in a way, experience is no guarantee of anything...except that the opinion is a more qualified one than from someone who has not been in your shoes.

I'm just sayin'...

: )

[Ambe]

That's true!
Take care
Ambe

[paul m]

Hello Ambe. I agree with you, tough love doesn't apply. The dangers are simply to great. Sometimes it takes greater love deal with the problems that a child with a mental illness may bring. Take Care. paul m

Hello schmadrian. You have mentioned the hypothetical question of a larger family several times and talk about family structure being in danger. Why would it be in danger?

Another question I have is: Where the money is coming from to support the pot habit? Street drugs are exceedingly expensive. When one doesn't work there are only 3 ways to afford it, steal, sell ones self, or have a loved one provide the money. Friends may provide street drugs for a short time, but even an inexpensive pot habit(relatively speaking compared to other drugs) runs at 200+ per wk. Take Care. paul m

[Ambe]

Another question I have is: Where the money is coming from to support the pot habit? Street drugs are exceedingly expensive. When one doesn't work there are only 3 ways to afford it, steal, sell ones self, or have a loved one provide the money. Friends may provide street drugs for a short time, but even an inexpensive pot habit(relatively speaking compared to other drugs) runs at 200+ per wk. Take Care. paul m

I used to give my daughter money and I knew some was going to drugs, even though I was in denial most of the time. Now I buy her groceries and sometimes cigs when she really needs these things usually once a month. I pay her bills when she gets too far behind. That's the only thing my husband and I argued about until I finally told him that I don't question all his purchases from ebay which put a stop to most of these arguements. I can't let her starve or be out on the streets anymore. I know I've grown because this used to bother me a lot and now I know that this is just a way of life in having an adult child with her illness.

Thanks for reading
Ambe

[paul m]

Hello Ambe. I am sorry if I gave you the impression that I was reffering to you and your daughter in regards to how somebody gets the money for drugs.My last post was not directed towards your situation. Your ideas on how to limit money were good ones. My son never had a problem with drugs, but he could spend money like it was water when he was manic. We did similiar things and we paid his rent for a while when he agreed to take certain counselling through out patients. Take Care. paul m

[schmadrian]

Paul;

1) I believe his pot habit to be a small one. Similar to recreational beer drinking. He's always had a part-time job, which clearly covers this cost. Before the diagnosis, my friend was unable to really enforce certain rules with her son in the house. Pot smoking was one. (Friends staying ridiculously late and his own 'unconventional' sleep habits were two others.)

2) As far as the notion of someone in a family wreaking havoc on the greater whole, this seems to be borne out from what I've found online. Not just in instances of mood disorders, but also drug and alcohol addiction. Not sure why you'd find this to be a (apparently) surprising possibility; any uncontrollable situation taken past a certain point can impact a family (or a workplace or a school or an organization) past the degree of 'negative' into 'destructive'. We see it in parents all the time when their addiction or abuse puts their marriage and/or family at risk. It's different with a son or daughter, yes, but in the end, the collapse of a family because one member is unable or unwilling to successfully deal with their issues is not an option.

Let me phrase it this way: If you had a family of, say four kids, and your eldest child of 20 was not able/willing to address her bipolar and the situation became untenable, where her behaviour became the sort where 'destructive' was the appropriate label, where your six year old son and his nine year old sister and eleven year old brother were clearly being affected due to the maelstrom your bipolar daughter was creating, don't you believe there would come a point where you could no longer put the rest of your children at risk? Does affecting siblings to this extent not qualify for putting them 'in danger'?

This goes back to my basic concern about my friend (don't forget, SHE'S my friend; I don't know the son, I might not even like him were I to meet him. It's HER welfare that caused me to want to equip myself, not HIS.); if over the course of time she's driven into the ground as a result of how her son's resistance to treatment affects her, how can that be seen as 'acceptable'? (BTW; I'm asking these questions for me. I doubt she'd want to confront some of these possibilities; what I've read here and elsewhere has made it clear that no parent wants to consider less savoury possibilities and potentials...but these lurk in the background, regardless. It might never come to her having to consider more drastic strategies, I'm crossing my fingers. But I would never sit by idly, watching her self-sacrifice simply because she wasn't as well-equipped as she might have been. I don't have a vote, but I do have a voice.)

[Atlantis]

Hi Ambe,
I have a loved one addicted to alcohol and my family has to use similar measures to the ones you have mentioned...
It took a long while to even get "smart" enough to get to the point that we bought the groceries intead of giving money but addictions can be very cunning and clever, notice I said addictions, because my family member, when sober, is a very gentle and kind person.
But i suspect you already know that.

[schmadrian]

As my friend and her son are preparing to head back home tomorrow, her anxiety about what that's going to be like is rising.

As of now, the son is intent on getting off meds.

So my question is this: Even though I've been told that there are no hard-and-fast stats, does anyone have any general, anecdotally-based sense of how successful people with bipolar and choose NOT to medicate are? Again, I appreciate that this is not a commonly-held stat, but I'm curious. One-in-ten? A quarter? Fifty-percent?

The son has spoken about two gals he's known who have bipolar. One is self-medicating. She does street drugs, she's 'a mess'. The other, she had to TELL him she had bipolar, she functions so 'normally'. So my friend feels she has to have the discussion with him 'Which do you want to be?' Knowing of course that he'll say 'I'd do it better.'

[schmadrian]

This from my friend:

"Well, i have three days to try to address what needs to be addressed....then we'll be home and all hell may break loose again. i have to be prepared for that somehow...but I'm not sure how one prepares oneself for hell breaking loose."

Any suggestions?

[schmadrian]

A basic question...please forgive me for its obviousness...

Apparently the son has not acknowledged that he has bipolar.

What are the limits in terms of managing the disorder, if he's not even on-board with the diagnosis?

Is he in a holding-pattern until he does?

Is this typical? And how long does this denial generally go on?