My mum said to me.....................

[65]

My beautiful mum died in 2008. A couple of years before that I told her I had depression and had been in a psych ward, she listened and tried to understand me, then said something to the affect..... but you're not .. ONE  OF THEM ... are you ?? (shock horror) I stretched out my arms and said.... yes mum, I AM, "one of them". Poor darling I don't think she knew what to do or say. 🙂 But she and dad became very supportive. However I only ever let them visit me in a psych ward once, and that was after a very bad situation, when I had to stay in bed in the hospital for over a week. But when they visited it was just like a normal hospital visit .... sort of, well that's what it would have seemed to them anyway.

Just off that note, I'd like to say that I was originally diagnosed (25 or so years ago) with having "severe depression" then about 18 mths ago I was told I had bipolar....then...last year I hear there is... bipolar one, and bipolar two....which I didn't know about before. I learn something every day.....

[white knight]

Hi 65

As hard as this would be to say, your parents were brought up in a different time, a time when their parents generation locked away us with "troubles" and kept them form others knowledge. And consider this, their parents were brought up in the period before the first world war.

Guaranteed when you get to your 60's or 70's your thoughts and idea swill be very old fashioned.

So the term "you're not one of them" is cruel but understandable for that era they came from. The world has improved a lot since then but at the time they or she hadn't improved.

Anyway you are lucky that you had their support.

I have bipolar 2. It is much milder than bipolar 1. I was erratic with moods etc but didn't do radical odd things. Interesting enough I met a bipolar 1  guy a few years back and invited them for dinner. He wouldn't sit in a certain chair, sip his coffee until the milk was place back in the fridge and would chase a fly around the house. This was in our house!!. His wife simply ignored him.

Not that all bipolar 1 people are like this. We are all different.

Tony WK

[geoff]

dear 65, if any of my two sons came and told me that they were 'one of them', it wou

[65]

Thanks for that insight into what is bipolar 1 & 2 ... in that case, I'm a No. 2.  🙂

You're right of course about the generation differences for sure, my dad was born in 1910 and mother in 1918, and what happened in the house, stayed in the house and bad things were never acknowledged outside the house and to the rest of the world, we appeared normal in every way.  However my father was alcoholic and emotionally very dominating and I hated him all my life.  He died in 2010, I was not sad to see him go and didn't actually communicate with him for the last 17 months of his life.  I attended his funeral and grieved, but I only grieved for the father I....wished I could have had, not for the father he was.