Bipolar Disorder and Parenthood
Bipolar, Parenting, Relationships, Support | Rich Wallace | November 7, 2009 at 11:26 AM
When my wife and I had our first child, we we’re ecstatic and terrified at the same time. The first few nights home were the most stressful times of our lives together and although we pulled through and are the proud parents of four wonderful kids, we soon learned that parenthood did not mix well with the presence of mental illness in the family.
Although the variable of bipolar disorder had not yet made itself known to us until we had our fourth and final child, hindsight of course, painted a clearer picture of the past and now helps us keep our children as safe as possible when the rough patches come around.
Just about any journey into parenthood will surely have its bumps in the road based on trying to raise the children and mold them into what we feel is right for their upbringing. What I thought was going to be the hardest part of my responsibility as a new father, was finding common ground between my wife and I based on our own pasts and beliefs and how to apply these to our growing family.
When bipolar episodes hit that affect our parenting responsibilities, my dual role as a supporter and father merge together and I oftentimes have to make decisions on where to take the focus of helping the kids to understand what just happened. Some parents are willing to educate their children on these challenges as they aren’t going to leave the family anytime soon; others make the decision to take the children out of the picture altogether and end up leaving their spouse and take the kids away from them.
Parents are to be as conscious as possible when it comes to managing a bipolar family as there may indeed be times when an episode materializes and the kids may be negatively affected, or even placed in a dangerous situation. Sometimes, there must be some very difficult decisions to be made during these crucial times as when irrationality comes into play involving children, a very ugly game of tug of war may ensue.
Our Situation
First off, my wife has never struck or abused our children and to this day, no matter how difficult it gets, I do not see her ever losing the battle long enough to do so.
As to be expected in a bipolar relationship, parenting with bipolar in the family can bring forth some very challenging situations. When our first child was born, my wife dipped into some expected postpartum depression due to the major changes that come with bringing a new baby home. Since we did not know about our connection with bipolar at the time, we stuck together as best we could handing the issues as they came along with what we knew about the PPD…which wasn’t much.
In the following years of parenthood and the illness progressed, we saw more and more outbursts that were in line with some of the cycles she had been experiencing. There was an increasing amount of yelling and crying, which during these times, I started to realize that the kids were noticing the pattern as well.
We didn’t have many major challenges with bipolar episodes as a result of the children themselves, a bad night here and there, most like all parents will. It wasn’t until about five years ago, which is about the same time the diagnosis of bipolar came around, that we started to run into the real problems.
Our oldest daughter was not exactly colic throughout her younger times, but when she grew a little older, she did not like to go to bed and would yell, scream and kick her bedroom and closet doors letting us know about her disapproval. These continued for many, many nights as we tried to work with our daughter, however, the presence of bipolar was making itself known more and more during this time.
Finally, one night in particular, I was downstairs while my wife was putting our children to bed for the day. Our oldest proceeded to perform her ritual and as I was in the kitchen, I heard some sobbing…I knew it wasn’t the kids as they were all in their rooms, so I made my way to the landing of the stairs and looked up to see my wife, broken and crying uncontrollably at the top of the stairs.
Again, I wasn’t the best husband in the world and back then, I just blew it off and let her deal with the issue alone for a bit. Later on, she was still very shaken up and upset; beyond what I had seen in the past. She never really “lost it”, but made it very clear that the stress was truly affecting her an a new way that we had now seen before. Later that week, we saw her doctor and realized that bipolar was with us to stay.
How We Cope
Luckily, when episodes hit us, my wife has enough control to send the kids off to the backyard to play or to their room if she feels that it’s going to be a rough period. Either that, or she will excuse herself from whatever we are doing and go to our bedroom and close our door. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the course of action that is taken, and the kids will see the ugly side of an attack.
During the worst episodes, especially when she is forced to lash out, it will always come to me, which I am perfectly fine so long as the kids aren’t targeted. The first thing I do, if given the opportunity, is to remove the kids from the environment by means mentioned above. However, even if there is screaming involved, I know the kids can hear what’s going on and if it does indeed get bad enough, I have to make an even more difficult decision to actually get the kids and leave the house with them in order to let my wife calm down some. The flip side of this is, I’ve now left my wife alone, which can be very dangerous as well, but I have to put the kids first in this situation.
If I can drop them off at my father’s house for the night, I’ll do so and go back home and help my wife cope with the rest of the episode. This way, the children are out of the line of fire and my wife and I can focus on gaining stability once more. If the situation calls for it, which is many times, I’ll sit the children down and be fully honest with them about the illness and explain to them about why these issues happen and remind them that they are NOT the problem and that we, of course, love them with every fiber of our being.
In conclusion, parenting with bipolar disorder does indeed have its challenges and can be messy and confusing to the children of the family if not handled well, or not at all. Our own course of action is to educate our children as best we can to let them know that they are not being attacked and are truly loved regardless of what mommy or daddy is doing during the rough times. My wife will always be ‘mommy’ to them, so I would rather my children know the real person, including the illness being a part of our lives than simply turn a blind eye to the issue. I don’t expect many to feel this way, and I respect that to my fullest ability, but including our children in the journey works for us. Because of this, my children have never asked me, “Why does mommy hate us?”
Before you go, please consider subscribing to TheBipolarSpouse.com's informative newsletter or keep up to date with current posts by using our RSS Feed or subscribe to new posts via email.
Tweet This
Digg This
Save to delicious
Stumble it
RSS Feed
