We've Ramped Up to Where we Are

I wonder if parenting experiences are similar for people who have sons or daughters who have Bipolar.

For me, I realize in looking back, that I 'learned' how to enable Josh, long before I ever knew there was a mental illness at work.

Josh was my 'easy' child.  Always.  The only real difficulty I ever had with him related to his incredibly, over the top, sore loser thing.  Seriously, if this child lost at Monopoly, the board would go flying and he'd stomp off in anger.  As he got older, he got better at taking his losses with something close to grace, but he was always very competitive.

And then this easy child became more difficult.  More combative.  Less easy to reason with.  We could have a fruitful discussion about a current issue one day, and then, two days later his reaction to a continued discussion on the same topic would have him yelling and screaming and slamming doors.

Some of the good skills I use today when communicating with Josh, were established back then, but also, some of the bad skills I developed back then have been in play since Josh's diagnosis.

It has been an ongoing struggle to identify the things that work, and the things that don't, but I can tell you, ALL of it started during the few years before Josh actually began having the types of problems that lead us to a diagnosis.

I remember long chat discussions with a blogging buddy of mine back then, BEFORE Josh began having major problems.  I remember trying many different things to get Josh more in line with where he should be, but his mood was ever changing.  He'd be as lovable as a newborn kitten one day, and a few days later he'd be an angry lion.

I began enabling Josh back then, because so much of the time I was just trying to keep the peace.

Tough love is...well...tough to DO, and back then I had many things going on in my life that made it very easy to 'lighten up' too much on Josh, but once his issues became more severe, I had no choice but to figure out HOW to do Tough love right...consistently....and stick with it.

That has been one of the hardest things for me, because the ramifications of doing something like tossing your child out of your house, has such potential for some serious consequences.

I think that I realize better today just how important it is to take all this with a one day at a time attitude.  Each situation you're faced with as you travel through a new bipolar diagnosis, well, you can only do your best at the time.  But I can clearly see that I was given many opportunities along the way...some of them I didn't embrace as I should have, and others seemed almost 'destined'.

Kicking Josh out of my house was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and certainly I agonized over that decision every single day, but I learned to make peace with the decision and worked on taking care of myself so I could be really strong for the NEXT step, whatever that might be.

I would encourage anyone facing a similar crisis to spend some time honestly looking back to identify how the patterns you use got established in the first place, and when you look back, it's usually easy to see what works, and why, and what you should have done differently.

I'd be curious to know how many parents feel as I do; that all this started long before I realized there was a serious medical issue at play. 

The one thing I've found out for sure is that there is a special skill set you must develop when dealing with a bipolar child who is a young adult, and you also have to develop a pretty thick skin as well.  Josh and I have always shared a very close relationship; his friends were often astounded that he would shout back to me as they flew out of the house on their way to do something, "I love you Mom!". 

Because we've always been close, and because he was always so easy to parent, the disconnect in our relationship that is very much a part of Bipolar, has been especially hard to adjust to, hence the need for the thick skin.  I think Tough Love becomes so much harder to accomplish when dealing with Bipolar...there is so much at stake, so much that can 'go wrong' and I always have a strong feeling of not wanting to do something that might push Josh towards suicide.  I do not want to have to live without him or with THAT guilt the rest of my life!

For me, I've found that looking a ways back has helped me a lot in dealing with this current situation.  Unfortunately, I don't get a 'do over', I can only do better from here forward.