A bit scared...

Well, for a long while I thought I had bipolar 2 (which is what my first psychiatrist had me as), which I was okay with, but I asked my doctor the other day what he had me down as, and he said bipolar 1 (I had suspected that, since it got worse entering college, but I was hoping he'd deny that).

The reason why I'm scared about have bipolar 1 is because my grandpa also has it, and it nearly destroyed his life. Destroyed his first marriage- with my grandma- and half my aunts and uncles won't talk to him. He married another women who abused him, controlling his meds for him and giving him incorrect dosages and stuff to keep him not right so he would agree to give most his money to her and stuff. once she died, my mom got him to a new doctor and stuff and he's kinda okay now, but he still is noticeably not right in the head and my mom controls his finances and stuff... I don't want that to happen to me!!

I know the big difference is that my grandpa went untreated for a long long time and his medicines weren't right, whereas I'm seeing a psychiatrist and on the right meds, but it still scares me.

I know he hallucinates sometimes and is often delusional, which scares me even more because I've started sometimes having small hallucinations, as well as intense paranoia. Sometimes I spend more money than I should when I'm manic, like he does, and I'll go through my closets looking for stuff to donate to charity too. He would do that too... well, he'd clear out his whole closet and have nothing, but same concept.

So, I am aware that right now all these things are very minor for me, but I'm still terrified that I will eventually become like him, that these little things will multiply into much larger ones like he has. Absolutely terrified.... I've read online and stuff that this can progress over time, and that medicines can only do so much... I am very very very terrified that I will become like him. ;__;

Oh, Bipolar Cat, I completely identify with and I share your fears due to circumstances in my own family. Sending you huge hugs and sharing hope for a better day today. I have more questions than answers, but want you to know I'm thinking of you.

Take good care,
Alice

Huge hugs hon - I can understand hy this is frightening for you. I do think it is key tho that you are recieving treatment which hopefully will control things for you

Huge hugs

Cracked

I'm in a similar situation. My psych has me down as BP I, while I was used to thinking of myself as BP II, and my grandmother also had BP I before presumably killing herself (I say presumably because the details are foggy, but nearly everyone in her family believes that that was what happened). All five of her daughters have really intense mental health problems, going back decades, and are all willfully undiagnosed and in denial.

I think that, in a way, it's actually really fortunate to have a model of what you don't want to become, to know what it is and that you want to control it, especially early on. I've grown up terrified of ending up like any of them, especially like my mother or grandmother, but I think that's driven me to seek help when I needed it, to not try to pretend everything was okay, and to learn everything I could about MI from a young age. It's seems like having that awareness and determination to do whatever is necessary to keep it from getting that bad is going be really helpful in preventing it, for both of us; I know it's especially helpful for me, because as much as I want to abandon treatment and pretend I'm fine sometimes, all I have to do is look at my mother's family to regain my determination to control it, to harness it, and I know I was completely unable to do that without treatment, and that I'm doing much, much better now than I could've dreamed of then.

I'd be worried if I were you given your family situation. I was worried when my identical twin brother was diagnosed. It was years later before I was diagnosed, and during that time I was very worried.

But knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have been worried because even my identical twin brother and I are totally different in the way that we handle the disorder. He is on medication and stable, and actually doing very well. I don't take medications and you could say the same things. Basically, I found that this disorder doesn't define who I am. I think that we can still be the person we view ourselves to be. Fear shouldn't get the best of ya.

As far as getting a diagnosis of type I instead of type II, I wouldn't worry about that either because you have what you have no matter what anyone calls it. Your current diagnosis doesn't have to have anything to do with who you are or who you will become.

I was diagnosed bipolar I, which was confirmed during two subsequent hospitalizations... I recovered and my mood has been under control for about a year now. There's plenty of things I want to change about my life, but my sanity isn't one of them.

I can also relate. My dad is bipolar and basically ALL family has disowned him and he has no friends. I fear this to be my future someday as well. I noticed myself getting worse (more crazy) so I am finally on meds and seem to be ok...but so many times you hear of people needing to eventually switch meds. So only time will tell what's to happen. I hope the best for all of us!

for me, i have had bipolar symptoms for as long as i can remember. i was an outcast at school, everyone thought i was weird. i finally wound up in a court-ordered psyche-evaluation, and for me that was the scarriest thing, since i knew that there was something wrong but didn't know what. finally was diagnosed by a review panel with bipolar disorder NOS. back then, the convention of putting a one or two or anything elseon it didn't exist as a standard practice. it was years before i learned that NOS means not otherwise specified. at the time, before i was diagnosed, i seriously thought i would be in a nut-house for the rest of my life.