Bipolar Child

S.,
I am so sorry to hear that you are going through this. I have some information about your daughter's disease that may be helpful. Unfortunately one of the hallmark symptoms of a manic phase in bi-polar is hyper-sexual behaviors, feelings and preoccupation. Pt's in a manic phase are also delusional as well. What I am saying is, it is HIGHLY likely that what your daughter is reporting DID NOT happen and it is a sign that she is getting sick again. Her disease makes her think it did happen, but her insight, judgement and her sense or reality is impaired due to her disease being in full swing. Many people with bi-polar do not take their medication. Either they don't take it like they are supposed to or they don't take it at all. Please count the number of pills that your daughter has left in her prescription. If she has more than she should (even 3 more than she should) she may have missed the last 3 days and she is getting sick again. People who are just getting stabilized on the medication for bi-polar CANNOT MISS A DOSE because their body needs that medication like clock work to get itself straightened out and to stay straightened out. It is like being a brittle diabetic, miss one dose of insulin and you are going to have an immediate problem with your sugars. Having bi-polar means one must be vigilant with their medications. Your husbands ED means he could not have harmed your daughter. She needs to be inpatient again so she can be evaluated. Other signs and symptoms of mania in a person with bi-polar include excessive talking, excessive spending (usually with money they do not have) excessive preoccupation with religion, low desire for sleep or food and an overall hyper or agitated mood. Please have your daughter evaluated again and check to see if she is taking her medication. I have worked in the mental health field for 13 years and have seen this time and time again.

This is a tough situation. I will be praying for you and your family. Now, being bipolar does play games with your mind. A friend of mine is bipolar and when she first was diagnoised and put on meds she went around town on a scavenger hunt that she thought this guy put together so he could propose to her. None of it was true, but she thought it was. So the mind can play tricks when in this state. Now with that said, it does not mean nothing happened. If you are concerned before you start thinking something did happen you could take her to an OB and see if she has had sex recently. Then go from there. The texts could be all in her head too...but you could contact the cell phone company for records of texting...and maybe even the actual messages. I know it can be done. It is hard to know who is telling the truth when something like this happens. Before jumping to conclusions and believing just your daughter or just your husband find out as much as you can.

Lori B's answer is right on the money. I am 35 yrs old and my mom has been a bipolar/manic de. my entire life. They can not tell the difference between right and wrong when they are not on there med's. They think they are fine but they are not. My mom has been on med's every day now for five years, (not whenever she thinks she need them) This is the first time in my life she has been able to be a mom to me and not me to her. Danielle Steele's son Nick I think was a manic dep(he deid in his 20's). She wrote a book on it. I think it is called "He's bright light" Find it and read it. Because there were so many things she wrote about that was like my mom and helpful stuff too. Be patient and stand up for her with the Dr.s because she will not to able to do this on her own. Monitor her med's. remember not sleeping,spending & sex are classic signs things or not ok. Good luck and God bless you. (Oh, I don't think your hubsand did anything just help him by not letting her and he be alone so she can not twist the truth. It is part of her mind play games on her comes with this disease.)

This is more than a bipolar issue, you must address this head on with the doctors. I am also saying something I usually do not say if he did do something like that you really ought to get him out of your life.Did I read this correctly, did he actually do this with your daughter? I do not care if he is feeling guilty and praying, it is possible that he was unable to say no and he needs to get a lot of counseling or move on.Your daughter will be your daughter forever. And despite the fact that your daughter is older and in a normal state she could make better choices, she has a condition and you are her parents- whereas he is supposed to be considered a normal man and took advantage of this. You would be very forgiving to keep him and naievely trusting if you found out it was true. This is definitely a trip to group counseling. Take advantage of all mental health help in your state and address this issue immediately.

I have no close firsthand experience with bipolar so I am not going to say that I am an expert. But my feeling of the situation is this: You have a mentally unstable daughter that you know has problems and you are getting her the help she needs. (Good for you for being so supportive, I do know this is a horrible thing for a family to go through.) And you have a husband who you are now wondering if you can trust. Until this incident, had you ever had reason to doubt or wonder or distrust your husband? How long has he been a part of your daughter's life? If this recent incident hadn't occurred, would it have ever crossed your mind that he is being inappropriate with your daughter? If you have no reason to think anything is going on other than this confession of your daughter's, I would not be too quick to believe her. I am not normally one to say side with the husband and don't believe the child, but in this case I would give him the benefit of the doubt. From what I do know of bipolar, this incident is pretty much par for the course. I know she is not saying she remembers the incident, just a conversation about it. But that conversation could be all in her head. As for the text messages, she might have deleted them to feed her delusions. Or maybe she sent delusional messages and your husband deleted them because he didn't want to look at them. Or maybe his text messages are on auto-delete. The fact that she says he told her they made love but you know that this is not exactly possible (does she know about his ED?) says to me that this is coming from her. Otherwise if this conversation actually took place, she would have likely said he just touched her or something. (sorry, I know this is awful). See if you can get transcripts of the messages, absolutely. I don't know if it is possible, it seems like stuff like that is only possible for the govt, but it is worth a try. And even if the messages came from your daughter saying awful things, that is no proof unless your husband responded with something incriminating. It can all be part of her delusion. And the fact that she doesn't want you to kick him out due to sympathy is off to me too.

If any of this does in fact end up being true, kick him out. Absolutely. It doesn't matter that he has no where to go. He is a big boy and can take care of himself and your daughter cannot. Anyone who would take advantage of someone in this situation isn't worth working it out with. But I would hesitate to believe your daughter without proof. I would definitely not leave them alone together, for everyone's sake. And talk to her therapist about this. I am so sorry you are in this situation. This is a horrible thing to be going through. You are being a wonderful mom by trying to help your daughter through this and support her.

That is all very confusing but I will say that bipolar is not crazy. I used to work with a few bipolar women and it made them moody and upset easily but it did not make them make up things! I think your husband is disgusting and he should be kicked out! I don't care if he has nowhere to go, he should have thought about that BEFORE even speaking with your daughter about sex much less possibly, maybe, taking her virginity. How horrible for you! I feel badly for you, not him and not your daugther! I am sure both sides have lied but both sides have told some truth so take that as you will and realize that both sides are lying to you and both sides are hurting you. You help your daughter with her health issues but find a man that won't even FLIRT with your daughter. Be done with him. Take care of your daughter. I am so sorry for you, this hurts now but you will get past it. Stay strong.

S., I will pray for you during this situation. I think that you need to all sit down together and speak only the truth about what has happened. Before you start talking, pray and ask God to sit at the table with you and everyone needs to promise God to tell the truth. It may be that your family needs family counseling in addition to your daughters psych for bipolar. I will be keeping your family in my prayers.

The deleted text messages are a big red flag to me... Please support your daughter & work on her health with her. Maybe it would be a good idea to for him to stay with relatives or friends for a while, until you get this sorted out. Your daughter's well being is the most important thing right now. Do whatever you can to support her & get her help. Get her back in to see her Dr. as soon as possible. I know someone who has bipolar & is on medication & went on to get married & has three healthy kids. So I do believe she can lead a normal life with the right medication & counseling. Until you can prove one way or the other whether or not this happened, I would not have them (husband & daughter) around each other.

Good luck & God bless!