Well, here’s a story of another mother with Bipolar. I hesitate to put this one on this site as her story is a double edged sword in many ways; on the one hand it shows that mothers with bipolar are still able to look after their children despite being very ill, on the other hand if I was as ill as she is (which I am definitely not as I don’t have the symptoms she describes by any stretch…….)  I’d be constantly worrying about whether or not I was damaging the children. I admire the mother for having the courage to talk about how difficult things are for her. I would love to know what her children think……I’m sure she is worried about that otherwise she wouldn’t have put her story on the website that I found it on: “Raising children network” – an Australian website. This website has a section dedicated to parenting with a mental illness and there is a profile of a mom with Bipolar which makes interesting reading…..

http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/parenting_with_a_mental_illness.html#mentalglance

‘I split from the kids’ father at the end of 2000. He claimed I was an unfit mother but eventually custody worked out at 50/50. For the last 18 months things have been getting so much better than they were. Before that I was in and out of psychiatric hospitals and I overdosed and went into a coma for six weeks.  It took me six months to walk again, I nearly died and I had to have heart surgery. Sometime after that I realised how lucky I am with friends and family and how much I love my kids. But it’s still very hard.”

She goes on to say that the children are amazing and that they find her harder to cope with when she’s high then when she’s depressed. Clearly both they and she find the situation hard but are working with it so that they can be together.

The thing that really bothers me about this kind of article is that it doesn’t make it clear whether the person has Bipolar 1 or Bipolar 2. THIS IS A MAJOR DIFFERENCE!!! If you have Bipolar 1 then the highs are indeed very frightening for both the sufferer and those around them. But if you have Bipolar 2, then the lows are the moods that are problematic – not the highs as the highs are so mild that they usually go unnoticed. What I don’t understand with this person in this story is that she says she goes really, really high and yet she overdosed too…………?

The article goes on to give some stats about mental illness and parenting:

Approximately one in five adults has a mental health problem in Australia and there’s a good chance that many of these will be parents.  

• From the age of 35, women are more likely to have mental health problems than men.
• Around 30-35% of people using mental health services have dependent children. 
• Parents in lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to suffer from a mental illness.
• Those with a mental illness are at a higher risk for substance abuse and other health problems, particularly those in the lower socioeconomic groups. 
• Around 1.1 million people in Australia live with depression. 
• Around one in five people will experience depression at least once in their lifetime. More of these will be women than men.

What do you think? Should the mother described be “allowed” to parent her children? Are the children suffering? If they are (and it’s probable that they are), is their suffering worse than it would be if they were without their mum?