‘Self-management tools have helped my mum rebuild her life’

Supporting a family member with bipolar can be all-consuming and quietly devastating. I share my experience of supporting my mum who is living with bipolar.

One of my earliest memories is consoling my mum in a dark room, depression crept into our home like a shadow. I would feign sickness at primary school just to stay home and keep an eye on her as she lay in bed, unable to function.

As a child I experienced my mums’ manic highs at the start as fun, they included shopping trips, holidays, my mum’s endless energy. But soon my mum’s energy tipped into irritability and paranoia. We walked on eggshells, trying to avoid conflict. After each high came a crushing low, overspending, broken relationships, exhaustion. 

Somewhere in between, we’d glimpse balance, but the lines blurred, who was mum, and who was the illness?

I became hyper aware and vigilant of the pattern of my mum’s extreme moods and could predict when an episode was coming. The highs had another impact on the family as they triggered a spending addiction, and the debts would deepen her episodes of depression.

For years, mum was mis-diagnosed with depression and given antidepressants, which only worsened the highs. As a young adult, I contacted her doctor during a severe manic episode. She was finally diagnosed with bipolar, but support was minimal. Even when my brother and I raised concerns, we were made to feel like we were overreacting.

Years later, as episodes grew more extreme, during lockdown in 2020, we desperately sought professional help for my mum but to no avail. That’s when I reached out to Bipolar UK through their Peer Support Line. I felt nervous about speaking it out loud to someone. As an Anglo-Indian family there was a layer of cultural expectation to mask and make everything appear fine and well to others.

I decided to reach out via email and received a reply from someone who could really relate and had grown-up in a similar circumstance. Someone who understood because they have lived it too and it made me and my siblings feel seen and less alone.

By the end of 2022, mum’s condition had escalated to psychosis and suicidal threats. Only then did the mental health team intervene. In early 2023, they discovered mum had been on the wrong medication for years. Once corrected, everything changed, since then, no extreme highs, lows, or psychosis. Weekly visits from a mental health practitioner and self-management tools have helped my mum rebuild her life.

We were offered eight months of family counselling in 2023 from the mental health team. It was hard, especially for mum, but it was also incredibly healing and is something I wish every family supporting a loved one with bipolar could access.

In a full-circle moment, I now work for Bipolar UK, the charity that made me feel less alone all those years ago. Through fundraising, I share why their work is vital, so more families like mine can find hope and support and their loved ones living with bipolar can get the support they need to live a more balanced and fulfilled life.