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Could this be bipolar disorder? (LONG)
My sister is now 19. She acted normal most of the time and was gorgeous! She loved her long hair and beautiful tan. She started dating a great guy when she was a senior in high school and by the time she graduated was ready to marry him. She was living at home, but gone alot. (presumably with her boyfriend)
Then we had some major changes in life, my grandmother passed away after dealing with cirrhosis .This was our first major encounter with death we were very very close with our family. Then, 8 months later our fathers mother died. We all felt the loss and it was hard.
A month later my sister and her boyfriend began to have problems, their relationship ended with a big fight and my sister leaving my moms home and deciding to live with friends who were known drug addicts.
She then started spiraling downward. She went on a crazy road trip with a drugged out loser to california and ended up leaving her dead car on the side of the road. My parents were still making her payments and had to pay an extra 1500 to get her car transported back here. When she got home, she came in the house and immediately started telling my mom that she hated her, that she ruined her life, etc.. It was heartbreaking for my mom, but it was typical teenage mumbo jumbo.
She left, and then I heard in the next week that her best friend had over dosed and was dying. She had known this boy for years and was very close to him through his 2 rehab attempts. She came home after he passed, and made an attempt to talk to my mom and clear up their bad fight. She cried, and apologized and said how heart broken she had been from her breakup, and then the stupid road trip and now her friends death. Despite this, she left again and we didnt hear from her until she told us she was leaving for another road trip to a popular music festival called bonaroo. She went with a friend and came back with a new boyfriend. They moved in together immediately.
We went to see her new place, but he was sleeping on the couch so we couldnt go in, so she came with us to dinner. She acted sad, and told us that she liked this new guy, but she knew that she would one day marry her first love.
A week later, I found out she had been pregnant, and aborted the baby. She then moved again with another couple and her current boyfriend.
One night, I got a text from her female roommate saying it was urgent that she needed to talk to me.She told me my sister was doing major drugs, she was being kept up by this guy, who was keeping her "drugged". The guy was sneaking into the other couples room and using their phone to call and text his old girlfriends in other states. He was wanted, for stealing and drug use in his own state. He had passed her an STD and was sleeping around on her while she worked. The girl told me that she was worried about my sisters safety, which was why she told me this.
My sister denied all this, and told me not to listen to her roommate bc she was crazy. Then ,when my sister was around us without her boyfriend she just cried and cried. She was just sad. She spent the night with her old boyfriend. Then, the next day she went back with her druggie boyfriend and acted as if she was fine,and didnt mention anything else.
Since then, she has traded her car in, and bought a van. She has been living in that van, with her boyfriend. He doesnt work. They left about a month ago to go to a music show in florida my sister quit her job, and I have no idea where her money was coming from. She called to tell me her van was broken down and she was stuck there. So, she "traded" cars with someone they met at a gas station. ( no titles just straight up traded) She told me she hadnt showered in a week or two. We didnt even know she was home until the cops called last week to say her boyfriend had been arrested during a drug deal and she needed a ride. I picked her up, and she was crying saying she didnt use drugs, but they needed the money so she was selling them. But she was saying she was going home, and she was done.
Then she got home, and told my mom she loved her life, and was happy living in a van. She loved her boyfriend, and was sure of her lifestyle. She then used her cell phone to call her ex boyfriend and left to go to his place.
Im sorry this has gotten so long. My main concern is for my sisters mental health. I know nothing about bipolar besides what I learned in a few college courses. This isnt even half of the crazy things that have happened in the past. year. She has completely changed, and I dont know if she is really just addicted to drugs, or maybe all the grief in her life at once spiked bi polar disorder. I have read that stress can trigger the disorder if it is in the genetics. My moms side has no known history of the disorder,but my father was adopted and we know nothing about his history. Thank you so much for reading my long post, any insight is appreciated!
Re: Could this be bipolar disorder? (LONG)
well first let me say that i'm so sorry that you are going through all of this...
I'm not an expert on drugs or mental health issues, but with anything that person has to want help, and has to admit that they have a problem.
Have you tried sitting down with your sister and telling her how much you love her and are worried that she is unwell? Maybe she feels that she has nowhere else to go?
good luck and I will be thinking of you and your sister
I don't know if this is bipolar but above all yoru sis needs to get away from druggies. My guess is she is using. And that's where this is sticky and sad becase we all know that the only person who can help an addict is his or herself.
To me this sounds like drug addict behaviour.... and frankly you can't get your sister to stop using if she doesn't want to.... and it sounds like she doesn't want to.... she has mad her life style choice.... and where I see that you love and care about her... you can't change what she will do.
I am truly sorry you are going through this...
It sounds like she feel into a "scene of party and drugs lifestyle".... some people grow out of it..... some don't..... I have been friends with people who have done similar things.... in my youth... it could just be a phase.... but you can't MAKE HER do anything.... and this is not your fault..... she chooses her own path.
Sara, Friend?
glove slap. I don't take crap.
Your sister is an addict. No one on the internet can tell you if your sister is abusing drugs to self medicate a psychiatric disorder or if she is abusing drugs because she is addicted.
Please consider going to Nar-anon to get support for yourself and learn how you can best support but not enable your sister. You sister won't stop using drugs until she decides she wants to stop, but that doesn't mean that you can't get help for yourself.
This does not sound like BP to me, but it does take a lot of different forms. Still...it sounds like drug addiction more than anything. Like PP said, it's impossible for us to tell if the addiction is self-medication for a mental illness.
IMO, I really don't think it is BP.
A lot of the "problems" you are mentioning are results of her drug use/addiction.
HOWEVER, many times BPD and drug use is linked - - drugs become a form of self-medication for a person who knows there is something wrong with them, but don't want to go to a doctor or use anti-psychotic medicine.
Thanks for your responses! I guess it is hard just to accept that this is the lifestyle she wants, and I cant change that. Some days I am angry with her, and others I just miss my little sister,and hope that one day we can have a regular relationship. I am just trying to see if there is any other causes for her irrational behavior.
Thanks everyone!
I'm not a medical professional, but I did grow up with a Dad and sister who were/are bipolar (my Dad took his own life a few years ago), so I do have quite a bit of experience living with people with the disease. I also have a MIL who is a drug addict and have known many people with drug addictions. Based on what you wrote, your sister does not sound bipolar to me. She sounds like your classic drug addict.
If I had to guess, she initially got involved with drugs as a way to self-medicate a hard breakup and difficult life situations, and was quickly sucked into a lifestyle that is quite a bit more powerful than she is. Any resulting erratic/manic behavior and depression would stem from the drug use. In fact, I know that many professionals specializing in addiction and mental illness refuse to diagnose a drug-addicted patient until that person is sober. The effects of drug use too closely mimic many psychiatric conditions for them to make a clear distinction.
I'm sorry your sister has become a drug addict. It's even harder that she's in denial about it. However, you really can't believe anything that's coming out of her mouth right now; you can believe her actions. I hope your family is able to get some help for her, but she may need to hit rock bottom first.
This, exactly. Your sister's situation sounds exactly like my aunt. Get to Nar-anon and encourage your parents to attend with you so you all can get some advice on helping her.
Ditto the above paragraph.
I am a medical professional, and I will tell you that no psychaitrist worth his/her salt would diagnose bipolar disorder in the presence of substance abuse/dependence. The person has to be sober, and not just sober for a week, but sober for months. It isn't uncommon for people with bipolar disorder (especially women) to develop substance abuse problems; however, the vast majority of drug-addicted people do NOT have bipolar disorder, and there is nothing in your description of your sister to suggest that bipolar disorder is a likely diagnosis. In fact, many people, drug-addicted or not, who claim to have bipolar disorder actually don't, if one uses actual psychiatric criteria to diagnose...
I'm far from a doctor, but, from reading, it looks like she does not handle death well, and big changes. Maybe the end of a relationship kind of triggered her to rebel a bit, get in with a bad crowd, get into drugs, and stop acting like herself.
Drugs can definitely do that.
I do see a lot of sad things going on, sad changes in her life, and not everyone responds well to that. Sounds like she definitely needs counseling, but I'd be hesitant to jump on the ever-popular bipolar train quite yet. Good luck to her, and you, too.
I think that this is a very wise way of thinking.
AlAnon for you, being your sis is most likely using.
Don't give her any money. Above all, make sure that not a penny goes to her. She'll be hitting you up for money for her habit; count on it.
I would make focus on talking to her about how she seems unhappy and how you want her to be happy and urge her to get treatment (rehab, therapist, medication--probably investigating all those possibilities.)
Ditto to what everyone else says; it sounds more like drug addiction than Bipolar. However, there is something called a substance-induced mood disorder in which people develop mood disorders because they start using drugs. I still don't think that it's Bipolar, it might be Depression with instances of Mania. It doesn't meet all of the criteria for Bipolar, but it sometimes seems kinda like it. (I'm not a medical professional; I was just diagnosed with BD for a few years until I became good friends with a psychologist who called bullsh!t on that diagnosis and said that it was probably just a non-specified depression.) Psychology is a science, but the diagnosis of it can still be hazy.
I hope that things get better soon. I agree, you should try and get to Nar-Anon to try and deal with these feelings since the situation is obviously very hard for you.
By definition, an episode of mania that is not induced by a substance (prescribed medication or illicit drug) is all that is required to diagnose bipolar disorder. Therefore, one cannot have "Depression with instances of mania." A substance-induced mood disorder would indeed be the diagnosis if one developed mood symptoms that were thought to be a result of drugs; if this diagnosis was accurate, stopping the drugs would also stop the mood symptoms. If stopping the drugs (again, for a period of months) does not stop the mood symptoms, then one might revisit a possible diagnosis of bipolar disorder (which is abbreviated BPAD, for bipolar affective disorder, to differentiate from borderline personality disorder, BPD).
Not trying to be a stickler, but "bipolar" is such an overused term that I cannot ignore the need to clarify...