My daughter wont stay on meds..help

Hi,
> My daughter is 21 and has bipolar disorder. She has been in outpatient programs 4 times and still struggles daily. She puts our family through so many ups and downs and her boyfriend that she lives with is ready to leave her.  
> I have had to call the police two times and the second time they took her to the hospital. When she is having an episode she is like a roller coaster, first sad and cryng, then angry and hurting those around her or herself, she has attempted suicide by trying to slit her wrists. She constantly says she wants to die and stop being a burden on everyone. I dont know what to do any more. And now that she is an adult the doctors want to deal only with her. She went into treatment in March, got on new meds and checked herself out of the outpatient program. She did not follow up and continue therapy and then decided she should stop taking her meds.  
> Last week her bf drove her over to my house after he couldnt call me because she ripped the phone out of the wall. She was hitting him, scratching him, screaming and yelling, he didnt know what to do. When she was at my house she ran in and threw up. She did not want to be around me and tried to hit me and slap me. I threatened to call 911 and she then began begging and saying she would be a good girl and take her meds. She says things like "why are you insulting me" "why am I such a burden" "why wont anyone listen to me" "I just wish I would never wake up again". She said we dont accept her for who she is and does not understand that when she is on her meds that its not that she is not "feeling" but just that she is balanced. She does not believe we love her or hear her. Her bf said they had a fight for 3 hours..then it calmed down, then went on for another 8 hours. She is staying up until 4am and sleeping until 1 or 2pm. She does not work (got laid
>  off 12/08) and just finished her semester of school and now does not want to re-enroll. She has become obsessively controlling of her her boyfriend and he cant go anywhere without upsetting her. She has a great fear of being left alone and says when she is that she is being abandonded. She even told her bf she wants to get pregnant to "keep" him. She doesnt even want kids, how can she say that?  
> During the incident last week her little brother, who is 9, told my husband he needed to go out to the living room to protect Mommy (me) from Sam (his big sis) because he was afraid she was going to stab me with a kitchen knife.
>  
> We need help. She refuses to accept that she is sick, she refuses to stay on her meds, she refuses to stay in treatment. I ahve been going through this since she was in 4th grade. Is she addicted to feeling bad, can she not accept feeling any other way?

I love her so much but feel so helpless. What can I do?

[Delusion]

Hey there you have written a great deal and it sounds like she is completely off the wall and violent as youve said she gets aggressive this is pretty bad. But not the end.

You have given us a lot of information but could you perhaps fill us in on some other things to help us build up the picture even more, only if you want to ofcourse.

1.) Has/does she use(d) any drugs
2.) Does she consume excessive amounts of alcohol currently or in the past
3.) Has she been 'offically' diagnosed as bipolar and when did they realise
4.) What kind of medication has she taken
5.) Little background such as what was she like when she was younger worse the same etc, as much as your comfortable with =]

[ILADVOCATE]

As difficult as it sounds best not to emotionally react and instead to be supportive of her and encourage her to seek treatment. Even if she needs to go to the psych. hospital she needs emotional support. When her medication starts working she won't be that way. Ask a psychiatrist about what options might work and they'll make a decision. Recovery is possible. It has happenned for me as a person with schizoaffective disorder. Its a matter of having a person remain on the proper treatment, talk therapy and sometimes group therapy as well. Nami friend and family support groups are good too.

[mamamichelle]

Hi Delusion,

Here are my answers to  your questions:

1.) Has/does she use(d) any drugs  - not to my knowledge
2.) Does she consume excessive amounts of alcohol currently or in the past - no
3.) Has she been 'offically' diagnosed as bipolar and when did they realise - she was officially diagnosed during her recent outpatient stays in March. Previously she was diagnosed with depression and anxiety
4.) What kind of medication has she taken - now on cymbalta and depakote, previously on wellbutrin, paxil, celexa
5.) Little background such as what was she like when she was younger worse the same etc, as much as your comfortable with =] - when she was younger it was not this bad, started getting really bad in late teens..she is 21 now and is worse than ever. I used to have to literally force her to go to school. I remember in 4th grade I would call the teacher  on my way to school on especially bad days and she would come out to the car and get her. She always had stomach aches. Then in h/s I thought she might not graduate. She had trouble making and keeping friends but had 2 good g/f who stuck with her. She used to lay on the floor in h/s and say she didnt feel good and couldnt go to school.

What is really scary is that she tells me all is good then her bf tells me what is really going on. I dont know why she has such a fear of abandonment and of being alone. She is totally isolated from my family and bows out of most family functions. I am very supportive of her and just sit quietly with her when she is having a bad episode so that she can calm down. But I cant always be with her. She did move home for a spell and created total chaos in my house. She wanted me to sleep wiht her and be with her all the time but I have a f/t job and a husband and another child. I did my best to take care of her. But then she moved in with new bf. She jumps too quickly into relationships, always looking for someone to take care of her. She is estranged from her real father and I know this hurts her and she suffers because of it.
I agree that therapy is good but she wont go. So the idea is good but the reality is that I cant make her do it unless I have her committed to a hospital.

[stuckbetween]

Hi mamamichelle,

I kinda know what you and your daughter are going through.  The reason that I know both sides is because my husband and I are both Bipolar. Bipolar II to be exact.  I know what you are going through because my husband was having outburst more spending money that we didn't have or stealing what he couldn't afford very rarely he would get violent but would try to kill himself and punch holes in the walls.  I myself from what I am told and remember very little of was the one who was violent.  I would hit, throw knives, attempt suicide, and at one point during a time where i was going through one of my anger issues attempted to get everyone away from me and accidently threw my husband across the room breaking his hip.  I am telling you this so that you know I do truely understand what you are going through, but also have a little bit of insight on what your daughter is going through as well.

You see, learning from experience of being unstable and not being stable on meds for the first year of my marriage and being bipolar growning up with no treatment as helped to me understand and express to others what their loved one may be going through.

All growing up I was very distant from everyone.  I didn't want anything to do with anyone and didn't want to go anywhere.  My friends had to come to my house to play or we would not get together.  I was suicidal from the age of 8.  The most I remember is the suicide attempts and not wanting to be with anyone.  I would blame everyone else for what I was feeling and could rarely remember anything that needed to be done.  This happened all through Highschool and when I went to college it started to get worse.  I started to get paraniod thinking that people were staring at me or following me so even in the dorms I would rarely leave my room unless I absolutely had to.  My Manic and Depressive moods cycled so rapidly that I could go from Angry to Suicidal in just a few seconds.  By the time I dropped out of college I was bouncing from job to job and boyfriend to boyfriend.  I started to become a recluse not wanting to leave my home.  I slept very little would be up until 5 or 6 in the morning and would get up at 10 in the morning if I slept at all.  When I finally met my husband I was more in a state that I wanted to be with someone and away from my parents who believed that there was nothing wrong with me.  My husband was never diagnosed with bipolar until a few years after he and I were married and I wasn't diagnosed until about 6 months after we were married.  
This is just a breif background as I wanted to help understand that alot of what happened with me seems to be similar to your daughter.  It took me over a year to accept that there was an issue and to accept that if i didn't get myself stabalized on my meds that I could lose everything.  I had to trust in my Husband to tell me when he saw things starting to go back downhill so that I didn't hurt anyone or myself.  I do that same thing for him.  Having people with the same disorder definately has it benefits in keeps your stable on your meds.  2 years later my husband and I were blessed with our daughter who is not 4 1/2.  according to my psychiatrist when you have a child some woman's hormones change.  to my surprise mine did and for the first time since being diagnosed I am completely stable with no meds.  I am not saying that this works for everyone, but I was blessed to have this happen.  My husband still struggles with staying stable on his meds, but his psychiatrist is still working on him.
It takes a lot of trust to accept that there is something wrong and to allow family and friends to help and a lot of the time when you are not stable your family and friends are the ones who seem like they are out to get you.  
The only thing that I can give for advise to you as a loving and caring mother is to just continue to be there for her and just keep faith and patience.  I was 21 when I was diagnosed I am 27 now and if it wasn't for my husband's love and support I may not have made it to where I am now.  Even though she may not seem greatful just remember she is, but she may not remember what she has done nor recognize that she has a problem.  I was constantly telling my husband I was fine, but I wasn't and I wouldn't leave the house or get out of bed.  It wasn't until I accepted the help and support that I knew I would be OK and could battle the disorder.

[mamamichelle]

Thank you so much for sharing your story with me. It means a lot. What made you finally accept the help and support? What was your turning point? Now she wont go to the doctor but keeps telling me she will. I'm afraid she will run out of meds and just stop again and it seems each episode is worse and more violent than the one before. i'm so afraid she will hurt herself. I just hate to see her suffer so much. She does sometimes act like I'm the enemy and yells at me and tries to hit me. And she was very much like you when she was younger, very few friends, a homebody, never wanted to go anywhere or be in sports, didnt like school much. She had lots of panic attacks. I know that she does love me and doesnt mean to hurt anyone.

[stuckbetween]

the turning point for me was that i had no one to turn to.  i has started to burn all my bridges where my parents had told me that i was a disgrace to the family and my husband was trying to kill himself because of the way that i was acting.  i was so tired of being that way and didn't know what else to do.  to be honest i finally accepted help when my husband told me that heand his friends had been talking and he was thinking about filing to have the marriage ended.  i realized that if i lost him i didn't have contact with my parents anymore and had no where to go and no one to turn to.  he was my ONLY friend and i was 2 hours from home.  i was so afraid that someone was going to hurt me that i needed his love and support.  your daughter is talking about wanting to get pregnant so that he will stay with her.  i had felt the same way.  the difference is i wanted to have a child so that i had someone who needed me.  i needed someone who i felt loved me and my psychosis was preventing me from seeing who truely loved me.  granted yes i did get pregnant and have my daughter, but it was not until after i had gotten stabilized on my meds and knew we were ready.  once we started trying to get me stabilized i started doing a lot of reading Woman's Moods bye Deborah Sichel, MD and Jeanee Watson Driscoll M.S., R.N, C.S
it was a gift from my husbands ex girlfriend and goes over the information women should know about hormones, the brain and emotional health.  i skimmed through it and read what was concerning me.  the main chapter i read was before i got pregnant though it is in the pregnancy chapter.  it's about how post partum depression has a lot of the same symptoms of Bipolar 2 disorder and goes into detail about the dangers of both.  I'm not sure what is in your daughters mind, but i know for me i never realized how dangerous I could be until i read that.  That was my true jump to taking better care of myself and seeking not only psychiatric help but help from a psychologist (they are two different things)  if your daughter has a hard time talking to people about what is going on.  a doctor who specializes in what is called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing)  if her body is open to it they have ways of finding out what is going on while she still remembers what is being said.  it helps to dig up the past and helps to bring the things that are bothering her that she won't talk about to the service and attempt to resolve to issue.  online may be able to show you emdr psychologist in your area or your local hospital.