My husband will not support my decision with my daughter!

I urge you to consider family counseling, at least you and your husband if not the whole family....and as soon as possible.

You have two separate problems here and both are extremely difficult.

The first issue is your daughter. I think it is far more than a bipolar disorder. As a therapist, I have known hundreds of bipolar-affected people and very few of them threaten homicide ... unless there are additional factors. Even when they are in the manic phase, they may get irritable, but usually they threaten to harm themselves before they threaten to harm others. They rarely carry out a threat to harm others but when dropping from manic to depressed, may of them have committed suicide. Since you never mentioned suicide, I tend to look at other co-existing possibilities.

Existence of a borderline personality disorder along with the bipolar disorder. If she has never been diagnosed, there is no way to tell. Borderline personalities are about egocentrism and a belief that "Mommy loves sister or someone more than she loves me!" The age of onset of symptoms also would lead me in this direction.

The addition of substances to the brain, namely alcohol or drugs. These exacerbate either of the above diagnoses and make the situation one that is very volatile and possibly dangerous.

Most important: You did what you though was right and I agree with you. Cut off contact untill she is willing to seek help.

The second issue: Your husband does not support your decision. Here I am going to make a guess: Your daughter never treated him as badly as she treated you. This gives him more reason to support her. Maybe he feels for her because he has some issues with you and this is his way of getting back at you.

I agree with Isadora as far as counseling for the two of you. First, your husband needs to develop a deeper understanding of the dynamics of your daughter's illness. Second, he needs to look at why he is not supporting his lady love under any and all conditions. Third, you need to look at what else is going on in your relationship with your husband and how he responds.

With all the energy you must have poured into trying to help your daughter, did you withdraw from him, making him resentful? Fourth and most important: YOU need some respite from the 12 year, knock-down, drag-out fight you have been having trying to help your daughter become a healthy and functioning person.

If no one else will go to counseling with you, start out by going yourself to heal your wounds and to have someone who has some understanding of your daughter's multiple diagnoses and the issues that come out of them.

There is hope. I have worked with a kid just like your daughter. I saw her first at age 20 after a suicide attempt. The cuts on her wrists were so shallow that I had no sympathy for it as a suicide attempt, but I saw clearly the message she was delivering to her mother.

She has borderline personality disorder combined with a bipolar disorder (mild). She went through an addiction to crack cocaine that took her to the bottom of the world.

Now thirty, she isn't "cured," but she is living alone, manages to muffle the worst of her outbursts at her mother - her mother put her out at 22 and it has helped. The addiction has been in remission for 4 years and she attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings where many of the members have similar diagnoses to hers! It gives her structure and a social network.

Her family had long since learned to ignore the productions. They were meaningless as the wind in the willows and the threats - the same. Mom keeps her at arm's length and when she starts making loud noises, hangs up the phone. She is NOT invited to family functions unless they are ones where there is no choice (like a parent's funeral).

You are not alone in this difficult journey.

I'm glad you posted here. We care.

dear Milt T, Thank you for your response. I have never thought about the personality problem also. But yes to the question about most of her fits and outburst have always been towards me not her father. Only a couple at her father and then I have always stood up and took his side and backed him. I have never treated either daughter different if anything else my other daughter should resent me more for spending more time with this daughter because of her problems. I have tried to talk to Lisa(thats her name) but she refuses to go get any kind of help. She got so mad at me the last time I tried to talk to her that she throwed a hammer at me and just did miss my head. That and the threat, I had to band her from the house until she gets help.

I have also tried to talk in detail with my husband about him not backing me in my decisions with Lisa and he says that he just does not understand how I can turn my back on her. I tried to tell him as long as she thinks that she has a someone backing her then she will not get any help and I will always be the bad guy. He just does not see it. But, I do think we BOTH has some other issues to go through also.

Right now he is at a Bike Fest at Myrtle beach S.C. when he comes back I am going to tell me that we need to go see someone. I just don't think that he will go. because he beleives I am wrong and he has already told lisa that.

If your husband won't go with you, start counseling without him. This will give you some relief and when he gets curious as to why you are beginning to show signs of feeling better, he will probably want to go too. If not, you have still helped everybody by gaining more confidence, more knowledge of the issues and a sense that you are not alone.

The first thing you may want to do is forgive everybody, if you can. Lisa is desperately sick. There is treatment for her conditions that, with time and lots of effort, will help at least some.

Your husband doesn't understand her condition. he probably thinks it is simply that you and Lisa don't get along. He is like most people on the planet. He doesn't understand psychiatric conditions. Many therapists do not understand borderline conditions and think talk therapy with family will fix it. They end up with the person with the condition turning therapy into a circus and twisting everything into "proof" that there is a conspiracy against her. She needs the kind of help that requires her to be alone in a room with a therapist before anything else will have a chance of working.

One thing you may want to do is go on line to one of the medical sights and look up "Borderline Personality Disorder." There are ten or eleven criteria that make up the behaviors that go with it. Print it out and see how many fit your daughter. I suspect, it will be 12 out of 11; share it with your husband. Even if he poo-poos it, it will affect him inside. I suspect he is too proud to admit he is wrong, but if he "discovers" it for himself, he may come around. If he is like a lot of men, he is opinionated but lovable; often wrong but never in doubt. But, deep down, he loves his family and tries to do what is best. In this case, nobody could fix it without professional help.

If all of this starts working and your husband begins to understand that you and Lisa are not fighting, but rather Lisa is unable to act in an appropriate manner because of a personality disorder which makes her believe things that aren't true, perhaps then the two of you need to have an intervention with her and both make her understand that you love her but seeking help in order to be a full member of the family again is non-negotiable. Get a good family therapist to help you with this process.

Let go of the blame. Nobody is to blame. You didn't make her sick. You husband didn't make things worse, except that you feel unsupported, but Lisa would have this condition if he dove a Bentley instead of a bike! No one knows how this disorder begins but it seems to affect people with all kinds of backgrounds: contentious families, loving families, one-parent families, alternative parenting families. It is probably a chromosomal defect or maybe even a genetic one. There is not enough study to be certain. One thing is certain: Medication doesn't help. Another is that the only thing you can do is set up a structure in which she cannot harm those she loves. That is the worst part: The fact that she attacks you means you are the one she loves, but her expectations are that you will solve all her problems ... every minute of every day. That is where her thinking is different from the average kid who, at 26, wants her parents to butt out of her life. She doesn't keep reaching out but she doesn't sabotage her relationships, either.

Another thing to look for is her relationships with men. Does she always pick the wrong one and then have difficulty letting go? Does she have to be the one to end it? Does she pick men who take verbal abuse from her and then try to get out only to find that she won't let go? Those are all signs of borderline personality.

Sorry to bend your ear like this but after a dozen years, I hope that anything I say here helps you sort out your family issues and allows you to know that you deserve a medal, not your husband's condemnation. He simply doesn't realize what a treasure you are. Many people would have given up on both your daughter and him years ago and you are still sticking in there. With help, luck, study, nerve and patience, I pray that it all works out for the best for you and your family.

Lisa is a victim as well as a source of pain to herself and others. If she could, she wouldn't choose to be the way she is. She sees the world through a funhouse mirror that distorts all the important things.

I strongly agree that you need to get a counselor involved in your situation. You might try contacting your local NAMI chapter (National Allicance on Mental Illness). They can help the family understand your daughter's illness and how to deal with her and with your own feelings. They can also explain the Baker Act to you. That allows for a person to be committed for at least 3 days if they are a danger to themselves or others.

Most of all, get someone local you can talk to who knows about mental illness and resources you can tap into.

You can only control yourself, so do what you can to get peace of mind and to try to help your daughter with her illness. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong or doing this or that. What does matter is finding a place of safety for your heart and your daughter's.

Thank you for your response. I do know about the Baker's Act. My husband is in Law Enforcement. I have tried everything to get my daughter to get help, but I think I am going to try to at least fix my heart and my peace of mind by seeing someone then maybe they can point me in a better way of getting my daughter and my husband to see that she needs help. Lisa has done alot of damage over the years and she know it, but I think when I can stand up and tell her "YOU CAN'T HURT ME ANYMORE" that is when I beleive I will be able to help her most. Lisa is going to have to want the help at least a little before I can help her. I think once I start therapy maybe her father and her will see that she does too.

I have been skimming online for some advice about bipolar disorder because I recently had a scary and nutty manic episode. Reading about the "eggshells" really disturbs me. I hate to think that I make people feel like their frightened by what I "might do". I almost wish I didn't read this.

If I could give any advice at all it would be to keep telling your husband how you feel OR even better... speak with a counselor for yourself which could lead you in the right direction to actually help yourself 1st, then deal with your daughter. She may not see how much she needs help. Thank you for letting me read this. It keeps me aware of my own behavior. Also, I'm new to this website.