Bipolar and Addiction

I have learned so much in my 22 years of life. A lot of things are not as they seem. When I was a young kid, I thought there were no issues in my family at all... Boy was I wrong! As I got older, tensions rose and I started to realize something was different about my father, but I had no idea what. For years, I put it in the back of my mind because I did not even know where to start. Finally, the breaking point came.

When I turned 18, after years of fighting, my parents finally divorced. And I’m an only child so I had the privilege of being in the middle of those fights all the time. My mom was very strict on me growing up, so I favored my dad a lot of the time. We would hang out like friends all the time. So when they separated I naturally chose to go and move in with my dad. Biggest mistake of my life.

In the beginning of us being "roommates" everything seemed normal except for him getting sick a lot. He constantly seemed to be battling bronchitis and/or phenomena. One day he would act critically ill and the next he was out and about at the mall. It felt like a roller coaster. I even caught him once chugging a bottle of cough syrup, but I didn’t say anything. I noticed him taking my medications also when I would get sick. This is when I started to get suspicious.

More time goes on, and as it does, he becomes more and more angry with me and moody. Every day was different. One day I would wake up and he would freak out and scream at me for no reason. He would threaten to kill himself a lot. The next day he would be cool as ever and wanted to hang out. And the next he would sleep all day without even waking up. Some days he would go out and buy the most expensive thing he could find. I started to feel kind of helpless. I also thought, maybe I should have listened to my mom when she looked at me and said, “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into,” the day I moved in with him.

So I’m on the verge of a breakdown now a year into this. With the mental and emotional abuse and the roller coaster of emotions. I discover that my dad was actually diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was only 3-years-old. It all makes sense now.

Finding this out, I discovered he hasn’t been taking any of his prescribed medication. My mom used to hide it from me and she used to force him to take his medication. Instead of taking his medicine, he is abusing pain medication and Xanax now. This is why he would sleep for days and slur his words some days. I felt like I could help him get out of this. After all we were so close.

I confronted him nicely and tried to get him to take his medicines. He flipped out. He denied being bipolar, told me to worry about myself, told me I was crazy, and ended up kicking me out of his house in the middle of the night. I couldn’t even have a rational conversation with him.

The next morning, I get a text message telling me he’s cutting me off and wants nothing to do with me. I tried to talk to him, but he made his mind up. Then my Facebook blows up, him posting nasty and untrue things about me. Then I start to think. This is my FATHER. Not an ex-boyfriend. This is my own father treating me this way. I felt like I was in a bad dream. I tried to ignore it, but he continued to slander me daily through social medical and over calls and text.

Fast forward two years later. I’m twenty- two now. I haven’t seen my father since I was 19. He still tries to contact me every once in a while. 99 percent of the time its mean messages, and only 1 percent is nice and apologetic. I have tried the past two years to talk to him and to get him help. He has refused at every turn. He is so far gone that he is starting to have delusions. I never thought in a billion years that I would be here with my dad. I would give anything to have the dad back that I remember when I was young. He is the one that missed my college graduation, my birthdays, and one day, my wedding day.

The point of my real-life story is please don’t try to self-medicate. Your family is worth so much more than your mental illness or drugs. If you are suffering, take the help, it will be so worth it in the end. Don’t let drugs win or your mental illness. Being stubborn will never get you anywhere.