HollyContributor
Mother in denial
I strongly believe my mother has bipolar disorder or a form Mania and refuses to believe that there is anything wrong. She has had depression over the years, and only once got help and stayed at a hospital to be assessed and seek professional help. Unfortunately she likes to put all the blame onto my father and since her stay at hospital 6 years ago says that he should have been there not her. Over the last 20 years we have all noticed her go through phases where she becomes verbally abusive when she drinks alcohol. She will yell at my father for hours at all times of the night in a drunken rage and accuse him of being horrible to her and say that he is verbally abusive to her. She will never have any scenarios to point out of him being this way toward to her she just rants and raves and will then bring my sister and I into it by saying we are horrible to her too. There have been many senarios over the years of her drunken rages and even running to neighbours houses to say she is scared of my father and making things up to have him look bad. My father has never and would never be violent toward her or anyone. He has a very gentle nature, yet my mother says he is the one that is always yelling, however it is always her that is yelling. Lately she has been telling people that he is having an affair, she has no reason or proof to think this, however she has been having extreme paranoia the last few years. Aside from her belief of my father having an affair, she also believes people are coming to their house and stealing things. I have lost count of the amount of items she has claimed have gone missing but have all been found. In recent weeks she has written her own Eulogy, and said to family friends that she doesn't want to live past 70 and said to these friends they should all go together.
She has had dramatic spending of money that was given to her from her father when he died two years ago. Spending it on plastic surgery and holidays that her and dad couldn't usually afford. Other family friends have noticed and commented on this too.
She rang my husband recently during a week working day and spoke to him for over an hour, which is unusual for her to do so. My husband said she sounded like she was "high", talking very fast and going off on multiple tangents, and it sounded out of character for her.
She will often mumble things under her breath and when questioned about it shakes her head and says "don't worry" like we are the stupid ones, sometimes she says, "forget it, I don't expect you to understand". We never seem to know what mood she will be in and worry about what we say as she will twist any comment or question we ask and randomly turn it into an argument, even if she has been laughing and smiling only moments before. She told a family friend that she thinks dad is scheming to get her psychiatric help behind her back and she doesn't need it, he does. This is obviously concerning as she needs helps and is in complete denial. My father doesn't know what to do as she turns everything onto him and says he is crazy and has issues. I am trying to find a way to get her to seek help as I don't know how much more my father can take this. He seems to be afraid of her and doesn't want to bring things to her attention regarding this as he doesn't want to cause another fight. I have told him we have to do something. Any advice on how we can get my mother to seek some form of help would be appreciated.
