Let’s call her Jane. So my daughter Jane ripped the book in half. She said, “I’m not reading that book. And now you can’t even return it.”

This is too bad, because the book, Facing Bipolar: The Young Adult’s Guide to Dealing with Bipolar Disorder, is a good one. It’s the only one I’ve found that isn’t too academic, too juvenile, or too depressing—and Jane could certainly use it. Ironically, at the top of the page where she ripped it in two is the heading “Not Wanting to Accept Your Bipolar Reality.”

On that page, it says:

Until you reach the point where you can truly accept the disorder without feeling overwhelmed by the fear and anger and loss, all you want to do is run from it.

I can’t really blame her.  Being a unipolar depressive myself, I’ve felt fine and, resenting the extra pounds packed on by my medication and the mere fact of having to take it, up and quit. And I’ve continued to feel just fine for a few weeks or even a month . . . until I found myself waking up at 3:30 AM, then on the hour after that until the alarm, then becoming progressively more and more emotionally fraught until, weeping at the sight of a dead bird on the street, I’ve said to myself, “Guess that stuff works after all.”

I understand as much as I’m able, not being bipolar and being a whole different person from Jane and all. She’s 20, and I don’t wonder that at that age she wants to bubble off this sneaky disease that lives in her head, right in there with her.  I don’t blame her for wanting to keep it a secret from other people--for wanting to keep the sane part outside and the skinned side inside.

But I am afraid. I’ve been through three hospitalizations with her, this last one involuntary since Jane’s now an adult. I could always see the crash coming—in her expression, her body language, the tone and pacing of her speech.  I could smell it on her, like a thunderstorm coming.  Over the years, I’ve watched and as best I’m able accepted the fact that I’m helpless to prevent these psychiatric crises.

Up till now, though, afterward I’ve taken her home and loved her and fed her, and reminded her to take her medicine, and driven her around—and this time, I’m not doing that. I figure that’s not my job anymore. Jane’s living on her own now.  My job is . . . I guess don’t know exactly what my job is now, but I know it’s different. I know I’m still her mother, but I’m not mommy who fixes everything anymore. Maybe I am still mommy, but I’m mommy who lets things break and hopes for the best.

Oh, but withholding hurts. Even though I know the only way Jane will accept that she has a lifelong chronic illness is to stand back and let her take the falls, that doesn’t stop me from trying to get her to take care of herself. Unfortunately, this isn’t something Jane and I can talk about. She slams the door or hangs up the phone or rips the book in two.  

It was hard to see her rip the book . . . apparently, I had a lot riding on it. It says all the things I’d like to if only I could get her to sit still and listen.  I recommend it highly:

Facing Bipolar: The Young Adult’s Guide to Dealing with Bipolar Disorder, by Russ Rederman and J. Anderson Thomson (New Harbinger, 2010).