Expert: Libby Bonner - 11/7/2008

Question
QUESTION: I am an ex partner with 2 children of someone I suspect has bi-polar. I am desperate in needing some advice as i dont know where to turn. my ex partner has always been a very controlling person with somewhat strange behaviour. he has huge highs and lows and goes into what i can only describe as manic ramblings when he is feling cross/challenged(he carries on talking even tho i can be speaking to someone else while he is still on the telephone!)he has now decided that he will not have any contact with our children until i fulfill his wish for a letter of recognition (dont ask!!) he goes into these 'episodes' which is why i had to dissolve the relationship in the end. he would often if he was cross with me keep waking me up thru the night to continue the discussion. he also does make himself out to be something he is not.he hasnt worked for 6 yrs but does get quite angry and refer to times when he was earning quite a good salary.  please help me...does this sound like bi-polar?? and what are my options as i dont have the right to contact his GP? we were never married and his parents are and have been for many years bullied and afraid of him so they wont go behind his back. thank you very much. desperately awaiting your reply..janet

ANSWER: It's not clear to me what action/option you are deperate to initiate.  You want him to have contact w/ the children?  You want him to be diagnosed and treated?  Or - something else??

As to having no right to contact his GP, do you mean because you are not married to your partner, or that the GP [nor any other doc] knows of his possible illness, or that partner has never signed a release that would reduce/eliminate barriers between doc and you????  If he sees his GP often enough for this to matter, it is my understanding that, lacking a release, one can still GIVE info to a doc.  YOu could call the office and speak w/ a nurse or the doc, or you can write - either way, the material should become part of partner's chart and will not go unnoticed.  --- The info might be acted upon, but you would not be identified as the reason the doc was probing for new info.

Do pls give me more info, and I would be happy to be of better help.

A book that might help you, if you are in contact w/ him and want those contacts to become more effective: author is Woolis, title is When someone you love has a mental illness.  It very likely will open up some useful areas and suggest tactics.  Do buy it.

IF it's desirable that the children maintain contact w/ the partner, and the letter of recognition is innocuous and doesn't compromise any legal step/s you might take, do it!  Sound like a screwy but harmless thing to do....and might bring peace in the valley.

For more info on mental illness, see nami.org or mentalhealth.com


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: hi
sorry if i was being vague in my last e-mail but the action i am trying to initiate is that he receives some help so as he can stop or try to stop these manic 'episodes'. my desperation is borne from the fact that our children are 6 and 4 and naturally  get insecure when this mental torture is raising its ugly head in their lives. i do of course try diversion with them and explain that daddy is very busy at the moment like i sometimes am  and do encourage them to speak to him on the telephone regulary. i use this tactic to smooth things over until i get the inevitable relaxed phone call that we need to sort things out and that we are both in the wrong (his admission of responsibility ALWAYS has a BUT word in it ) then things normally become more back to normal but i am afraid that one day myself and the children wont become back to normal for him.  would you suggest that i write to his GP as his ex-partner and mother of his children expressing my concerns and detailing behaviour etc? i really do appreciate this help at the moment as i am finding dealing with this increasingly difficult.  thanks janet  

Answer
Thinking about my first response, and your new information, contacting the GP may not be a good option UNLESS partner is known to see GP a couple times a year [most guys, no], UNLESS you are also this doc's pt [I gather you are not], or UNLESS you live in a small town, very small.  If the first two UNLESSes are No, I only bring up the third because it is the only situation I can envision where a doc's office might initiate a contact w/ a patient who has not been there for awhile.....   In my earlier scenario, I had been thinking of your info being "used" by the doc in partner's next visit - some casual questions, and then maybe not so casual - thus getting something going.

Now, to make use of your new info.  Do you consider yourself still partnered w/ him and/or do wish to remain in an adult-adult relationshipe w/ him [or resume one?]  Or is he DEFINITELY in the past, and your concern is entirely as a co-parent??  You are prepared to date, meet someone else, etc., -- or not?

Your answers to the above paragraph influence all else.  If he is truly in the past, then the issues are the children, and the nature of his illness, whatever it may be.

Let's assume he has a mental illness, perhaps bipolar.  [He could have a personality disorder...much harder to treat, FYI.]  And I should have asked you what ended his employment or employability or his wish to work....]  IF he has either an MI or a personality disorder, only he can initiate some care-seeking, diagnosis-seeking.  [Unless he goes off the rails so completely as to become a danger to self or others and winds up in a hosp or a jail - or worse.] He is an adult and cannot be made to seek care.  He also, if ill, is unable to respond to any rational suggestions you might make -- so pls do save your energy there.  "Suggestions" will likely only harden his position, if he has one:  has someone suggested that he seek care, or is he mostly just free-spiriting around, without a care??  More suggestions won't help....but see Amador, below.

The Woolis book might be a help in nudging him to seek a psychological or psychiatric evaluation.  For instance, defining quite sharply what the limits are re contacts w/ the kids until and unless he ______________________ [whatever.]   Another book whose whole subject is the reluctant patient is by Amador.  Title is I am not sick; I don't need help.  Do get the later edition.  [I would borrow this one, but buy Woolis.]

Another question I didn't ask was how long the separation has been.  Not long, I am guessing....since you are taking great care to maintain him within the children's orbit.... a natural impulse, and it would be mine as well....unless I were an 'expert,' and then 'maintaining' might give me pause.  

IF you yourself are emotionaly separated from him, and IF he remains as he is, I think you must construct whatever rationale works best in the short-, mid-, and long-term for the children.  And this is where you might want counsel other than mine....  There are some excellent websites out there - you have only to Google bipolar.  Or write back if you want specifics -- this note might get lost if I stopped to check site addresses.   If the advice there - re children, families - is inadequate, then you may want to see a child pyschologist who might evaluate where each of the children is now...might be done mostly through play therapy.  But you would have some guidance, and some insight into their thinking and wishes/beliefs.  My concern is that possibly less contact is in order.......but I haven't enough info [and don't have proper expertise....]

THIS will help you as much as Woolis.  Go to nami.org to see if 1] there is an affiliate near you and 2] whether there is a Family to Family class starting soon near you.  Re #1 - you are hoping for one that also runs a NAMI family support group.  Re #2 - classes will be listed at nami.org, but pls also get the state office email and ask them about classes - nami.org sometime lags.....    ---- I think the org site may also list books for young children about mental illness, but try amazon.com as well -- only those that are HIGHLY recommended.

NAMI and Woolis saved my own sanity, and saved my relationship w/ my daughter....or... helped me to be much more effective and less overwrought over her symptoms and behavior, this at a time when she was receiving wrong meds and was quite ill.

Be honest about your own personal hope for a continuing relationship, and do get some guidance about what relationship is best for the children re yr partner.  [The latter might be subject to change, based on many, many factors, over time.]

Write again if I can help.