My Mother’s Bipolar Part 1 – How It Started
3 December 2010
10 Comments
Image by Bint Elmi
My mother was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. We have been through a lot as a family and I hope my story can help others going through something similar.
How it started
We noticed some differences in my mothers’ behaviour in the months leading up to her most severe manic episode. It just seemed like she was unable to control her anger. She also started to become much more religious, to the point where she wanted to neglect everything else and said she had nothing else to live for.
Then, during Ramadan, she would go to taraweeh, come and sleep only for a few hours and wake up for tahajjud. She slept very little that month.
During the last 10 nights of Ramadan, our family was tested in a way I do not wish upon any other family. Her manic episode started the first night my local mosque was to start qiyam ul-layl. I was really excited, I never prayed qiyam before. This was going to be my first time, and I wanted to go all 10 nights.
I tried to go to sleep early so I could get up for qiyam. But she woke us up and started screaming, saying things that no son should have to hear from his mother. She was furious and went on a rant. We managed to calm her down for the night, and I went for qiyam.
Lesson:
Allah can test you at any time. Do people imagine that they will be left to say, ‘We believe,’ and will not be tested? We tested those before them so that Allah would know the truthful and would know the liars. (Qur’an 29:2-3)
More in the series:
My Mother’s Bipolar Part 2 – Accepting There’s Something Wrong
My Mother’s Bipolar Part 3 – Taking Action and Getting Help
My Mother’s Bipolar Part 4 – Everything’s Fine or Is it?
My Mother’s Bipolar Part 5 – A Test and A Blessing
(6 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
(4.83 out of 5)
TR, thank you for sharing your story. I appreciate it.
Religious extremism is a sure sign of mania.
I used to think I was becoming more pious.
But when I realized I was wearing the niqab during mania so I wouldn’t “breathe in the evil”, it wasn’t a question of piety anymore.
It was insanity.
TR, it was probably really hard to see your mom act like this. It’s very unexpected.
How did you manage to find the lesson in all this chaos?
Did it come early on or did you derive the lesson as you wrote this story?
3 December 2010 at 11:17 am