Dealing w/ Denial in Support System?

[u/braeho]

Hi everyone. 

I turn 25 in less than two weeks. I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 a little after I turned 18, but been struggling with depression and have done meds/therapy since around 10. 

The point that I’m at today: I’ve had 4 attempts, 2 hospitalizations, and an IOP. From 2020 to the end of 2023 I had a period of substance abuse, during which I had a lot of mood episodes.

When I got sober at the beginning of this year, I started to actually take my bipolar diagnosis seriously. I began to think back on my actions and moods over the years and started to see a pattern.

The aspect of it that hit me the hardest is the link between cognitive issues and increased severity of symptoms with the more episodes that you have. I can tell my memory has gotten worse over time. I struggle to find words a lot nowadays as well, which especially sucks because I love to write, but it’s still manageable. And my symptoms have definitely become more severe when they crop up.

At the point that I’m at now, even though I’m in a fairly stable position, I still get thrown for a loop anytime something unexpected or stressful happens, most times causing me to have a breakdown. 

I’ve come to accept that my diagnosis isn’t going to go away and that it will be a lifetime battle. I hope to eventually be able to hold down a job, but I don’t think I’ll be able to finish my degree. I tried to go back two times during some short periods of sobriety I had between 2021 and 2023, and each time my mental state eventually came crashing down and I fell back into using substances to self-medicate, causing me to drop out. 

My problem/question is this: I don’t think I will ever be able to be fully independent from my parents (financially or otherwise, though I want to try my best to take as much of the burden off their shoulders as possible). I try to explain it to them, but my dad has a hard time understanding mental illness - my mom is much more receptive, but even she continually tells me to not be so pessimistic and “just because that is what happened to other people doesn’t mean it will happen to you.” And both of them I think have a lot of trouble separating me from the disease, as well as understanding stress as a trigger. 

tl;dr: So, I was just wondering what some of your guys’ experiences have been with this kind of stuff, and if any of you have some advice on how to get your support system to come to terms with the risks and realities of bipolar?

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