u/Baymenbyle

I have a memory from elementary school that kind of encapsulates much of my upbringing/relationship with my bipolar mother that I would like to share. I apologize if it's frivolous and whiny and I apologize if it's triggering and upsetting. Either way, here it goes:

I hopped off the bus that day feeling upset about something. I remember walking up to the house feeling super sad and withdrawn but I can't quite remember what I wanted to do with those feelings. Either I wanted to be listened to and understood or I wanted to be left alone with my sadness. Spoiler, neither happened. I walked through the door and my mom was strangely excited to see me. Perky and wired like I had never seen her before. I had hopped off the bus countless times and walked into my home and met with disinterest, low energy, dismissiveness, and an overwhelming feeling that I'm being obnoxious and to just buzz off. But today she was hyper and silly. I tried to tell her, no, not now, mom. I'm not in the mood. X happened today and I'm upset. I remember everything I was expressing was absolutely ignored. Instead she grabbed me, climbed on top of me, trapped me under the weight of her body and kept repeating "you're my egg and I'm going to hatch you!". I absolutely did not like it at first and remember feeling like hey wtf I'm trying to tell you something. I remember physically struggling to get out from under her and how scared I felt about this weird energy from her and that I was totally overwhelmed by her much larger body... but then I realized, holy shit this is special. This is fun. Mom is FINALLY connecting with me in a child-like way! Actually this is AWESOME. So I eventually dropped my feelings and played into it. I stopped crying and struggling gave in and started laughing with her. We had a great time for the next several minutes until that ended and we went back to the routine of the rest of the evening. The next day I hopped off the bus eagerly and ran to the house, excited for more "hatching" playtime. I tried to get my mom to hatch me like an egg and she half-heartedly did it for like a second and then I remember feeling rejected and scolded for being too energetic and made to feel regretful for even asking even though I "got my way". I remember feeling confused but focused, thinking ok maybe its a special occasion thing and I need to feel out the room more before approaching her for this type of physical contact play. So I would gently ask some days after school and was always rejected. My mom never hatched me like an egg ever again.

I see a lot of posts on this sub where there is speculation or suspicion of mood/personality disorders of a parent and lots of mentions of narcissism but not a lot explicitly mentioning a diagnosed mental disorder. Firstly, I always wonder if an actual diagnosis would feel more or less helpful during your neglected years. My mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder during her preteens and I was made aware of this illness in mid-elementary school. For me, this diagnosis kind of became a catch all to explain her behaviors. Getting screamed at for something I didn’t do? Probably her mental health, she doesn’t mean it. She’s acting like a pouty child while everyone else is having fun? Maybe it’s not her, it’s her mental health. Humiliating me in public and then shaming me for expressing my distress about it? It’s just her bipolar disorder and maybe she doesn’t know any better. I go back and forth all the time between feeling sorry for her and recognizing her struggle and telling myself she’s doing her best and it’s all she has the capacity for, and feeling like its being used as an excuse to be selfish, withdrawn, critical, cruel, etc. It feels extremely unfair for me to treat her behavior as if it’s something she could control. I spent much of my adolescence trying to sift through what was “normal” behavior for an adult parent and what behaviors were due to her mental health. I don’t think I’ve ever figured it out. It’s been even more complicated by the realization that her childhood car accident she always talked about was actually much more severe than I understood as a child and she likely has a TBI too… but I wanted to ask you all: How does this framing of their diagnosed illness or even mental capacity affect your experience of your own emotional neglect?