Sweetie, first off let me say that I am forty and the mom of a bipolar boy who is nine. I am also bipolar and have fought my whole life with this myself. I hated my teen years and felt so alone and confused and often hopeless. There was not the same help back then as there is now and things will continue to improve. Although I spend many days and nights being sad for my son I am also hopeful that things will be better for him than they were for me so that he may spend less of his life trying to figure things out and more of it enjoying things.

You need to know that your dad is ill too and that he is probably doing the best he can, even if that doesn't seem like enough and may actually NOT be enough. But he is probably feeling terrible like you too and although your job is not to try to make him feel better, I thought you might like to know that he is most likely not trying to make things worse for you either. I know I feel so guilty and sad when I can't be the way my family needs me to be. I have a 16 year old daughter, a nine year old, an eight year old and a 4 year old. I don't always have the ability to brighten their days like I know I should. Sometimes I feel sad and hopeless too, even though I am an adult.  But that does not mean that things won't and haven't gotten better for me either.

You need to know that no feeling, not pain, not sadness, not despair, not grief, not a single one of those or others is permanent. They just aren't. You can't give up on yourself and don't give up on your family either. There are days when it seems like just way too much work, but those are the days when you need to just breathe and move in your day from one minute to the next, not thinking of how you will get to the end. Worrying about those things seldom improves my mood, I don't know about you.

So for every time you reach out, ask for advice, call a friend, tell someone you feel lost or sad or lonely, remember it is YOUR success to do so. You may not always get the answers you want or need, but the fact is, you cared enough to ask. That is all you need to keep going. Your questions will fuel your future and your answers, even if cloudy or uncertain, will build the path to adulthood and to better days.

I know that my son feels as you do many many days. We have tried medication after medication but I will not give up on him. Don't give up on yourself or on your family. If there is anything you look forward to as having as an adult---your own place, a marriage, a family, a job---then use those things to keep you going.

All the best to you Brianne.

Angie