My father was severely bipolar.  Sometimes he was also diagnosed as schizophrenic. When I had children, the conventional wisdom was nurture is everything.  Guess what, it's not.  My daughter was always moody but began having conflict with friends by the eighth grade.   She insisted on going away to boarding school because she hated her parents and her home.  No amount of attention, love, or praise stopped her from endlessly judging us.  I remember the day we dropped her at boarding school.  She couldn't wait until we were gone. Periodically she would call us, hysterically weeping, over conflicts she had with students there.  She was always the victim.  When the crisis passed, so would her contact.  She discovered alcohol.  She would have episodes of extreme anger when drunk.  But she remained stable and functional enough to go to an excellent college and hold down good part time jobs.  Until her senior year.  She was twenty when she announced she had ADD, started taking speed medications, and decided she was alcoholic.  She has never held a job for longer than 6 months since, and despite her extremely high IQ, all of them were menial.  She can't handle stress. Very often, fights with coworkers are involved.  One by one her friends have gone away.  She has been in and out of rehab and burned through AA sponsors, all of whom become disgusted and drop her eventually.  We spared no expense to help her, alternating between thinking we were doing too much and then doing too little. Finally she was recently given a diagnosis of bipolar.  Lamictal helped and we had hope.  Incredibly, the medicating shrink continued giving her medications that were basically speed for her "ADD".  She worsened again, abusing the medication to the point she now fears she has kidney damage.  She has no money, and when we allow her to live at home, she begins with humility for past transgressions and quickly moves to irritation and open scorn for us.  She keeps a diary in which she spews invective at us, calls us "selfish bastards" and far worse.  It is an endless nightmare with no escape as she can't support herself.  I would appreciate any advice you might have for parents who must live with a situation like this.  We love our daughter, but she has ruined our lives for ten years.  We are at a loss and have no idea how to help her.