Get Your Family More (or Less) Involved

By Candida Fink MD

We devoted an entire part of Bipolar Disorder for Dummies to family and friends – Part V, “Assisting a Friend or Relative with Bipolar Disorder.” This week, I was planning on doing a post about how to get family members more involved, but on second thought, I realized that sometimes people with bipolar want certain friends or family members less involved… and sometimes for good reason.

I have come to the conclusion that it would be much more interesting to open this topic for discussion. Here are some questions to get people talking, but feel free to expand the discussion with any observations and insights that go beyond these questions:

• Do you feel that your friends and loved ones have a sufficient understanding of bipolar?
• Would you like friends and family members to be more or less involved in helping you maintain mood stability? Why?
• What sorts of things do friends or family members do that you find most helpful in dealing with bipolar disorder?
• What sorts of things do friends or family members do that you find least helpful or cause you even more grief?

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