Will try to make this easy. About 6 weeks ago my sister in law started showing signs of Bipolar. She had a bad time with depressian this winter. She has thrown my brother out, wants a divorce, spent every dime they had, has snatched and hidden children from him. Is drinking, is lying, chain smoking. I am not sure when she slept last, She followed my family on vacation and called at all hours sometimes up to 10-15 times a day. Started picking up men in bars (I have kn**** this women 17 years and never were these part of her behavior) She meet up with some friends in Boston who realized she was not well and they got her hosptialized. They diganosed her Bipolar, and wanted to start her on meds asap and get the manic under control. They were also worried about her not sleeping. She managed to escape get on a plane with NO ID, no shoes and get back into Orlando. They picked her up last night and then let her sign herself out today. My brother has gone into hiding with his two small children trying to protect them and himself. Our friends and family realize in the past two weeks how sick she is. We only know what she is up to because friends keep us alert. We all love her, but in a very short time she has destroyed all of us. She was also fired today at her very successful job, because of her recent behavior. She has threated to kill my brother. Looking back I can see other periods of this illness, they just were not at this level. She is hunting all of us down right now and its very scary. It is if she has no fear, she is aggressive, angry and thinks that my family did this too her. She has not had contact with her mother in 22 years, well we found her this week and she also is Bipolar and only after 10 episodes did she get help. We need help,how can we get her help. If she get the kids again she will run again. She did this a week ago and got on a plane with the baby to RI. We do not want to keep them from their mother, but right now she will do anything to hurt us. Where can we turn. How can one hospital say she is so sick and another let her out? She threw every wedding picture out, she buys like no tomorrow-and strange things 15 CDs at a time, cards 20-30 at a time, We are a family that is drowning and right now we feel hopeless because we do not know where we can go legally and how to...she is very convincing to those around her. Most of our friends though the first couple weeks we were the wacky ones-however her behavior has become so erratic and grandious they all realize now what we have been going through.How long can someone last in this manic stage? Sorry this is so long-PLEASE HELP

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I am so sorry for what you are going through. That is horrible. I don't really have any answers for you. I am not a Dr. but from what I have read, if left untreated the mania could possibly last for months. I hate to tell you this. Unfortunately it is very difficult to have someone committed to the hospital these days as you are well finding out. You can only continue to try in the meantime. There is also the possibility that she will do something illegal during her episode and be arrested. At that time you might be able to have the police refer her for examination.

But these are just suggestions off the top of my head. Hopefully somebody with experience will be able to provide you with more assistance. I wish I could be of more help. I wish you luck and you and your family are in my prayers.

The first thing that you need to do is go down to the courthouse and get (the father) temporary emergency custody of the children. this will give you some time to breathe and seek help for the next step. If she is powerless over the kids, and you can force her to get treatment as a condition to her visitations with the kids. Theres help out there, its hard and frustrating, but dont give up. Take it all one step at a time....good luck...

we did go to the court house today, and we did get a injunction protecting my brother and his martial home. While I was there I baker acted her myself, however when I took the paper work to the Sherrifs office someone else from where she worked had also baker acted her and she was picked up already. We also filed for a injunction for the children and that will go in front of the Judge tue.am asap. At least with her baker acted we might get some sleep and be able to take care of some of the other things with out worrying she will hurt one of us or take the kids. Again any advice is much needed. Thank you for your time. I feel like we are living in some bad movie and it never ends-when I was baker acting her I could not stop crying in front of the judge, never in my life did I think I would have to do something like this to someone I loved
SBM

I some what understand what he is going thru. I’m married to a BP women who has a thing for dishes. She also has sleep around. She tends to stay in dererisson more than the mania’s.
Her started about 4-5 years ago and we have sought all kinds of treatment. Your brother should brace himself for what is to come. I only wish that I did not love my wife so dearly as so to divorce her.
Tell him to look up NAMI.ORG

God Bless

Mudhound

The hard part is we still all very much love her. Even her own sister who was off today would not go visit her. My brother who she has done nothing but destroyed was visiting her up until he filed the injunction more to protect them from losing the house or the kids still visited. We are hope this time she may get the help she needs. On tuesday we go for a emergency custody, and hope that will also push her to get help and stay getting help. I suppose we are all braced for the long road, the road is just so unpredicatable...this is one scary illness.

SBM