I’ve learned one important thing from being bipolar, though: the way to keep yourself from burnout is NOT to suppress that manic energy. What really turns the trick is keeping in mind how delicate your central nervous system is and knowing your limits. Maintain a ruthlessly realistic outlook, and never ever allow yourself to lose your sense of objectivity. Remember: your mind is not a toy, and it’s a very difficult thing to put back together.

From a lot of recent research, a couple of common factors that bipolar people have in common is other people in their family being bipolar (pretty obvious really), and alcoholism. I assume it’s because alcoholism is a form of self-medication?

Going by that and what I have seen of children of bipolar parents there is definitely a link. My mother has the condition and took her medication very sporadically when we were growing up so there was constant cycling. They say it’s a mix of nature and nurture so it’s a combination of being exposed to that and inheriting a predisposition to mental illness from my mother’s family that gave all of us high IQs.

I am grateful for this intelligence but if I could choose, I would ask for only an above average IQ and good emotional intelligence. That’s where children of bipolar parents suffer the most. Because of an emotionally imbalanced childhood they aren’t as well equipped to deal with challenges in adult life and have difficulty forming meaningful relationships. I think most of us manage and although we didn’t have these skills leaving home, have developed them to an extent ourselves in the real world.

He who want the rose must respect the thorn.

So we should all enjoy the benefits that being the child of a bipolar parent can bestow, but acknowledge the areas that may have suffered in the process and do our best to improve them.

And to Ami who left comment number 6, that’s very sad what happened when you were 17, it must have been very tough for you. I share your sentiment when you say that you’re trying not to withdraw as much, it’s something that I do too.

Best of luck to everyone

xx

I think that art, for me, was the perfect escape from the chaos at home. I found that I could already disasociate quite well to protect myself from my mother - and that this skill is very useful when drawing and painting.

I think that my teachers saw this, and labeled me gifted. Instead of helping me to learn to be more aware and present, it actually encouraged me to be less connected, although I did get very good and was able to study with a few very good artists.

I just wish that at some point someone had helped me learn that there is a time and place for withdrawing and being creative, and a time to be here and now. I’m working on it.

I am the child of a paranoid schizophrenic and, coincidently, had been *tagged* (or labelled as my father would put it) as a gifted child in school. That was in an era when there were no such programs in school for children - at least not in public school. At the age of 21 I was diagnosed as having clinical depression and the psychiatrists I saw all agreed that the symptoms lurked way back to the age of roughly 14. At the age of 37 - following at least 24 treated depressive episodes - I was “rediagnosed” with Bipolar 2. So what, right? When my then-4 year old daughter finished preschool (having overcome a severe speech delay with flying colours) it was recommended by 3 different professionals that she enter French Immersion kindergarten because otherwise she would be bored with the regular cirriculum within a month of the beginning of the school year. By December of her kindergarten year she had met ALL the criteria for grade one entrance. She is now in French immersion grade one and her teacher is amazed that she has already met all the criteria for grade 2 entrance! (By the way, nobody in our family speaks a single word of French!) Two other school staff have strongly suggested she be put into some form of private art classes as she supposedly demonstrates drawing abilities equivalent to grade 5. Unfortunately I know nothing about drawing as my particular creative streaks run in music and poetry. Every day she asks questions I never even considered until high school - deep thought provoking rhetorical type questions. I can’t keep up!! Another interesting connection I have come across in the last few years is the potential connection between creativity and sensory issues, as my daughter has ALSO been diagnosed (or labelled or whatever you would like to call it) with Sensory Integration Dysfunction! I know they can’t typically diagnose Bipolar or Schizophrenia at such a tender age but I have many moments where I wonder how much of the sensory issues may morph into one of the above ailments as there are certainly some symptom similarities. (I do worry that her description of wind blowing on her arm hair feeling like bugs might be a precursor to hallucinations in the future - but what mother with carrying such a family heirloom wouldn’t from time to time).

Anyway, I just wanted to comment that I am intrigued by the current research with respect to links between mental illness and giftedness. I find it interesting that it is starting to look like the very ailments that at one time appeared to be indicative of cognitive delays (NOT the terminology used back then) are showing the extreme opposite! To those who ever doubted the inner workings of the mute child I say Shame On You!!! (but in MUCH more harsh terminology LOL!).