I am Me! Experiencing Parenting While Dealing With One's Own Bipolar Disorder

Abstract

This article aims at achieving insight into acquiring an understanding of parenting while dealing with one's own bipolar disorder. It is based on results from in-depth interviews of six parents with bipolar disorder, and analyzed using guidelines from interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The results from the study suggest the parents experienced diverse, complex, compound, and demanding challenges. However, the results also highlighted the fact that parents went through a “change and growth” process, in which they developed an experience-based competence perceived as being useful due to their living situation, including the strengthening of their parenting function and their personal recovery process. Aspects about how the time dimension in recovery, as well as how parents' dependence on their children can play both a central and paradoxical role in their lives, are discussed, which is then followed by implications for the support system.

Keywords:

• bipolar disorder
• lived experience
• interpretative phenomenological analyses (IPA)
• parenting
• recovery
• stigma

Notes

The first author has received grants from the Norwegian Union of Social Educators and Social Workers (FO) to write this article.

The authors thank the parents who participated and the providers in the community mental health centers for their help in recruitment.