Having had a parent with bipolar1 which was not treated for a long time I have the sneaky suspition I have no chance at normalcy. I am an adult who has struggled at everything; including social skills, finishing college and fighting with depression and extremely low self esteem. Recently i was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and since then I have been hospitalized twice. My mother is med compliant and is very stable, yet she has a cruel side which stayed with her.

As an aside and to my mom's credit she raised my sister and I alone as my father died when I was 8 after a long illness where my mom had to care for him at home. He was so sick he smelled from uremic frost as his kidneys were hardly working. My mother was 28 then. She flipped shortly after he died and a number of times after that. She saved my father's belts to beat us with.

My sister is on an antidepressant, and I am on MANY meds including lithium. I have been hospitalized twice.

Sadly, I cannot forgive her although I know she could not help herself. When I was 'babysitting' her one day when she was VERY delusional I layed on the couch with a butcher knife because I was so afraid of her. She did not even recognize me. My stepfather and I hauled her off to the hospital.

I think personality disorders may be largely hereditary, yet my childhood makes me wonder if a great part may be environmental.

Thomas