“Will there be a time when I will ever stop worrying about my daughter?”

“Will my son ever be able to support himself? Will he find someone to love him? Will he ever be independent?”

“Will I ever be able to let go? If my daughter has children will I need to prepare to take care of them?”

There are moments in life that you never forget. There are joyous times like graduation day, a birth, or a wedding. There are difficult times like losing a job or a close friend. Some of these moments pass into our history quietly and we revisit them in memory from time to time. But a few become defining moments. They take you by surprise and shift your course into uncharted waters. They change your reality and mold your future. I would like to share with you one such moment in my life.

Diagnosis is always tricky with any illness. The frightening part of it is the "wait and see". With bipolar disorder it is unnerving in so many ways. Wait for a mania that can spin your child out of control. Then wait for another one. Wait for a deep, dark depression that can send your child into a suicidal loop from which she cannot return on her own. Wait and see, wait and see. Try these meds; no, these, no, these. Try again. And then there are all the feelings of this journey through the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Im a planner. Long term could easily mean two years from now. Hey, it's never too early to start planning, right? In my pre-BPmom life one of my professional positions was an advance person; the staffer that gets to an event prior to the Big Guy to make sure everything is ready to roll, key people identified, exits marked. I was born for the job. No detail too small, having Plan B, C or D, mapped out and thinking 20 minutes ahead of anyone in the room (that's why they call it advance work). Now my idea of long term is this weekend.