Jill discusses caring for her son whose bipolar disorder surfaced during the teen years. She describes the lack of resources in rural Iowa, the criminalization of mental illness and how that affected her family. She explains how this journey as a mother makes you learn who you are as a person and how strong you can be.Transcription[music]

Female Voice: Welcome to the Just Ask Mom podcast where mothers share their experiences of raising children with mental illness. Just Ask Mom is a Mothers On The Frontline production. Today we will listen to Jill, a mother from Iowa, share her story about raising a son with bipolar disorder.

Tammy: Thank you for doing this. We really appreciate you being here.

Jill: Absolutely.

Tammy: Before we get into a lot of the content could you tell us a little bit about yourself before or outside of mothering, who are you? What are your passions? What are you interested in?

Jill: It's a great question. Well, first of all, I think I've known since I was five years old, probably or even before that I wanted to be a teacher. My grandmother was a teacher, my aunt was a teacher. I would have to say that was my focus through high school. I went to college, I'm a teacher and I'm very passionate about it, very passionate about early childhood education. I currently decided to personally take a step back and decided to work on my Master's degree.

Tammy: Wonderful.

Jill: Yeah, between doing that and teaching full-time and having two children, let's say two teenagers at home. [laughs]

Tammy: You're busy.

Jill: It's busy. When I have a free second to breath and if I'm not writing the research paper or discussion thread I am spending time with my family and friends. That's very important to me. I like to exercise, I love to be outside in the summer in my flower garden. That's kind of me by myself.

Tammy: So you knew early on what you wanted to do?

Jill: I did and I think that doesn't happen a lot.

Tammy: No.

Jill: I I think a lot of children these days are just full of pressure. "I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I want to do", and I just tell my boys I hope it's just a lucky one. So, 20-some years I've been in it and I don't ever see myself do anything else.

Tammy: Oh, that's wonderful. You love it, that's great.

Jill: I do, yes.

Tammy: It's a gift when your passion can become your work.

Jill: Yes, absolutely.

Tammy: Absolutely. I want you to pretend that you're talking to other parents. What do you want them to know about your experience as raising a child with a mental health condition? What would you want them to know?

Jill: I would say number one, trust your instincts. If you see something maybe that is out of character for your child, maybe something that differs from what they have "typically", how they've been acting. I guess just picking up on those little cues. I look back over the journey with my son it's been three years. Three years and three years now has gone by and I look back at some of the things and say. "Wow, I wish I would have been-- went with my gut more than I did". Does that make sense?

Tammy: It does. Now with your son, was there a clear before-and-after of an onset of symptoms, did it sort of come on at a certain point in his life or did you always see it his whole life, or?

Jill: No. We did not see it early on in life at all. There was no signs or symptoms at all. Probably started seeing it at the age of 15, his hormones were really coming on. When we first started seeing signs like I said looking back impulsive behaviors and things that typically hadn't been characteristic of my son, but because some of it we kind of blamed on, "Oh, he's a teenager. Oh, he's sowing his oats, he's doing this", but then he would be fine for a while. Then well, we'd have another as well, I say now an episode of just uncharacteristically behaviors. I should have went with my gut more than I did but I did try to get some he...