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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • I’m an American atheist Jew, and I’ve had conversations with my (converted) mother about it. She’s pretty solidly on Israel’s side, but she’s also not very educated about the conflict. She just kinda goes by the mainstream media’s narrative and doesn’t think too much beyond that. When I present her with information, she’s horrified and agrees with me that “Israel is going too far,” but it never results in her thinking the U.S. should stop sending them money. She hates Netanyahu and his conservative government, but she’s very hung up on Hamas being a terrorist organization. And I suppose I am too, to be honest. I want a free Palestine and for the Israeli settlers to be expelled, but I don’t want to support Hamas and I think they should pretty much be eradicated. I’m just much more willing to condemn Israel for their actions than she is; she’s very caught on the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself from Palestinian terrorism, and has a hard time seeing that it’s gone way past that at this point.


  • Mental health counselor here.

    The outcomes of treatment for bipolar disorder are unfortunately very variable. It depends on how severe your son’s symptoms are, how well he responds to the medications cocktail he’s being given, what that medication cocktail is, and how well he adheres to it.

    The important thing is that your son controls what he can control, which is largely whether or not he takes his meds and how much he engages in therapy. Therapeutic skills involve insight/mindfulness work (i.e. how well your son can recognize his symptoms as they’re happening) and resource use (i.e. does he inform his therapist and/or psychiatrist when he notices he’s be king symptomatic). Mania often feels amazing to people experiencing it, so they’re often motivated against treating it when it occurs, and this is major barrier to treatment.

    A big component is whether or not symptoms of psychosis are involved in either the mania or depression. Psychotic symptoms are: 1.) hallucinations (false sensory perceptions, like hearing voices, seeing things, smelling things, etc), 2.) delusions (false beliefs that don’t conform to “normal” societal beliefs, like “I am Jesus” or “God has a mission for me”), and 3.) paranoia (i.e. feeling people around you are hostile to you or are spying on you, etc). These can be experienced in either mood state, but are most often seen in manic states.

    I would suggest getting in touch with an organization called NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) as they have tons of resources for people struggling with mental illness and family members of mentally ill people.