How do you do it??! My mum has bipolar and lives abroad. She is separated from my dad and every so often she will get manic and she is frankly intolerable when she is manic. She becomes very argumentative, and itritable and spends excessively etc. she lives alone and my sister has had to bear the brunt of it as she drops in on my mum several times a week. My brother was meant to visit this week but he has decided it will be too stressful for him to go see her now. I live on te other side of the world and its too far away to visit more than once or twice a year. My sister is getting to the point of feeling that she's had enough and doesn't want to visit my mum for the next few days. How do other families manage?!? How do you summon up the patience to deal with this when your loved one is manic? I don't know what to say. I feel my brother should visit and ease the burden off my sister, but feel its unfair for me to say so when I am so far away and don't have to put up with her myself...