Dating Someone who is Bipolar 1- Need Advice and Help

[girltalkCA]

As you're learning, this is not the sort of condition that is managed effectively through just diet and exercise and stuctured routine. Those are all great facets of a healthy lifestyle, but they are from from sufficient in treating Bi-Polar Disorder.

 

Out of curiosity, why did you start another thread on this topic?

 

I just feel so confused and lost and need some insight and people t talk with who some experience/knowledge of this disorder. I'm feeling very sad and on the verge of hopeless

[LaHermes]

OP. I can only repeat what Wiseman said earlier:

 

"The best way to deal with it is to end it and examine your motives for dating someone with severe mental illness. Don't fix her. Fix yourself."

 

Two years "investment" is nothing. Imagine 20, 30 or 40 years of this kind of lunacy.

 

There are stable and psychologically healthy people out there. No one here is going to advise you in any manner whatsoever to stay. Or tell you what you want to hear.

[smackie9]

My mom is bi-polar and I will say this...it's always going to be a difficult, emotional roller coaster ride. My mom is in her 80's, she has been treated for decades, takes medication, always sees the doctor, gets her medication adjusted, etc...she maintains it BUT and I strongly say BUT it's never ever right. She still drives me crazy, she still at times is mean, highly critical, narcissistic, gosh I can go on and on. For your own sanity and mental well being, run for the hills as far away as you can.

[boltnrun]

I just feel so confused and lost and need some insight and people t talk with who some experience/knowledge of this disorder. I'm feeling very sad and on the verge of hopeless

 

When a relationship makes you feel "confused", "lost", "very sad" and "on the verge of hopeless" you're in the wrong relationship.

 

"I LOVE her!" doesn't obligate you to put up with this for the rest of your life. You are allowed to continue to love her without being in a relationship with her.

 

And no, you won't be "abandoning someone who NEEDS me!" And you won't be selfish, heartless or any other excuses you can think of. She will not get help for her medical condition and unfortunately it's not something like cancer or heart disease but one that affects YOUR mental and emotional health in a negative way.

 

You will continue to feel confused and lost and very sad and hopeless as long as you stay in this relationship. Period.

[bluecastle]

It may not be constant but it will be repeated. So if you can accept there will be turmoil and upset then staying in the relationship makes sense.

 

This.

 

It's easy when talking about serious conditions—bipolar, say, or heroin addiction—to lose sight of fact that it's really no different than being with someone with less extreme, or non-diagnosable, conditions that can throw you off-kilter. Everyone has some sharp edges, and not everyone is built to handle the sharp edges of another. I'd argue that for a relationship to work it's just as critical that you can handle the parts of someone that throw you off-kilter as you can those that bring comfort.

 

The bipolar sufferer, like the recovering heroin addict, is likely going to have a harder time finding such a partner, since the edge, when it surfaces, is quite sharp. A machete, not a butter knife. When you met her, and were thinking of getting serious, you observed that most of her relationships lasted one year, with the exception being an on/off one that lasted 4-5 years and was presented as "unhealthy." You are very likely learning a bit about what's behind that history: her edge is hard for most humans to handle without losing themselves, getting all cut up. Love does not soften that edge. Desiring to "fix" or "do something" does not soften it. "Treatment," be it through medicine, therapy, diligence with a routine, or investing in new romance, does not soften it. Not completely, not permanently.

 

So, the reason to stay? It's because this—this right here—is something you feel you can handle without losing yourself. My concern, going all the way back to your first post about her, is that you are more interested in finding self-identity in being the exception to the rule, in her history, than being with someone who compliments you. You didn't have the big words back then—bipolar—but you had the framework and something about it appealed.

 

Do give yourself some time, in these hard times, to reflect on that component of this as well. There are people who dedicate their entire lives to understanding and treating conditions like this—who have watched every YouTube video there is to watch, whose work has produced those videos—but that doesn't mean they go home to someone suffering from them.

 

Critical question: In your own romantic history are there any chapters in which you've felt the way you do now? Sad, hopeless, trying to figure someone out in order to feel less sad, more hopeful? If so, that could be something untreated that is demanding as much treatment as her condition.

[girltalkCA]

This.

 

 

Critical question: In your own romantic history are there any chapters in which you've felt the way you do now? Sad, hopeless, trying to figure someone out in order to feel less sad, more hopeful? If so, that could be something untreated that is demanding as much treatment as her condition.

 

 

That's a very interesting question and one I've thought about recently. My last relationship I was with a deaf person and we went through some very volatile situations too....some were abusive (emotionally and physically). I did try to relate and understand her (as I feel like is common and normal in relationships) but even to this day, she remains a mystery to me in many ways. The difference is, in my current relationship, the status quo felt very solid, good and healthy until now. Whereas in my last relationship, it pretty much felt unhealthy in general. The bipolar is new to me and I have no experience or understanding of it, no naturally, am trying to "figure out"

[Wiseman2]

Bipolar is chronic. Unfortunately it is also self exacerbating . This is what makes it so recalcitrant to treatment. For example she tells you she is using a 'natural" approach which is code for 'going off meds again because i feel fine' (delusional and subjective).

 

People with this disorder not only ruin their own lives with their manic and depressive episodes the very often destroy lives around them. Up to you. Just remember, people aren't projects.

[boltnrun]

Why are you trying to "relate and understand" abusive people?

[LaHermes]

OP why?

 

"The bipolar is new to me and I have no experience or understanding of it, no naturally, am trying to "figure out""

 

Unless you are studying for a degree in psychiatry or psychology why would you want to figure out?

 

It is not your task in life to become the caretaker combined with therapist of such persons.

 

I am trying to understand what is it that draws you to such persons rather than to the stable and steady.

[Wiseman2]

Agree. Dating shouldn't be a leisurely stroll through the pages of the DSM5

Why are you trying to "relate and understand" abusive people?

[bluecastle]

The difference is, in my current relationship, the status quo felt very solid, good and healthy until now. Whereas in my last relationship, it pretty much felt unhealthy in general.

 

Are you sure sure about this statement?

 

I don't want to come to conclusions solely from posts, but my own lens (as I pointed out in past posts) saw a lot of edginess inside you, inside the dynamic of you two. Your AC goes on the fritz, you spend 10 days in her house, and your brain spins around in ways that struck my eyes as less than "solid." Granted, I know any relationship hits moments of turbulence, but stir in a history where you tried to understand someone who was physically and emotionally abusive (with her deafness maybe serving as a reason to be more understanding?) and I just can't help but ask some deeper questions.

 

The reason I'm not going hard on the bipolar component of this is not to dismiss or minimize it's gravity, but to turn the lens on something else: what I can't help but wonder is an instinct, in you, to experience discomfort triggered by another human being as a mark of connection worth exploring, investing in. Do the math on that and what you get are connections that, as time passes, require greater doses of discomfort, which is to say you may seek out people who will foster that, at least until it becomes too much for your spirit to withstand.

 

Keep in mind, for instance, that what you're now seeing as "delusional" and "manic" is a headspace that you've known has existed for a long time, at least in regards to your investment property.

[Batya33]

That's a very interesting question and one I've thought about recently. My last relationship I was with a deaf person and we went through some very volatile situations too....some were abusive (emotionally and physically). I did try to relate and understand her (as I feel like is common and normal in relationships) but even to this day, she remains a mystery to me in many ways. The difference is, in my current relationship, the status quo felt very solid, good and healthy until now. Whereas in my last relationship, it pretty much felt unhealthy in general. The bipolar is new to me and I have no experience or understanding of it, no naturally, am trying to "figure out"

 

Seems to me you benefit from the mystery part -part of you likes being kept on your toes in this way.

[abitbroken]

Okay ---- at the end of the day, are you in a relationship that makes you feel content, that you are a better person with the person you choose than without them (i am not meaning in a clingy way minute to minute but the fact of being in the relationship). If after 2 years, things are still always off the rails, you are making decisions because someone is emotionally manipulating you -- and you are not growing as a person - why do you do it? you don't have to go to classes to learn how to be with this person and you can't force them to take their medication. If she was faithfully taking it and it was causing a reaction, yeah she works with her doc -- but taking herself off proves she is not mature about her care. There is nothing forcing you to have to be with her. you say you have a lot of the same sensibilities. Lots of people like the same movies or sleep schedule.