Hi,
Have you ever heard the question asked, “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it fall, does it still make a sound?”
Or what about the question, “When you shut the door on your refrigerator, does the light still stay on?”
Do you believe there are people who really worry about the answers to these questions (and others like them)?
Maybe it’s because they’ve got nothing better to do with their time, or maybe because they’ve
got too much time on their hands. Maybe it’s because these types of people always have to know what’s going to happen ahead of time or they feel insecure. O maybe they just have to know all the answers to everything. These are the types of people who can’t deal with unpredictability.
But as a supporter, you have to live with this (unpredictability) all the time, since bipolar disorder is not a predictable illness. Wait. Let me take that back for a second.
Yes, you can know predictability in two ways:
1. You CAN know the signs and symptoms of the
disorder.
2. You CAN know your loved one’s warning signs
and triggers.
But you CAN’T predict when a bipolar episode is going to happen. Not even a psychiatrist can
predict that. It’s like a fortune teller predicting the future!
You also have to live with unpredictability (usually a lot of it) when your loved one is in an episode. There’s no way to predict the behavior of a person in a manic episode. Nor is there any way to predict the consequences of that behavior. (Unless, of course, you are familiar with the behavior, and you are the one who has set down the consequences for the behavior, like if it has happened before, or something like that.) Otherwise, you just have to deal with the unpredictability of it.
Your loved one may go off on a spending spree. They may exhibit sexually promiscuous behavior. They may go gambling. They may exhibit other impulsive risk-taking behaviors.
They may take the checkbook and/or credit cards and put you into debt. They may make foolish business decisions or ventures. They may do other behaviors that you can’t predict during their episode.
One thing that might help with the problem of unpredictability in your life is to know your loved one’s triggers. Knowing your loved one’s triggers can help you as a supporter to help your loved one avoid a bipolar episode. Then what you can both do is that, after the episode is over is to look at what happened during the episode so that it doesn’t happen again. Or what you can do during the episode to minimize the consequences afterward. By doing this, you can take some of the unpredictability out of your loved one’s bipolar disorder.
This takes good communication skills between the two of you. It also takes a willingness to cooperate and to work at making things better. If you hold resentments against your loved one (say, for something they did during a manic episode), and you don’t forgive them, you will hold things in, and you won’t talk to them as readily or willingly.
The same goes for them. If they don’t feel that they can trust you, for example, they may hold their thoughts and feelings in, and not share them with you honestly and openly.
If this happens, you have a breakdown in communication. Then you’re not fighting on the same team any more. And there is no chance for being able to cope with the unpredictability of your loved one’s bipolar disorder. You need to be together on this issue.
Well, I have to go!
Your Friend,
Dave
Post responses below
All true, but in my case, my wife adds “anosognosia” to the mix and to this day is completely unaware of the things she has said and done during episodes. So how do you get someone to acknowledge that there is a problem and help you deal with the consequences when they honestly don’t see the problem?
In a perfect world, I would have video footage to show her but when an episode is in full flight, those around her are typically just too busy dealing with it and protecting the children to reach for the camera.
Like David says, you can’t predict when this will happen, so you can’t put the cameras in place ahead of time.
So in the wonderful, calm periods between episodes, we sit and wait. Wondering how long it will last this time…
I think that the first thing that you and your bipolar loved one need to get straight between you, is a promise that he/she WILL take their medication on a daily basis. This will greatly reduce the necessity to watch out and be vigilant for episodes, particularly manic ones. This I have discovered thru personal experience. I am Bipolar II, take my med’s every day, and the chances of having a break-through episode are relatively rare. However, I once had a relationship with someone who is Bipolar I, and who often went off his med’s without informing anyone, and also drank a lot of alcohol with the medication. He was up and down all the time, with virtually no warning. I feel this is unfair, to impose this on your loved one, if you are not responsible with your medication. You owe it to yourself and your loved one(s) to TAKE YOUR MED’s regularly, so episodes will be infrequent and triggers will become more predicatable. It is only fair.
My daughter has been a Bi-Polar for years and now she is an adult. It has been very hard coping with her as she doesn’t always cooperate. She is very secret and does not share her problems.
She did real well for 8 years between her outbreaks and had a great job and the management was very understanding and she was a outstanding employee and the customers just loved her and always wanted her to help them.
Last August she just lost it and was in a behavior center for many months and she was druged heavily and out of it for many months. She would be released to a half way house then sent home and she just couldn’t cope so she was put back into the behavior center again. Finally, she got more stable and was moved to a care center out of state where she seems to be much better.
Its hard to cope with the up and downs and all I can say is show love and care and concern for her but seems, we do not understand this illness and how to cope with it. It really does help me to hear from others to see how they cope with the same problems.
Her siblings do not seem to understand this illness so they distant thereselves away from her so she does not get the family support, I believe she needs. I’m wondering if other families have this problem.