Bipolar? It’s Normal To Feel This Way

Hi,

How’s it going?

I almost couldn’t send the daily email today due to yesterday’s hike.

I almost got bit by a snake (not sure what would have happen to me). I almost fell off a cliff. I also almost fell into the deep part of a lake.

The reason all this happened was because I went on a difficult hike. It wasn’t suppose to train but it did. It took a really, really, really long time to get to the place I was hiking and I wanted to finish the hike.

But I am here and all is well : )

Okay a man posted this for me:

“My wife gets so out of control
sometimes that I just can’t stand
it. I mean, she goes into her
manic episodes and spends all
our money till we’re almost
bancrupted. The last time she
even had an affair! I hate her for
that, I really do! Then I feel
guilty for hating her. What
should I do? Am I the only
one who feels like this?”

——————————————-

First of all, like I always say, I’m not a medical or mental health professional, so I can’t advise this man that way, I can only say my opinion.

But I had to share this message not only because it bothered me, but because the things he talked about might be bothering you, too.

You might be feeling like this man is feeling, because many other supporters have written to me about the same kinds of feelings.

You know that I’m a supporter too, and there were many times that I wondered if it was normal
to feel the way I did toward my mom when she was sick.

I was really angry at her because I felt like she was destroying our family.

This man is saying that he feels like he hates his wife, but then he feels guilty for hating his wife.

I know this may sound terrible to you, but then you also may be feeling the same way too and like this man, may be wondering if you’re the only one.

Although these may seem like awful feelings to have, they are normal feelings for a supporter, as other supporters have told me the same thing.

In my courses/systems, I talk about some of the negative feelings you might experience as a supporter to a loved one who has bipolar disorder.

I also talk about not feeling guilty on top of those negative feelings, because it’s normal for you to feel this way.

SUPPORTING AN ADULT WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/report11

SUPPORTING A CHILD/TEEN WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarparenting.com

HAVE BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.survivebipolar.net
These negative feelings, like guilt and remorse, though, you do not have to hold onto.

It’s not your fault that your loved one has done the things that they’ve done while they were in episodes.

Some of the things that they’ve done can even be fixed by both of you together, like your finances (the financial consequences to their episodes).

Not all consequences are as bad as bankruptcy, and they can be fixed.

It sounds like this man is very angry about what his wife has done during some of her bipolar episodes, just like I was angry at my mom for destroying our family during hers.

You might be angry at your loved one too.

All these feelings are negative feelings, though.

They need to be turned around into positive feelings.

You need to turn your hate and anger away from your loved one and put it where it really belongs.

Your loved one is NOT your enemy.

Your REAL enemy is their bipolar disorder.

That is what is causing them to have episodes.

That is what is causing them to do the things that they are doing.

That is what you really hate.

And if you channel your negative feelings against the disorder and away from your loved one, you will see better results.

You will see yourself with less feelings of guilt, because you are doing something about your negative feelings – you are putting them where they really belong.

Use those feelings to help your loved one beat their bipolar disorder!

Use them to help your loved one in spite of the fact that they have the disorder and sometimes do things that may make you feel as if you hate them.

Remember that it is the bipolar disorder, and not them.

Remember who the REAL enemy is!

David Oliver is the author of the shocking guide “Bipolar Disorder—The REAL Silent Killer.” Click Here to get FREE Information sent via email on how and why bipolar disorder kills.

  1. my cheats on me doesnt matter the reason, it’s over. I never will and wont believe she can have a man have sex with her and not know she is doing it. Thats sBS. she knows to put her shoes on, eat, walk she knows when the pants are coming off and who she is laying with.Its no excuse, bi-polar or not. theats just a excuse to screw around and it would be over for good love or no love.

  2. Hi David,

    I am really struggling to explain to my family about my daughter she is a single parent of a now 3 year old little boy, she has recently been diagnosed as Bi-polar, To me it explains so much she spent most of her teenage years running away from home having sex with anyone she wanted to, stealing from everyone including family. Blowing up into uncontrolable tempers we thought they were. smashing things. telling lies to people about the family and her friends. I have MS and am a 24-7 wheelchair user, in the end I could no longer cope and she went into foster care,with a marvelous family. But it didnt last it was ok till she they adopted a little boy, Then thhey couldnt cope with her outbursts. they brought her home again. at 14. she had to start new school and make new friends. she hated me or thats what she said I know its not true She fell pregnant and then we had after my grandsons birth the suicide attempts. eventually we had to go to court and I had to take resposibility for Alfie my grandson. Its been as I say three years now and all my other sons I have four all older reasent the time and attention I have to give to my daughter. they keep telling me to disown her how can I do that I love her so much. and my little grandson didnt ask to come into all this. he is so good to Can you help me to explain that she is not just a waste of space and life, Its the illness that makes her like it. I dont know where to start. thanks
    Jose Naughton

  3. Dave, I just wanted to say I appreciate the fact that you are quick to remind us to think who the “real” enemy is when terrible things have resulted from an episode. Truly, most things can be fixed after an episode and it’s so much easier if you can look at it knowing the person who had the episode was not in control of what was happening to them and they are NOT the enemy!

  4. I understand how this man feels. My husband told me a few months ago that he no longer loved me, that he didn’t know me and didn’t want to get to know me, and that he wanted a divorce. A month later, he was diagnosed with Bipolar I. He moved out, leaving me to raise our daughter and run our business alone. The first few weeks of meds were absolutely hellish, but now he is making steady progress (despite some nasty setbacks) and wants to move back home.

    I’m having a lot of trouble differentiating between the disease and him. He is a totally different person now, and although I like him much better and he is much easier to be around, I’m not sure I trust the change. I feel like I’m punishing him for being sick, which isn’t fair, but I’m also terrified that he will relapse and we will go through the whole thing again. I can’t do that to myself or to our daughter. How do you ever rebuild that trust? How do you get past all that the disease has done to shape your marriage and your personality as the supporter? How do you come to accept that you are now married to a completely different person?

    David, you say that you have to turn the negative into positive, and I understand what you are saying. But how do you differentiate between the disease and the person? Whether or not it is the disease driving the behaviours, you still have to deal with the chaos that the behaviours bring. You can “hate the sin and love the sinner”, but you still have to deal with the aftereffects of the sin and, worse yet, the fact that the person will probably do the same thing again.

    People say that it just takes time, and I’m sure that’s true, but I feel like time is in short supply as I face huge debt, overwhelming responsibility, and emotional turmoil. I’ve spent a lot of years adapting to uncontrolled bipolar, and now that it is mostly controlled, I can’t trust that it will stay that way. I feel like I’m living in a surrealistic hell.

  5. My loved one can sometimes make me feel hate toward him but I do understand that it is his illness I hate. He doesn’t see that it is his illness that makes him so nasty. He says such hurtful and violent things to me that sometimes I am scared to death of him. I love him so much but it is ripping our relationship apart because he refuses to acknowledge that it is his illness that makes him so angry and not the look he thought I had or a feeling he thinks I am feeling. It is so sad because when he is good he is the perfect man and I love him so much!!!

  6. Hi Dave,
    I have written a lengthy letter to you a week or so ago. You did not respond. I also wrote to you when you first posted to me. You did not respond. I feel that there is no point in responding to your messages.
    Anita

  7. But when the bipolar and the episodes cause traumatic experiences for the supporters and family, then it is hard to separate the two. Complex post trauma from a spouse and parent with mental illness – from the episodes that are unrelenting and constant unless you stay away from the person – is a very difficult healing process for the rest of us that have “put up” with the behavior that the bipolar disorder causes. So we might not hate the person but when the person with the disorder refuses the medication to keep mania, rages, and delusional thinking, it is very hard to not have any choice but to focus on healing yourself.

  8. i do not wish to recieve anymore emails because apperantly u do not understand a person who has a manic depessive disorder

  9. HI ONE AND ALL….Glad to hear your still hear dave.
    Feelings you would not be normal if you didnot have feelings. Medication blocks all your feelings out.If someone feels the need to cheat have an affair well they carnt think much for the person they are with.
    Take Care Linda x

  10. I to have a spouse with manic depression.I did not know much about the disease until my wife went & filed for divorce.I told people how she acted & several told me about bi-polar disorer.I started researching the web for this & found out she has all the symptoms. We were together for 24 years & i look back & i can see she has had this since we started dating it has just progressed to get worse & it probably will get worse without medical intervention.I tried to e-mail her about this nasty disease but being apart thousands of miles does not help.She works in Bosnia at the embassey in security & i’am worried she might do something stupid,she has a bad temper.She also has a boyfriend at the embassey in Pakistan & that really hurts but i know it’s not her fault it is the disease controlling her.I have 100% insurance that could help her but she would have to come back to the states which i know she won’t do.
    Stuck in quicksand in amarillo

  11. Hi Dave
    Firstly, I wanted to say, you can’t imagine how much your daily emails help me, thanks so much.
    I’m also grateful that the subject of affairs has been brought up as it doesn’t seem to be mentioned very often compared to the other issues, but for me (and I’m sure, to most people that are in love with the person that they are supporting) it is the thing I fear the most. I suppose it’s easier for me not to worry so much about the other things, as my boyfriend does not live with me (no shared accounts) and also he has his treatments, so most of the time his symptoms are fairly mild. However, he is often very obvious about his attraction to other women and the way he talks to me about them is alomost as though he expects me to take an interest and as though he believes I wouldn’t mind sharing. To be brutally honest, I often find myself wondering if it is really part of his illness or if it’s just part of him! that’s hard. So I totally understand the person that says that he hates his wife. Yes, some things can be fixed together, but this one is such a personally devastating blow to try to recover from. Although I don’t believe that my boyfriend has had an affair, he does have a tendency to flirt, which he SEEMS to be unaware of when I mention it, but again I really struggle to believe that (apart from anything else, nobody wants to be made a mug of). I do my best to blame the disorder for these kind of betrayals, but I feel that if one of his flirtations developed into something more then I wouldn’t be able to recover from the heartbreak, or trust him ever again. I would probably feel that I hated him for throwing away the all the friendship and support that I would still really want to give him despite myself.

  12. Dear Dave
    its been a while since you wrote a similar blog :I was at the time in a very similar situation I was angry afraid and felt guilty all the time, it affected my relationships with my family, friends and work mates it also affected the way I supported my daughter -all of it negative and such a bleak outlook takes soooo much energy that we can barely get up in the morning – coincidently I couldn’t see any way out for me our my daughter or her children I dwealt in the worst case scenario. by the simple technique of focussing all that anger and fear and guilt onto the enemy BIPOLAR and persisting with that focus gradually I emerged out from under all that exhausting negativity I became a supporter.I had to work on my perceptions and focus for a long time and it is ongoing.
    Now I dare to believe my daughter will recover fully and get a job and be successful I dare to believe we will be a normal family I dare to believe my daughter will have long term stability.
    My daughter and the children and I have relocated to a new and lovely home we have been here for 2 weeks already – my daughter has been in a stable gentle positive mindset for nearly 2 months- I love my daughter.
    Thank you Dave for your emails they are inspirational when life is at its darkest.
    regards
    Shona

  13. only a few years ago i was diagnosed as bipolar when my ex refused to pay my brother who was contractor on our home forcing him into the position of bankruptcy. my father represented my brother against us and my brother won. it was too little too late so he still became bankrupt, ruining his family. I was once quite close to my brother and his family. We ceased to talk for l0 years or so until I filed for divorce. My ex used similar tactics to avoid paying many people. There was plenty of money. it was his way to control and use people. My point was this. I may have gotten outraged and acted out because of his actions, but wouldn’t anybody, bipolar or not? he continues to do similar things to my kids. my psychiatrist and therapist have no problem saying i am stable and have been for years, but suggested based upon his unreasonable and unconsciounable behaviour in so many ways that we get a psych. eval. we did. let’s just say I am the stable one with the relationship with the kids. if they run to him now it is because he took the money. other than that he has no relationship with them what so ever. So, i think it is really important not to be so quick to assume that exasperated behaviour on the part of someone who is labelled bipolar should be seen in a vacuum. what about the supporter or others ? what are they doing to provoke perhaps without realizing? also, just because one who is labelled as bipolar is angry does not mean they are exhibiting bipolar tendencies. maybe they are legitimately angry and should be listened to. perhaps we are more sensitive. I never would have even known i was bipolar if i had not been living in 2 continents simultaneously going back and forth even few weeks with 4 kids, managing several homes with staff, building a huge home, remodelling another, sleeping only 3 hours a night, 3 trips to europe and countless trips to asia,
    while dealing with my brother being stiffed and hating my husband for it, more issues……bipolar people can do a lot. Sometimes we just need our boundaries respected and to be listened to. Not everything is about bipolar and sometimes the supporter has issues also and should address that. food for thought. fyi when i decided to leave my husband i never had an episode. that was years ago. he is trying to smash me in every way possible, including taking everything away from me including my reputation, children, home, things, future career, and put me in the gutter, but i know i am the stable one. I will not forget that.

  14. DAVE, Last year my boyfriend had a very bad episode and it was your emails and what I learned from you about bipolar which saved our relationship. He said the most dreadful things to me during the episode, but I knew it wasn’t himself talking and doing those things. It was the bipolar “demon”. He was not himself and behaved like he was possessed by a demon, so we always refer to his bipolar as “the demon.”

    DON, I do believe that your wife may not remember who she has been with. The bipolar demon can really mess with your memory apart from all else. My boyfriend has on occasion had sex with me and didn’t remember it the next day. He didn’t remember half of the awful things he said and did during the episode, nor some of the pleasant or amusing events. While it may be preferable not to remember some embarrassments, I think it must be one of the worst effects of bipolar, if you can’t remember who you have had sex with or if you might have hurt someone. You cannot trust the bipolar demon. If your wife is having treatment and getting stabilised on the right meds, I hope you will be able to forgive her for what the bipolar demon made her do during her episode.

  15. Very dear Dave,

    I read you always from Mexico City and I always think how many valuable things do you give to bipolars like me in simple words every day. Things that we will never find in books. Things taken from deep experience. THANK YOU.

    I have a sister that has not been diagnosed until in a proper way up to now. A psychologist, very good friend of mine told me a long time ago that she may be borderline. I saw all the symptoms and it´s like her picture. I have a very bad relationship since many many years with her because I cannot understand that she acts in a selective way with for example her boss (she of course treats him very well and controls hersef) and my mom and I (she acts with no control at all). I believe that if you have a disorder it is present always, not when you choose it.

    Today I found a new way to see at things thanks to you Dave, to hate her disorder whatever this one is instead of all her sometimes terrible acts: I have to go to live apart from my mom (I have a great relatioship with her) since last september because she menace me with a kitchen knife 10.6 inches and a wood mallet. She is 48 and I am 44… so this was not teenagers issue. The reason to do this to me was because I didnt´pick up the phone as fast as I “shall”… Thanks to a lady that was there she didn´t hurt me.

    This new positive point of view won´t solve our issue of course from the root but it can discharge some negative feelings if we work at it.

    Thanks Dave. From the bottom of my heart, thanks for every word you write to us without any other interest than us.

    I send you and your mom a big big hug and a big thanks,

    María from Mexico City

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