hi david,,,,,,,,, i have only recently been diagnosed as bi polar.in the last six months i have moved house got married and started a whole lot of new meds.the only reason i have started to get better is due to my new husband as before i went to the gp/psychatrist i was so so so very depressed and i believe for 15mths before this i also think i was on a permanant high.like you said if you love someone and support them there has to be some limitations within the relationship….ie how much you can physically and emotionally stand.for my “high” months i honestly dont know how my hubby put up with me.i would of left me if i could of!!!!!but i am so so happy he didnt or i dobut i would be here today…………..in answer to your question ….no you are not harsh.i am only 25 and my mum 40 and live in ireland where mental health recognition is still taboo i believe my father and mums ex husband who subjected us to 21 years of physical and mental abuse is suffering from a serious mental disorder. he refuses to accept any help and after 21 years of ignoring my mum i convinced her to leave while she is still young. even though she is now a single mum she and i have realised that it was best so all in all being a sufferer of bp,on the recieving end of abuse through a mental disorder and seeing my mum hurt i think never a truer word was said that you can do only so much but if ppl refuse help you have to leave before its too late..

kind regards x

I agree that if you are in a relationship with someone and the person is treating you very badly for a number of years and you have tried everything, you just simply must give up and say to yourself,,,well maybe it isnt the person God intended for you. What would a person look for to know that it may not be the person treating you badly,,but you yourself that is treating them badly?

Hi David,
In my early years after I was diagnosed with BPD I was sometimes really cruel to my mom, shouting at her for no particular reason. She was my supporter and she was trying hard to help me.
When she was not around I was asking myself why am I behaving this way and why am I giving her hard time, I didn’t think that was normal and I was trying to change my attitude towards her, you see I am the nicest person when around other people, but than my mom and I would spend time together and she would manage to get the worst out of me again, just pushing the wrong buttons. So I made a decision to move out of of our house, I actually moved to a different country. That helped a lot for our relationship.
My mom passed away several months ago I do regret for the hard time I had given to her; however I could not control it back than.
I do think if a person with Bipolar is giving a hard time to their partner, relative, supporter may be they should keep apart.
Some relationships are just not meant to be.
My partner is a fantastic person, we do have our challenges but there is love and we work things out easily.

Hi Dave: With the price of gas these days maybe you ought to invest in a GPS system of some kind (just kidding). You must set a limit of how much abuse you are willing to put up with when you are married. I stayed married to my daughter’s father for way too long. I was working 2 jobs, he worked none, but one day I was home. He made me open eyes and see how harmful his negativity was for my BPD daughter. He threatened me with a pistol in front of my child and the next thing I did was go buy the paperwork for a do-it-yourself divorce. We still had to deal with him because of visitation. I tried really hard to not say anything negative about him where my daughter could hear me, but I am not a saint and I admit that after having contact with him I typically wished him dead so I wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore. Thank God he didn’t die because I would never have forgiven myself. But he did all he could to try to make my daughter hate me and he said horrible things to her, like he was going to trade her for a boy or he wished she had been a boy. He was so negative about me and how bad I was as a person. In his eyes I was the most horrible person on the planet. All he was doing was inflicting pain on my baby who was already trying to deal with her own mental pain. He succeeded in hurting her so bad that she refused to be around him for more than 2 weeks at a time and the last time we took her to Montana (we live in Idaho) for her 2 week visit she was there for less than 2 days and she called, crying, wanting to come back home. Her dad was listening to everything she was saying so she told me she was having a really bad period, but I knew better. My husband and I take a lot of meds in the evening that makes us too drowsy to drive. I told her to call her boyfriend to come and get her. I called him to let him know I would pay for his gas and he was already on his way, he was really scared about how Katy was crying, so I had to calm him down and told what I thought was going on and that she was fine and not too speed because he was really driving too fast to get to her and we live with deer, moose, bear, and other wild “big animals” that cross the highway without any warning. When she got home she told me that her Dad was really bashing my husband and I so much she just couldn’t handle it anymore and he was standing beside her so he could hear everything she said. Then he went to the bar and proceeded to get drunk with the badgering increasing with every shot. That was the last time she spent any “quality time” with him and he is too blind by his mood disorders to understand it. That was about 3 years ago. Now she rarely takes his calls because he wants only play mind games with her, trying to make her feel guilty and she is struggling with her own mental and physical pain. I believe because she has BPD she was smart enough to know she needed to set her survival time limit with her dad long before I did. The worst part of my daughter enduring his mental abuse was she never told me what he had done to hurt her until the that last visit and then she told me everything. I asked her why she hadn’t told me and I would have had supervised visitations for her so he couldn’t hurt her any more and she told me that she didn’t want to hurt her dad. Go figure!

This was the best email from David and absolute perfect timing!!! For months my BP girlfriend would threaten to hurt herself or even kill herself if I didn’t always say what she wanted…I was always giving in to everything for her…I tried so hard to establish boundaries and she always found a way to break them…she would keep me on the phone for 5-6 hours…I would eventually hang up, and then next she would show up at my work or at my home…months of threats and verbal abuse ensued…and then last week, she threatened to take her life again (that threat was a result of me saying I need to work on my taxes tonight and wanted to be by myself)…I was scared out of my mind and finally got a hold of her mom (who then flew in from out of state)…I got the rest of her siblings involved, and she has now calmed down (a little)…now that the family was here and we all agreed we need to find a new doctor and new meds for her. But yet, this wasn’t happening fast enough…it seemed like the family didn’t realize how bad this is…One thing, though, is that now for the first time I have started to set up boundaries in the presence of her family…I know I can do this because if she does threaten more harm, her family will stop her…just last night, she was insisting that I commit to her forever and ever (sign on the dotted line) and that I would never leave her…I stood my ground and said that I can’t do that…well, we ended up on the phone for 6 hours, with her breaking up with me 8 times and then taking it back…She has hit rock bottom and although I am crying listening to her beg, I refuse to give in to her demand for me to say that I’m commited for ever and ever…(we have only dated 8 months and have a lot to figure out)…just this morning, she called me again crying and has now somehow become aware of all the verbal abuse, all of the stalking, all of the destructive patterns over the last few months…Honestly, by me standing my ground for the first time, it seems like it finally woke her up…that I won’t be her punching bag forever and that she does need to get help and that we both need relational help…It’s hard tove figure out what’s real when she speaks…But I am nervously happy that I said I am committed to us getting help and commited to getting through this with you, BUT we have a lot more work to do before I can commit to forever and ever!!

No, I don’t think you are too harsh. I should have left at least several years ago. I am getting out after nearly 32 years of marriage. My husband did very well for many many years, but then sustained a head injury with short term memory loss and was also diagnosed as OCD. He began to be verbally abusive after a number of years targeting not only myself but some of his close friends and family. Needless to say he has pretty much isolated himself. He would have an episode and I could get him to go for treatment, but he wouldn’t continue after a short period saying he was “cured” and the doctors didn’t know anything. He has also begun to lose his vision, and he couldn’t accept that. He became more depressed and began to blame either his father or I for his problems. He began to threaten me and shove me. I was trying to get him into treatment, but his doctor retired in December, and before we could find another one, he became extremely upset one night and attacked me. He has often said that his worse fear was being alone and not having anyone. When he started to threaten me, I was going to leave for awhile until he calmed down. I guess in his mind, I perpetrated his worse fear. He was committed to the VA hospital and some days does very well, and others are not good at all. He has been on and off sucicide watch and remains on a closed ward after four weeks and they are trying to get him stablized. I am ok with my decision to leave, and will continue to help him if I can, although I will not stay with him. I still communicate with him, but his doctors are not very forthcoming. One day he signs a release so they can give me info because of his memory loss and the next day if he is angry, he says don’t tell me anything! Now they hesitate to give me any info. He has no one right now since our children are in Germany and on the East coast. I am hoping that they can help him and he will continue with therapy. I have tried to help as much as I can, and now the ball is in his court. I hope he picks it up and runs with it.

I agree with what you said. My brother has been married to this woman for 20 years now. She has bipolar disorder and has virtually nothing to control it. I would say for the last 5-7 years things have been really bad from what we can see from the outside looking in. He has stayed through some things that most people would not have stayed through. He has finally grown tired of trying to help her when she is doing nothing to help herself. On the other hand, I am dating a guy with bipolar disorder and he tries very hard to control his bipolar. I have told him that under no circumstances would I stay with him if he did not take his medicine regularly-the way the doctor prescribed it. I will not live my life in misery. I guess you learn a few things from having one bad marriage that ended in divorce and one good marriage that ended in tragedy.

Keep up the good work of at least helping me to understand bipolar disorder.
Sue

David et al,

You have to remember that some religions are very much against divorce, even if they may tolerate separation. Second, you also have to realise that some people take their religious marriage vows very seriously. They promise to care for their partner “through sickness and health…” Me, I never made such a promise – I took a civil service because I thought long and hard about that promise and realised I could not guaranteed I could keep AND knowing how I am, I didn’t want my then future wife to feel so obliged either. (I have no problem with people walking out of an abusive marriage but I do have a problem with people making promises they take as seriously as those they make to a sales assistant in a shop when they say “I’ll be back later …” just before they head off down town to a shop that’s cheaper!)

Without excusing bad behaviour I think it’s also worth considering why it may happen in the first place. Carers need to ask themselves if they are really listening to the person they care for. I was once politically active. I had a chance to talk to some guys who had a very different view to me. I expected a lively and stimulating debate. Instead, what I got was two guys not prepared to listen to a word I was saying. All they did was sneer, laugh, deride me and they didn’t even give me the courtesy of justifying their own political views. Now, I was then known to be a peaceful kind of guy, very slow to anger. But these fellas hit a red button I didn’t even know I had! Within 20 minutes of this abuse, I wanted to pick up a chair and smash them with it. In just 20 minutes. Now, imagine you are BP and living with someone for hours on end, and they don’t hear you, they don’t understand what you say or even accept it anyway. That all they want to do is impose their own ideas of how you must be feeling and what you should be doing to help yourself … everyday, week after week, with no let up, with no acknowledgement or acceptance of what you say about how you feel … What would you do? Roll over and say, “Ah well, there;s always tomorrow …” I doubt it. You’d lash out.

Now also consider this: This is common in my house where I have two 8 year old twins.
Blood curdling scream! Boy yowling!
“Okay, what’s happened now?”
Boy emerges in floods of tears, bent double with hands covering his crotch.
“He kicked me!” he protests.
Other boy emerges.
“Why’d you kick him in the goolies?!”
“He was annoying me…”
Yes, that son can be VERY annoying! But kicking him THERE would seem to be a bit over the top just because he is being annoying, don’t you think? Of course it is. But should I expect any different? After all, they are two little boys who have not yet got anything like full control over their emotions. Right? Of course it’s right.

Now just play that back again …
One boy over reacts because, typical little boy, he has too little control over his emotions. Now, who does THAT remind you of? How about someone with BP? Moods flying all over the show, they often find it hard to control their emotions … not dissimilar to children!

Of course, this is not “excuse” for bad behaviour, but I offer this as a possible EXPLANATION for some of it. And knowing this, seeing the potential for conflict from the other side, from that of a person with BP, may help carers consider what it might be THEY can do, or not do, to avoid provoking a bad reaction. Listening and not judging would be a good start, if you ain’t doing that already.

Dave,
I have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, bipolar and anxiety disorder. I find the three can either totally ruin my life or if I am able to stay on top of things with treatments, counselling and support from my partner I can manage just fine.

But I also wanted to say I was brought up in a very strict religious family. The church we belong to excommunicated my sister because she divorced her husband when he abused her physically and sexually raped her. Just an example of a religion that does not support divorce under any circumstance. I suffered years of religious abuse from this church because I am gay and hiv+. I also did the mistake and became a sex worker and the church found out and that caused some iritation within the clergy. But eventually I got followed, called at all sorts of hours and accused of things I wasn’t doing. It was sending my anxiety and bipolar disorders through the roof, so I finally left after my father died. Since then I have met my partner and am very happy and occaisionally step into a church but generally keep my faith between God and I. I choose not to have a sexual relationship with my partner because of my faith but that is a whole story in its own but continue to practice my faith strictly. My faith is what has kept me alive this long after seven suicide attempts and several near death illnesses. It helps with my bipolar too.
Thank you Dave for such great readings each day, it really gets me through and I love getting them. Would love the opportunity to meet you in person but australia is miles from you. If ever I am up your way I hope we can catch up for a coffee or two. The support I get through these blogs is exceptional and amazing I never thought they would help as much as they do. Thanks heaps guys. My partner reads your emails too and I am sure it helps him, though he never says.
God Bless,
Douglas

Hi David,

I appreciated what you said and don’t think it is harsh at all. I didn’t give it 29 years but I gave my mind, body and soul for 5 years. Just recently, I had enough. My boyfriend is on medication, but doesn’t seek counseling until he is really far into a crisis. I tried reasoning with him, nudging him and finally being direct and no action was thought about until I said (a year and a half later) I’m leaving. What I wonder about is whether certain personality traits are common with bipolar or if it is just him. Immaturity, self-centeredness, angry, crude and negative. I want to be understanding of his illness, but I felt as though I was drowning. Any attempt to take care of myself was seen as a threat and time taken from him. He didn’t even want to share me with my kids.

Thanks for listening.

Dave,

I think you’re spot on with this advice. I’ve had trouble setting boundaries with my bipolar husband, and I’m sure that’s why he’s continued his manic behavior for all these years. I do have a question, though. How do I know he’s taking his medication every day? I really have better things to do than remind him, watch him or count his pills every day. I would like the peace of mind that HE wants to take care of his mental illness. That taking his medication is a priority for HIM. He’s a master at manipulating, and making it look like he’s complying. When he comes out of this depression I;m going to ask him just how long he thinks I should live with someone who doesnt’ take complete care of his bipolar. Even as I write this, it sounds like I’m asking his permission to put MY foot down. Hope not.

DAVE, you’re doing great, you’re not harsh at all. God, some people on this blog seem to put up with hell for years. I have, and still do make a lot of allowances for people I love and care about. But I would never ever tolerate any form of violence from anyone. I dont believe anyone (male or female) should put up with that sort of abuse. Of course, I realise that sometimes it’s difficult to get out of a situation.

GRAHAM, I totally agree with you about churches and promises. I was married twice, but never in a church. The main reason is that, although I believe in a higher power (God, or whatever anyone prefers to call it) I don’t believe in churches and religion which are manmade, and I didn’t want to be a hypocrite. A civil wedding is just as lovely and exciting and just as legal. And your God is there with you anyway, with or without a priest.

I only make a promise if I am 99% sure that I can keep it. Both my boyfriend and I are still legally married to our exes. Neither of us are ready for commitment just yet anyway. If we wanted to get married it would take him 4 years and a lot of money to get a divorce and it would take me probably as many weeks.

Since we’re talking about religion, I am happy to say that my pastor gave me excellent advice. He said to exhaust all possibilities to help my husband get into treatment. If he still would NOT take his meds, then this pastor would support me leaving the marriage. As a Christian, it IS hard to leave the marriage. I’m still in it. But I imagine this scenario: I get to heaven one day and see the Lord, and feel very self righteous because I didn’t leave my husband. I would tell him that I stayed amidst chaos and emotional abuse. And then I imagine He’d whisper in my ear, “I hope you didn’t stay on my account. You could’ve left him!”

Ana,
As someone with BP, I suggest before you ask him “how long he thinks I should live with someone who doesnt’ take complete care of his bipolar”, you ask two things:
1. Are YOU being reasonable to expect him to take COMPLETE care of his BP? Some of it, may be a lot of it, but ALL of it? Remember, when BPs are manic they think they are fine and don’t need meds, and when they are very low, they have little or no motivation to do anything for themselves, or anyone else for that matter – that is in the nature of depression, and they have little or no control of it. Moreover, their condition can affect their ability to concentrate and – thus, their memory. So, BPs can forget to take their meds very easily, especialy when they are depressed!
2. The other question, to ask HIM is ‘Do you choose not to medicate? If so, WHY do you not take your medication?’
Prompt with: ‘How does the medication make you feel?’ (Soemtimes the meds make people feel even worse than they do with the illness itself! So, from a BP point of view, why take the bl##dy stuff?!)
Prompt: (A difficult one for you to ask and for him to answer honestly) ‘If it were not for the BP, do you think you would be happy enough to live here, to live with ME?’ (It’s worth remembering that some people feed their BP or depression (and other illnesses) because they WANT to self-destruct. This might be because of their illness but it may also be INSPITE of it, because other factors influence their outlook from a reactive, rather than endogenous, direction. For example, just suppose he was not happy being with you … he might feel illness is the only way to escape from his predicament. My grandma was not happy with her ife when she was unless and in her late 80’s; so, she just gave up eating! She literally withered away and died. I know of a hypnotist who found she culd not cure people of cancer but get them into remission, if only for a short while. One of her clients didn’t. She probed deeper and found the client didn’t actually want to live anyway! Cancer was her ticket out, and she took it willingly. Similarly, people with BP often want to die. At least 25% attempt suicide because the condition is so damned awful, and the coloured outlook on Life it gives is of doom and gloom, too. (It’s probably higher because many will be dead before they can be diagnosed.) They may also be in failing relatinships (perhaps because of the BP.) So, there are times when we with BP ALL want to check out. At such times, why bother with doing ANYTHING hat could improve our health?
I hope this offers everyone some insight into how someone with BP may be thinking, and also not to make broad assumptions that the patient is simply being bloody-minded and awkward. It’s usually the case that when ANYONE behaves in an awkward way, there is a reason for it. It may not be a justification, but it’s a cause, and that is usually true of anyone, not just folk with BP.

Graham,

As always, thanks for your perspective. it helps.

I agree with you. The key phrase is that you have tried everything possible. It is harsh, but sometimes all you can do is leave.

My sister was a “user”. She thought she was better than me, because I have bipolar, serious depression, anxiety and PTSD. She pretended to be all about family, but i was beginning to feel used. So I did a test. I told her I could no longer run errands for her and take my niece to all of her activities and appointments, because gas was too high and i lived too far away.

All of a sudden, I was the bad guy and she disowned me for not “being there for her”.

The truth is, I needed time to get my disorders under control and make a new life for myself. All my life, the moment I stand up for myself and what I need, my family quits speaking to me. In the past, I caved and became their go-fer again, all the while they are putting me down.

This time I have stuck to my guns. I miss having a sister and a niece. I miss having a brother, nephew and father. But I do not regret standing up for myself after 45 years of being abused in one way or another.

I wish I had drawn the line sooner, and I might not have had my major episode.

I cannot change the past. Now I am on track for a much better future, because I am taking care of myself and getting the treatment I need.

I’ve been receiving your emails for almost a year now, and they’ve always been remarkably helpful, but today’s letter made me cry.
I’ve been with my husband for 30 years. He’s been on antidepressants for 12 years, and unemployed for 8. His doctor denies it (whom he sees once a year for heart meds), but I believe he has bipolar, and your letters help me understand, and manage living with him.
He has his “episodes”, but then we have moments that remind me why I’m still with him.
He’s been in an episode for 2 days now, because I spent a day off with my 18 year old daughter instead of staying home with him.
My daughter was in therapy for belimia for three years, and I beleive she has borderline. She knows there’s something wrong with her, and wants to get better. She now lives with her boyfrined’s family because it’s closer to her school, but it’s also much better for her because her father can make her life really miserable when she’s home.
Now my question.
Your letter seemed to make me face the reality that I have to do something. My tears obviously reveal that I’m not as ok as I thought I was.
Your program looks terrific, and I’m willing to put the money and time into working with it, but where do I start? It’s overwhelming. Plus, do I go with borderline to help my daughter, or bipolar? Why should I invest time and money to help him if he won’t help himself? He WON’T go to a doctor, he WON’T get a job. He had heart surgery 4 years ago and he’s right back where he started. He stays in bed until noon, then sits in the basement drinking and smoking most of the afternoon. He’ll do laundry, dishes, make the bed, and other housework, but that’s because I refuse to, since I work full time. He says he’s not hurting anyone, so let him be. But it’s so depressing going home. It’s no fun at all.
I can’t “abondon” him.

What do I do?

I’ve spent close to ten years now since I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder, half of that has been with the medications that I found to provide me the greatest level of stability — enough to go back to college, earn a B.A. and start law school where I’m starting my 2nd year in the fall 2008. During said almost 10 years, I’ve been in a relationship with a man who is also bipolar, but he chooses not to take medication and hasn’t seen a psychiatrist at all for about 6 years now. While it is painful to watch his progressive deterioration, there is nothing that I can do other than continue making attempts at encouraging him to go to a psychiatrist and start medications again — but even that isn’t healthy for me to continue doing indefinitely. I can see a significant difference in the person that I started dating and the person who I’m with now. He’s been arrested a few times for domestic violence towards a few members of his immediate family and once for domestic violence towards me, the latter resulted in 52 weeks of batterer’s intervention courses of which he has 4 months remaining; the classes have actually given him a lot of tools for dealing with anger & conflicts with people — more than anyone thought possible — and while there have been disagreements between him and I, there hasn’t been any physical violence since. Would I date another man who is bipolar? The diagnosis alone isn’t a reason to disqualify someone; it is much more complex process, and really, all of us have different things that we look for or don’t want to have in a partner – many of our requirements are complicated and some are downright unreasonable. How could I justify a decision to not consider someone solely because of a diagnosis in common? The place I’m at now, looking at having to walk away from someone I’ve been with for nearly 10 years, because he’d rather lose me than get help? It’s rough. But we all have to set limits. And that includes those who are living with being mentally ill.

Hi Marnie and/or Gunzee:

I am hoping that you still get responses, from this blog, still delivered to you email address. If you get one from please contact me at:

angryaswipe@gmail.com

I have contact with Donna and Tanya and we would really like to include you and everyone else. We all would really love to hear from you. Talk to you soon, I hope.

Your Friend,

Helen