Hey Dave,

Thanks for that, it answers my question, does my mother remember the terrible things she’s done and said during an episode. It has made me feel more guilty for being angry with her though.

My husband just went through a manic episode, a bad one. He squirted ketchup all over my face/body at a public restaurant. Suffice it to say, I was mortified. This morning he called me and he said, “Wow, I sure feel alot better today, I wonder what got into me to make me feel so strange…..” I had to bite my tongue to prevent me from saying, “Well, dear, you have been in a manic episode because you are bipolar.” If I had said that, it would have triggered another episode because his denial is that strong. Which leads me to wonder this: When they are stable and let’s say something gets said or done that puts stress on them. IS IT THE STRESS THAT TELLS THE BRAIN TO RELEASE CERTAIN CHEMICALS (albeit in the wrong doses) TO COMBAT THE STRESS, thereby starting the episode cycle? For example, when my husband is stable, I like very much to keep him that way. However, this is also the best time to try and reach him about this disorder, BUT any attempt at that seems to TRIGGER another episode, and round and round we go…….”

I am a Phase II Bipolar Senior, but don”t let that fool you. Right now I am cycling Out of a Manic Phase. I can verify that every thing in that Blog was a cry for help as I live and know it. I am going into my “Normal” period. It started yesterday and I Pray to God that it lasts for a long while, but they never last long enough! I hurt my Daughter in phone conversations and thought I would die when it took her a full day and a half to call me. She is my main support! My younger Sister is learning about me after 60 years, but only because she wants to understand. My Grandchildren have seen the begining of a cycle (up and down both) but, I try to get away from them before it gets bad. Simply put, you are the only thing that is constant for us. We need you so much and I am hoping that this note helps you to know and be proud of what you do to help us! We need to have someone who loves us this much. I hope to be going to visit soon and get back to my Support Group. (at least for a while)
Thank you and God Bless you ALL!!
Grannytrkr

Q. for Grannytrkr,

In a quest for more understanding, I hope I might ask you a question. You state that when you are at the beginning of a cycle you separate yourself from your grandchildren, for obvious reasons. My question is this: BEFORE you were diagnosed what did the onset of an episode feel like for you? Knowing what you know now, you know that an episode is what it is, but before diagnosis, when you didn’t know it was an “episode”, what did it feel like for you? Now you are so aware when you are cycling, did that awareness come AFTER diagnosis? I guess I’m just desperately searching for some kind of understanding as to how my husband is feeling when starting to cycle into mania. Because he never remembers his actions, when reminded, he truly thinks I’m the one in need of help. Maybe he’s right……;-) Thanks everyone for being there. Dave, you’re the bomb!

Hi Dave, Im 62yrs old and bipolar.
I have a son of 40 also bipolar. I am being treated with Epilim,but have to admit that the medication seems to make me too tired to perform at anywhere near my peak. I sometimes long for the manic stage, during which I get thru so much of my clients work. My son will not acknowledge the diagnosis,
and spends most of his time verbally abusing me. His rages seem to be escalating, and his depressions much deeper. My greatest wish is that one day we will be able to talk civilly to each other, like normal mother & son. I read your mails daily, and have recognised so much of myself and my son. No wonder we have always had problems in our personal and family relationships.
I would like to hear your opinion on Epilim, as I was on Prozac (2) before, and my doctor freaked out and maintained that was the incorrect medication.

Thank you for your care.

Kind regards,

Sharon Marshall, Durban,
South Africa

I have been dating a separated (from his wife for approx. 4 mos at this time) BP man off & on since April. Everytime we are together, things are great. We dated for 2 1/2 months the 1st time. Then he decided that he need to try with her again because of their 3 yr old daughter. A week later, he came back. It has been off & on all all summer & into the fall. It is hard on me, but I had fallen head over heals in love with him the 1st go around. How many times does he need to go back to her before it will sink in that it just won’t work between them?

Reading this blog, really makes things hit home. Most of the times that I have been with him, he was cycling on the manic side. The last few weeks that I spent with him, was when he turned to me for support & help during a suicidal, depressive state. He tried to commit suicide 3 times over the course of 5 days by carbon monoxide poisoning. The last time, he was almost successful. It was pretty upsetting to see him this way, because he was so sick from the toxins & so upset, but he just figured that he wan’t meant to die.

I tried everything to get him in to the hospital, but he convinced me that no one could help, or understood what is going on with him in our small town & he didn’t want stories to start.

Once he got to a bigger town & I visited him every weekend, I tried to get him into a clinic & to get some help. He still didn’t want to go, but asked me lots of questions about the clinic all weekend. The last weekend I saw him, he was starting to come out of his suicidal state & being a bit more optimistic about things again. Told me he would never go back to his ex. 2 days later, he is out there again with her & asking me not to contact him.

The connection that we have is phenomenal & he figures that she deserves a chance to see him as I have experienced him. How is that going to happen? It will never be the same with her. We connect on every level, mentally, emotionally, sexually. The sex is great.

Any suggestions on what I should do? Everyone suggests that I let him go, but I can’t & don’t want to. I know that he will be back, but the yo-yo effect is not fair on me. Will this ever change? I am trying to learn as much as I can about BP, so that I am better prepared for the next time that he comes back.

His family also calls me to see how he is, as the ex nevers returns their calls, or even contacts them at all.

Thank you. I didn’t stop to think that my kids may not really realize what they are doing or remember what they did. I myself, and both of my daughters, (15 and 12)have bipolar, and my girls also are ADHD, with behavior problems, and my oldest along with myself suffer from extrem miagranes. It is hard, because our highs and lows seem to all be at the same time. I never know what our days are going to be like. It is like you said, on my manic days I can think of some great ideas, but when I seem to go back to normal, I can’t even remember what I was thinking. But my Dr just can’t seem to get my meds going right either. I get angry very easy and so do my girls, they get angry at each other, they are fine at school, but the second they get home it is like they have a Dr.Jeckle and Mr.Hyde personality, and they just start in on each other and that sets off my anger.

I have just found this site http://www.truehope.com & they help people with bipolar, anxiety & depression. There is a lot of controversy from Health Canada & the USDA because people are able to reduce & sometimes eliminate meds. Check it out. I am starting the program for anxiety & depression & have had wonderful support calls from the company already. It was founded by a person that suffered from BP within his family.

That description sounds more like bipolar 1 than bipolar 2.

But as a supporter, it closely reflects what I saw from my loved one during his last episode of mania.

I understand competely why people think that the supporter is just behaving badly, but ask yourself:

Why on earth would anyone *choose* to behave that way? To ostracize family and friends, to ring up a ton of debt, to indulge in risky behaviour? What do you, as the person with mania, get from it but grief, and possibly some time in the hospital. It’s okay to be angry with them, but the person in an episode is not doing it on purpose.

My loved one said he felt great, but he looked and acted irritable. He had a lot of James Bond spy stuff going on with his mania and was trying to become a secret agent. He talked about how there were spies watching both of us all the time, and he once whispered about it to me in the dark. It was beyond creepy.
I said, “You’re scaring me.” And he started to cry and he said, “I know, it’s all bullsh*t.” Another time he said, “I need help and no one is helping me!”

Some people know they are manic, but have so many racing thoughts that they are truly powerless to stop it. My loved one remembers everything. He remembers thinking that all the stuff he did made complete sense, and he remembers the police handcuffing him and taking him to the hospital. He remembers a doctor writing ‘psychotic’ about him on a chart. None of these things eased the way for him, or helped him to calm down, which is what I saw when he was manic. He would have given anything to relax, but he could not. Drinking, smoking and risky behaviour are all attempts to slow down and relax.

Your loved one may remember what they did in an episode, or may not remember, but keep in that their brains have gone places without their permission.

Dave,

Don’t they remember anything?? I think my husband remembers at least part of what he says and does. He never wants to talk about anything he said or did during episode. But he is getting worse with each one. Right now he is lucid. But it won’t be long before stress gets to him again. And off he goes, God knows where, and the lies start. Then confusion when told about them. Very frustrating.

went to therapy with my wife yesterday,
she has separated from me for about 2 months now.
my therapist and my daughters therapist are convinced she is bi- polar.
she is very responsible with finances and work but the mood swings and anger ,rapid speech,ideas ,and anger are quite intense.
she has so much anger towards me and “our ” life together.
i have twin 12 year old daughters,and am involved
in a custody battle with there mother, my current wife is my second marriage.
is is a stressfull situation but i have made a great
effort to protect my current wife from it.
when she walked out on me i was never so positive about our future together,
now she sees no light at the end of the tunnel.
therapy was a disaster, she yelled at me cursing etc. and was laughing by the end. i was crying because this hurts me so much,she is truly the love of my life.
i have mentioned bi-polar to her before and she
gets very angry and thinks i am crazy.
during therapy i tried to be supportive and not mention it,
i did say that maybe you should look into into wether you have some sort of anger problem.
she did attempt suicide when she was 16, she’s now 33.
i can relate to the project ideas and then abandoning them,which she does ,she also says awful hurtful things to me and sometimes does not remember things.
her family has communicated that she has always been unstable.wierd thing, as we were leaving
therapy she hugged me and said “lets get coffee”
i ended up driving her to her apartment{she keeps an apartment for her job” we have technically never lived in the same place together in the 5 years of marriage.
which seemed really great for awhile because we appreciated our together time.
now its one of the reasons she wants out .
anyway after claiming how scared of me she is and that she won’t be alone with me,we held hands to the car and had a decent conversation .
we had a huge fight about 6 weeks ago where i made the mistake of holding her and not letting her leave because she was screaming rape and tried to call 911.
i never laid a violent hand on her and felt i was trying to contain an out of control child.thus the claim of being scared of me.
we actually had a civil talk after that situation as well’
. i am at a loss and am trying to respect the space she needs ,
i still cry everyday thinking about her and have expressed to her how much i love her and that i will always be there for her.
i am not telling my children ,they thinkshe is working alot and traveling. she is a successful photographer and does travel often.
i am also concerned because she is on prozac and she drinks .she doesnt get out of control but she never really enjoyed it like she does now.
i have read that you shouldn,t drink on prozac and that if you are bi-polar it could actually make your illness worse.
has anybody else heard this?
in the meantime i am trying to respect what she wants right now and am remaining hopeful we will be together again someday,
it hurts .

My daughter who has bipolar 2 and in high school just went through a manic phase and it was frightning. Just yesterday she told me that some people don’t believe that she has bipolar 2. I said well the friends that were with you theses past few days must believe it. She said why do you say that? So I knew right then that she doesn’t remember the episode.

My husband is bipolar. I know what mania looks like and I REALLY hate it. I can’t help but be mad because his behavior is still his responsibility. I think most of his manic episodes have been caused by no treatment at all, or not taking his medications AS PRESCRIBED. That has been his choice, which has resulted in manic episodes. Sadly the mania “lies” to him and says “you don’t need these meds…you’re fine” Or “take these meds part of the time so it looks like your’e complying….” He gets overly confident, full of ideas, spends money hand over fist, sleeps less, has big plans, thinks he’s super organized(when in reality he’s a mess), plays music way too loud, says embarrassing things, needs lots of human interaction, talks all the time, drives too fast, takes out loans, buys cars, etc, etc,, etc. I stay for the good times, and becuase I still have hope that he’ll get this under control. He does know and admit that he has a problem. He hates what he’s done when he comes out of mania. I wish he had support besides me, though. He doesn’t listen to me when he starts going “up”.

Unfortunately, I’m the kind of bipolar who REMEMBERS the crazy stuff I do in a manic episode. I remember the pain I caused my Mom and the rest of the family. I remember my delusions (that I was Jesus as a woman, and everything I said and did was direct from God). I remember being hospitalized, and my Mom having to go to my apartments and clear them out, because I couldn’t go back. I remember the thousands of dollars I charged on my credit cards, and third-party phone calls that amounted to hundreds of dollars (before cell phones), that I had to refinance my house to pay off. I remember all the off-the-wall ideations and foolish plans I tried to implement. I remember the good friends I lost because I was crazy, and they believed in me.

I DON’T remember the faces or the names of the men I slept with on impulse – one time. I DON’T remember if/when I would eat, or how much I drank.

I, too, HATE the mania that comes with bipolar disorder. However, if I could only STAY in a hypomanic state, I would be VERY happy. Unfortunately, they always lead to “bad stuff,” and mania. That’s where the medications come in. They stabilize and allow you to maintain an equilibrium between mania and depression. I take my meds RELIGIOUSLY, no matter how many I take, or what the side effects are when I first start a new regimen.

Yes – I REMEMBER, and I am saddened and humiliated “out of my gourd.” There is NO WAY to make up for indiscretions and “crazy stuff” that I did or said during a manic episode, and how many people I hurt. If I could only wake up tomorrow and NOT have bipolar – but – that is NOT possible. I don’t even REMEMBER what I was like BEFORE the bipolar. Isn’t that sad?

BIG HUGS to all bipolars, and those who love them. My prayers are with you.

David,

This is perfectly accurate! I wish my estranged husband would read these types of articles and soften his heart to me, and try to ‘trust” me again. We’ve been married for 23 years. 2 years ago, while IN marriage counseling, he announced he “just can’t do it anymore” he’s “all used up” and said he wanted a divorce. Apparently, he’d tried for most of our marriage to put up with my mood swings and try to “fix” me all by himself – before either of us knew what was wrong with me. I was either manic, as described in Dave’s article, or TOTALLY depressed so I didn’t want to even get out of bed much less consider looking for a job, and I cried at the drop of a hat and wouldn’t stop! He started working later and later because he was avoiding coming home – he never knew what mood I’d be in. My manic episodes eventually wore down his self image/ego to the point where he sought comfort in another woman’s arms one night on a business trip. Isn’t that a kicker? Usually everyone talks about how the BiPolar person gets promiscuous and is unfaithful in a marriage during manic phases. Lucky me (she says sarcastically).

Michelle,

Please go to the hospital. They can not refuse care for you, especially if you are suicidal. Please tell them everything (BP diagnosis 6 years ago, that your meds don’t work & you need something that works, your moods, etc) Do not leave the hospital until you have spoken to a doctor who understands you & will help you. If you need to drive to a different town (maybe larger), please do so. You will find the $$$ for the new meds & the doctor should have suggestions to help with that as well. Please listen & seek out help.

I am BP2 this is how I feel

when hypo-manic

Euphoric–
every thing is great fast and fun can get into trouble because of the want/need of having /doing pleasuralbe things. My thoughts come fast and sometimes too fast that I can’t keep up and my speach is slurred. I am a super woman that no one can bring down. People apppear stupid or slow because they can’t keep up.

Dysphoric–
every thing is dismal even though I have the engery like a moter running continually. It is easy for me to become proved, ticked, or start arguements and or fights that I other wise would have avoided. **note** I have wrecked realationships, friendships ect.

TO MY UNDERSTANDING,BEING TREATED FOR BEING BIPOLAR MYSELF,WE SUFFER FROM MANIC EPSODES NOT MANIA.

Hi Dave, yes it is horrible, your books for supporters of loved ones with bipolar, I went through and hilighted the stuff my family-kids only, would read to make them go and read what I did not hilight to educate them, no hard feelings they had several rough years- my son 24 years- he realizes he has a hugh job, but he loves me. The book is really good, I screamed called my kids bitches and every thing else, they understand- because of the book- 13 years, 17 years, 24 years of complete abuse, they forgive and love me. Now we know we have to really pull together to save our home, currently aprox 62 thousand in credit card debt alone- lost my job. Thanks, Karen

Hi Everyone,
I mayself am a BP sufferer…for those of my fellow sufferers you understand and for the sufferers supporters please believe me when I say that we do not use our BP as an excuse to do and say things and expect a free ride. My disease has turned my life upside down, right side up every which way imaginable. I thank god that I have a loving supportive family because my dear husband (bless his heart) has been through he** and back with me and for me. Because of my past actions we will be paying dearly for the next 20 some odd years…I embesselled money alot of money from 2 different employers,and gambled every single penny.. went to jail and am now repaying the loan that paid these people back a twenty year loan to give you an idea of the enormous amount of money I’m talking about. We still live with the consequences of my actions during a few “episodes” every day.. I broke the law hurt people who believed in me, trusted me I embarrased my family, my friends and was publicly humiliated. I am now stable, have a great job as a para-legal and am striving to make up for my mistakes. I did not do any of that “stuff” intentionally or to hurt anyone and if you met me and didnt know you would say “No Way” because it was not me it was my disease.. Having BP and going thru an episode whether manic or depressive can only be described as being pulled outside of your body/mind – without your permission you are doing/saying things that you can’t control, sometimes can’t remember…but you do not have any control over these thoughts/actions..almost like someone or thing pushing buttons to control you and almost like you are a puppet or a doll or maybe watching a movie with a charcter acting crazy. I know it seems like BP is used as a excuse..but believe me we do not mean to hurt anyone and honestly, truly at that time have no control what so ever over ourselves, our actions…just imagine feeling totally out of control and not being able to stop it…we truly love and appreciate each and everyone of you who stand by us and support us, you are our gift from god…THANK YOU