Hi,<\/p>\n
I was at a bipolar supporters support group the other night, and this woman came up to me and started talking to me. She was telling me how her family and friends were accusing her of making a mountain out of a molehill (in other words, of overreacting) with her loved one and<\/p>\n
his bipolar behavior.<\/p>\n
She was really upset by this, as these were the people who she turned to for support, and she felt like they were letting her down, and in her words, “siding with him” (her loved one).<\/p>\n
I asked her to tell me more about what was going on. She said that her husband George was going into manic rages and calling her names and accusing her of doing things that she wasn’t<\/p>\n
doing (like having an affair with her boss when she came home late from work one day), and was spending money like it was going out of style, and she was sick of it \u2013 She said she was just so sick of it all that she was just going to divorce him and have done with it all!<\/p>\n
I tried to calm her down (she was very upset by this point) and told her that I could see where it might seem that her support system might be “siding” with her husband if they were encouraging her to think harder before she went ahead and divorced him over his bipolar behavior.<\/p>\n
I explained to her that many bipolar supporters have complained to me about the same types of behavior, but that they haven’t divorced their spouses \u2013 they have found other ways to work out their problems.<\/p>\n
She did, finally, calm down, and agreed to at least think about not divorcing George right away.<\/p>\n
Can you see how sometimes you can get so caught up in your loved one’s bipolar behavior that you can make mountains out of molehills if you’re not careful?<\/p>\n
It’s important that you express your thoughts and feelings to your loved one BEFORE you get to the point that you simply want to divorce them rather than try to work things out, like this woman who spoke to me at the bipolar support group meeting. By this point, she is, indeed, overreacting to her loved one’s bipolar behavior.<\/p>\n
There are other methods to use besides divorce to cope and deal with your loved one’s behavior.<\/p>\n
It really shouldn’t get that bad or that far. It’s up to you not to let it get that far.<\/p>\n
Communication is the answer. As well as setting boundaries and limits, and then sticking to those boundaries and limits. That’s the most important thing \u2013 sticking to the limits that you’ve set. Otherwise, you may as well have not set them at all, because your loved one learns that you don’t really mean what you say, and they push the limits every time.<\/p>\n
For example, let’s go back to the woman at the support group meeting’s complaints. She said that George, her husband, would go into manic rages and call her names. Obviously, she would feel hurt by this. So it is up to her to communicate to him that it hurts her when he calls her names.<\/p>\n
She needs to wait for a time when he is NOT in a bipolar episode and say something like:<\/p>\n
“When you call me names, it hurts my feelings.” or\u2026 “When you call me names, I feel\u2026”<\/p>\n
Then she is effectively communicating her feelings to her husband, and he can take responsibility for his actions and hopefully stop his behavior.<\/p>\n
If she does this on a consistent basis, there will be no making a mountain out of a molehill,<\/p>\n
no overreacting to his bipolar behavior, and no divorce on the horizon \u2013 they will have good<\/p>\n
communication, and they will get along.<\/p>\n
Your Friend,<\/p>\n
Dave<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi,<\/p>\n
I was at a bipolar supporters support group the other night, and this woman came up to me and started talking to me. She was telling me how her family and friends were accusing her of making a mountain out of a molehill (in other words, of overreacting) with her loved one and<\/p>\n
his bipolar behavior.<\/p>\n
She was really upset by this, as these were the people who she turned to for support,<\/p>\n