Coping with Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar Disorder

This post is – as should be obvious from the title and first heading – about Bipolar Disorder.

To be absolutely clear: This post is NOT about me.

I do not have Bipolar Disorder.

Bipolar Disorder is something that affects me, however, because one of my partners has it.

And so – since I’m focusing my A to Z on ‘health’ this year – I thought it might be useful/helpful/interesting to have him write a bit about how Bipolar Disorder has affected his life. Also, I think that while there are a lot more resources available now than there once were on the topic, most of those resources are geared toward people who have been diagnosed themselves. There has been very little helpful information I’ve found that is geared toward partners. (Except a standard, “they can’t help it” message intended to somehow encourage blanket acceptance of any and all assholery. Which, as I’m sure you can imagine, goes over really well with me. NOT.)

So I’m going to chime in here and there as well. 😉

His words are in green.

My [bracketed commentary] is in black.

CONTENT NOTE: The text below discusses bouts of mania, depression, thoughts of suicide, PTSD, and abusive relationships. If you choose to read on, it is important to me that yours is an informed choice. 🙂

Bipolar States

[There are two basic ‘swing’ states – opposite ends of the pendulum – that people who have Bipolar Disorder experience. One is mania; the other is depression. While there are also various mixed states, and the severity of them will vary by person, that’s the bare bones. Thus, Bipolar was once known as Manic Depression.] 

Bipolar is something that while I’ve lived with it most of my life, it’s something I’ve only been aware of for the past twelve to thirteen years.

When I’m manic I feel that I can do anything but mostly the ideas fly through my head so quickly it’s like trying to catch the brass ring on a merry go round to stay focused on one thing. It makes me irritable and quick to anger over minor things. It fogs my ability to see beyond the immediate. It’s not sleeping more than three to five hours a night for days on end and desiring sex beyond my body’s ability to support (it doesn’t matter whether you use lube or not — after a while things get sore).

My depression, on the other hand, leaves me with little to no sex drive. During depressive episodes, I tend to have a preoccupation with suicide and a feeling of being dragged into a black pit (mentally and spiritually). My depression gives me the desire to do nothing more than sleep and when I am awake, I experience the continual feeling that nothing I do is right or worthwhile.

When I’m manic I’m more prone to spontaneous (read: not wise or healthy) choices in spending my money or seeking attention from another person – male OR female – who either doesn’t have my best intentions at heart or is, themselves, a complete train wreck. This has led to choices where I’m awake for more than twenty-four hours and thus cannot function at work. Or to making choices like I did with D. [Re: D — There’s a whole story there, which I will not get into here, but let’s just say he made some really bad choices and got sexually involved with someone he never would have, had he been thinking; he was manic, and he was not using any part of his rational brain.] 

My depression usually leads me to cancel on events, thus isolating myself [and presenting as ‘fickle’ in the process], such as when I missed out on backstage passes at no charge for My Chemical Romance because I was “sick.”

How Bipolar Affects Relationships

Relationships have been difficult because of both sides of my cycle. From the not being there due to depression, both for events (family or friends) or in the daily intimacies of life, to the sometimes immature behaviors my manic states can bring out (not being responsible such as not  getting a bill paid on time, taking stupid chances while driving, etc). My second divorce pushed in my face what my bipolar had done to that relationship. This was when I was first diagnosed and it’s helped me look at ways I’ve affected my past and present relationships, many through poor partner choices, to others where actions I took led to the downfall of the relationship.

I can’t say that my bipolar has led me to make any good choices in my relationships as every one of my past relationships I can look back and see where they started from a choice mostly brought on by one of my two mental states. Choices such as:

• dating someone whose mental state was as bad as if not worse than mine
• accepting as ‘normal’ both physical and mental abuse
• rushing into a secondary relationship without the informed consent of my partner [see: D, above]

My current partner [that’s ME] has helped teach me how to make better choices within a relationship.

The best decision I made for most of my former relationships was in ending them. Some were ended years later than they should have been.

When I’m at either extreme of my cycle, my ability to see truth as to what the other person wants or has to offer is clouded by how I (falsely) perceive that person to be. [Your perception is your reality. (‘You’ being ‘everyone in the world’.) This is something every human experiences. However, when your perception is so wildly skewed from what real life proves, and you cannot see the discrepancy because you’re too caught up in your own ‘belief’ about what is ‘true’ — well, that’s a problem.] 

As a parent my bipolar has affected me in how I interact with my  children, whether this has been reacting with verbal violence  to cutting myself off from them when my manic or depression phases got too much (and I was able to recognize it as such). While I’ve never discussed with them individually how my Bipolar behaviors have affected them, and while overall I don’t feel that I’ve been a bad parent (basing this on my internal comparisons and comments others have made to me), there are definitely instances when it would have been better for me to not have been their parent. [A word of advice to anyone who thinks they’ve been okay as parents but who also know they’ve behaved asshole-ish-ly: Own your shit. If you’ve behaved badly toward people you care for, say you’re sorry. Especially if those people are your children. Just because you have an illness does not give you the right to treat people poorly. And just because you apologize for that poor behavior does not mean they are required to forgive you. But from my own experience with a mentally ill parent? Own your shit.]

Coping Mechanisms & Realizations

One of the coping mechanisms I’ve been using since losing access to medication and therapy have been to utilize my writing as a way to expel my negative thoughts and calm myself down when I get wound up.

Another thing that helps is when I’m {1} able to recognize the behaviors that are less conducive to my well being and then, {2} being able to mitigate them either through avoidance [of the negative behavior — think: redirecting] or by talking to myself and reiterate the fact that my brain is a liar at times. [I think this is a Depressive Episode strategy. Jenny Lawson talks about this a lot. When you’re depressed, your brain is telling you lots of untrue negative things about yourself, so you have to tell your brain that it’s a liar.] A steady sleep schedule can help (thank you, Feve, for introducing this idea to me) although when I’m manic this is less easy to follow and basically living alone can also hinder this (no one to remind me to go to bed, see that they’re going to bed, etc). 

Generally speaking, steady routine helps. [Such as having a steady work schedule and set times for meals, etc.] In a relationship though, routine can become boring. (It has been a contributing factor to The Doldrums™ in previous relationships.)

As for communicating these kinds of ‘helpful things’ to the people in my life… It generally doesn’t happen. Part of this is due to my upbringing and not having an environment where communication was a priority. It’s a habit that dogs me to the present.

[The frustration, for me (one of them), can be that once a routine/schedule is established, it’s like he can’t see outside of those parameters. This is symptomatic of his Bipolar. For example, I had him start giving me a daily food list because he was having some health problems and to me it was obvious why those problems were occuring, but I thought if he listed things out then he’d see it. He did see it. So for me, it was “Okay. Exercise over.” But somehow what was meant to be a *tiny* piece of conversation – or not even a conversation at all, but rather, a realization that might then lead to more insightful realizations and further conversation – has become this Thing He Feels He Must Talk About All The Time now. So what happens is, I get food lists when what I want is a piece of actual conversation that I can chew on.]

Other Thoughts [Feve speaking…]

The pendulum-swing I mentioned at the beginning of this post is traditionally considered to have a fairly long/wide trajectory. Mostly it’s talked about in terms of weeks or months. However, there are times he swings from Eeyore to Tigger and back again in the space of 24 hours. This fast-track Jeckyl-and-Hyde’ing is too quick to be called rapid cycling but that’s how I think of it.

We don’t live near one another, and in some ways the distance makes dealing with all this fairly easy. Because I don’t see him every day (even if we chat via video, it’s not the same as in-person interaction would be), I don’t – quite frankly – have to deal with all the ups and downs of his Bipolar Disorder.

There was one time when we were together (he was visiting me) that he was definitely depressed. Moody. Mopey. All sad puppy eyes and elongated sighs and woe-is-me physicality. Which…

: eyeroll :

But…

I can’t really say it’s ‘lucky’, but:

Luckily, I have experience with moody male bullshit. My stepdad has combat PTSD and was an absolute bastard to live with. So I learned how to shut men’s bad moods out. I don’t get upset by them; I don’t change my behavior to try to soothe or suit their moods. Rather, I just go about my business and do what I want to do. I figure, When he’s out of his funk, we can have a conversation. Or not. Until then, his ‘problem’ (typically the problem is perception, not reality) is Not My Problem.

This works for me in the distance situation we are in because I am able to apply previous life experience to shield myself emotionally. Honestly though, in a day-by-day everyday scenario? Nope. It would not be sustainable. (But then, if we were living in closer proximity, I’d be able to influence – in a more tangible way – his medical care choices and scheduling habits. Which would make a huge difference.)

There’s more I could say, but it’s probably better at this point to just let you ask questions if you have them.

Is it easy being in a relationship with someone who has Bipolar Disorder? Yes and no.

I mean, come on now. Is it easy being in a relationship, period?

Well there ya go. 😉

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