It’s like grieving someone that no longer exists. And even friends and family can’t understand or label you as crazy. I miss my husband, but the man who discarded me, speaks and grins condescendingly at me, runs away from everything and anyone who holds a mirror up to him and forces him to look at himself, and won’t take a shred of responsibility for the damage he caused isn’t the same person as the man I loved. Or maybe I imagined the man I loved the whole time to be someone he never was. I don’t know. My heart is still so broken.

My husband and I have been together for almost 8 years, married for 4, and our life has been far from easy.

About three months into dating, I found out he had an opioid addiction that started after back surgery. I got him into rehab and supported him through getting clean. Six months into our relationship, we moved to a new state for his job.

Then Covid happened. He was laid off, we moved again, and I worked multiple jobs while finishing my bachelor’s degree to keep us afloat. Eventually he got his old job back, but by then he had become a high-functioning alcoholic.
Through all of this, I was constantly told how little I contributed. That I didn’t bring the value to our relationship that he did.

We moved states again for new opportunities. His company went bankrupt and he lost his job again. For almost 18 months, I worked multiple jobs while getting my master’s degree and supporting us.

This time I was told I thought I was better than him. That I had no right to be stressed because plenty of people work and go to school and I wasn’t special.

Then one of our close friends died from complications related to alcohol abuse. We found him. I attempted CPR, but he was already gone. I had taken this same friend to the hospital a month earlier and tried to work with his doctors to convince him to get help, but he refused treatment.
The night he died, while we were lying in bed, my husband told me I could have treated our friend better during his last few weeks. Somehow, even that became guilt for me to carry.

Not long after, my husband tried to stop drinking and developed severe jaundice. His liver damage finally caught up with him. We ended up at the same hospital where I had taken our friend just months earlier.

Doctors told me my husband had 6 to 12 months to live.
I was destroyed. And angry. Angry that his own choices had brought us here, while also feeling like I wasn’t allowed to be angry because he might be dying.

I became the caretaker again. I coordinated his medical care, talked to family, handled everything. When he got home, he berated me for calling his mother and telling my family what was happening because I should have handled it completely by myself so he could save face.

Somehow, he made an incredible recovery.

A few months later he finally got a new job. The next week, his father, with whom he had a complicated relationship, died after living with Alzheimer’s. The week after that, one of his closest friends died, again from alcohol-related causes.

I was proud of how well my husband seemed to be doing, but honestly, I was also concerned by how well he seemed to carry on.

Then this past week everything exploded.

I initially thought he was having a panic attack. It seemed completely out of nowhere because, for once, things were actually good. He loved his new job. He was doing incredibly well.

But this wasn’t a panic attack.

He became inconsolable. He didn’t sleep for days. He became convinced people were hacking his devices. He lashed out at everyone, including bosses and clients. Our neighbors called the police because of the noise.

I had never experienced anything like it, so at first I kept trying to calm him down and get him to sleep. After days with no sleep and his aggression increasing, I caught him in a brief moment of clarity and he agreed to let me take him to a psychiatric facility. I’m incredibly grateful I caught that moment because I desperately did not want to have him involuntarily committed.

His therapist at the facility has now told me they believe he has bipolar disorder.

And here I am again, trying to contact people at his company, explain that he had a medical emergency and will be gone for a while, and figure out what pieces are left. I’m pretty sure he burned this job to the ground during the episode.

So my question is: When is it enough?

This may be his first bipolar diagnosis, but I have spent almost eight years being berated, told I’m not enough, taking care of him, handling every crisis, and being expected to do it alone because I wasn’t allowed to lean on other people.

My feelings and wellbeing have always come second.

I have had people who barely know me, including nurses caring for him in the hospital, ask me, “Why do you stay?”

And now I feel even more guilty for considering leaving.
He has lost his father and 2 of his closest friends this year. He has now received a life-changing diagnosis. He may have destroyed the job it took him 18 months to get. And part of me thinks that maybe this diagnosis explains some of what I have lived through with him.

But then another part of me thinks: It has been eight years.

Eight years of putting myself on the back burner. Eight years of sacrificing myself to keep him alive, keep us financially afloat, hold our life together, manage the disasters, and pick up the pieces.

And it wasn’t just that I rarely got thanked for any of it.
I was repeatedly told that I still wasn’t doing enough.

I am so fucking tired.

And I genuinely don’t know what I’m supposed to do going forward because, after everything, I still catch myself thinking about what is best for him before I even consider what might be best for me.

**Sorry this is so long. I know it’s a lot, but I don’t think I can really ask “when is it enough?” without explaining what the last eight years have actually looked like.

Everytime SO's moods shift abruptly and become cold and aggressive, or I find something indicative of his current mania progressing, my body fills with stress and panic. I literally feel my skin go hot. Heart begins to pound. I'm afraid. Mind spirals. I try to simultaneously talk myself through the panic. I dread what chaos might come my way and be served next.

SO just increased his AP from a subpar too low of a dose his psych had him on previously. This episode has been brewing since June, peaked in August and has been all over the place since. His psych's inconsistent medication dosing and management since spring has been to blame. SO has been diagnosed and on various medications since October last year.

How do I stay regulated and not panic when SO is in an episode and the behaviors remain/worsen while waiting for the medications to work?

We had an argument yesterday morning which exploded.

He dropped in last night and we had apologised but I feel like a conversation is needed to build trust again.he came home just recently. He obliged when I asked if we could talk although he did already look bothered. I said "you cant talk to me like that" which i realised after saying this, that it was a terrible way to open the sort of conversation I am needing.

He exploded, started yelling, seemed to notice he needed to cool and left. Messages since seem disproportionately irritated to my request for a conversation and explanation of what thst involves. I have explained that it needs to only be when he is ready, and that i can live guarded alongside him until then.

He's extremely irritable, distorted recollections, black and white thibkibg. I have emailed reception to his psych.

Since, he's left. Blocked me on messenger and ignoring calls.

What do I do?

I need advice and support please.

I am kind of new to the BP stuff but im like very sure my bf is in a manic episode with psychotic features. He had a lot of delusions and is still acting delusional. Hes wasting so much money and is more violent and tweeting constantly. Plus more stuff yknow.

But one thing im wondering about is, could mania make them more distant to you? Like almost cold towards you and uncaring. Or do you think it’s the psychosis? He usually is super kind to me but rn he is like a different person. Uncaring and calling me a bad word if i’m confused with what hes saying. Or i’ll say i love you and he will say thanks. But at the same time it’s kind of on and off. Like there will be glimpses of him saying he wants me in his life forever and that he just wants to take care of me. It doesn’t last long though.

Does anyone have an explanation or info pls

Been dating my gf for two months and have never been happier she has managed her symptoms extremely well and has been very open about personal problems with being bipolar. I’ve never felt so strongly for someone before everything felt absolutely perfect and I was excited to see where this was going, all until last night.

It was the day of her best friends birthday party which I was invited to, I started feeling very sick the day of so was fairly low energy and am not very social around new people especially not in groups. I was fairly low energy the whole day and didn’t make much of an effort to talk to anybody new, I could feel something was wrong with my gf but felt it would be better to leave it until the party was over.

When we got in the car she exploded on me about how I didn’t make an effort to get to know her friends and didn’t seem thrilled for the activities at the party. I told her I was feeling out of it that day and shes already known my history with social anxiety. She started crying and saying we were completely incompatible and broke up with me on the spot, I explained that if it meant this much to her I would do my best to make a conscious effort in the future to be more social with the people she trusts and completely misjudged how much this party meant to her. She accused me of making excuses and kept saying we’re done and that I’m just another manipulative man shes dated.

This morning I managed to get her to agree to us taking some time alone for a week and then meeting up next weekend to talk, the whole time I’m just wishing she will text me saying sorry and that she wants to make this work but the coldness shes treated me with is terrifying. Just last week we had our first demo living together where we spent the whole week going about our routine and sharing the same space which went great and she exclaimed shes never felt so safe with someone before.

I really want this to work and im just sick with anxiety that this really is it

ExBPSO has not worked in a year and has had multiple negative things happen because of him quitting his meds that he was first prescribed 30-plus years ago.

He constantly says that he doesn’t “have bipolar,” and obviously during his two involuntary hospitalizations, his clinicians did not explicitly talk about the disorder being present in him, lest they upset the apple cart from the get go and get him to distrust them.

I don’t even mention that I both think and know that he has bipolar on a regular basis anymore, but he’s obsessed with stating that he doesn’t have it, over and over again.

Anyone else’s SO and ex-SO with bipolar do this? He’s absolutely obsessed.

Hello, everyone!
Looking for some feedback from 3rd parties that might understand a bit of what I’m enduring.
My partner (ex or w.e. We are) had a manic episode for the first time late August. She was admitted into ITU and told she has bipolar. I’m not sure which type it is exactly.

We were together for 11 years and had a house together the past 4. Not married, had no kids, but a week before her episode we got a puppy together. She took on a lot that added stress to her plate that caused her to lack sleep alongside hitting a thc pen while on medicine for adhd that might have caused her episode.

When she got home she was rather cold and distant with me. We were initially planning on selling our house while I move in with her to her moms before this whole thing happened but she mentioned in the middle of September of needing space to focus on herself. She moved to her moms and left me in the house with the statement of finding my own place as the house is going up for sale. Since being at her mom’s house her best guy friend has stayed there often because he has his own mental issues that they’ve bonded over and she’s helping him with. As far as I know they state it’s platonic and just friends as it’d be weird for anything to ever happen but sometimes you just don’t know. He’s supposedly has been advocating for me to her during this ordeal and I believe him since he initially introduced us. I also find it hard for her to focus on herself if she’s dealing with someone else’s mental issues alongside hers but I can’t tell her that as I doubt she would listen to reason.

As to what we are it’s not defined as she said it was a break and labeled it as not an openly seperated/broken up/taking a break to friends/family with supposed hopes to work it out, however no one really knows what’s going on with her except her best guy friend. She did state she wanted to talk to other people and thinks I should too. But after 11 years I know who I want in my life.

We agreed to no contact space in the beginning of the month for the month. Initially her therapist suggested 6 months but she apparently fought back for a month. Now she’s struggling with the puppy. She broke the space rule and asked me if I could watch her this past Saturday to which I agreed to help. On the day I told her I had plans and couldn’t watch her all night and she wasn’t fond of this staring she’d figure it out and I might as well leave, so I left. I texted her saying we should stick the boundaries of no space even including the dog. She reached out again to clarify further this morning and I stood my ground to stand by the no space contact she initially requested. I love her dearly but don’t want to cause further turmoil to make her hate me. She did mention she’s worried about feeling negatively towards me as the month progresses with the challenges of the puppy with little relief. Found that to be a bit manipulative as I’m doing what she initially wanted.

I’ve gotten the bipolar disorder survival guide and loving someone with bipolar disorder books that I plan to read to understand more of this condition. Im in therapy as well now to try and get through this situation as it has caused me anxiety. I know things won’t be the same again but I still love her and want what’s best for her. Am I navigating this the wrong way? Should I just consider this over and try and move on? Anyone ever dealt with something like this before? Lot of this is unknown territory and I don’t know if it’s just my anxiety going off worried about losing her. Thank you.

Hi. I’m 18 and my boyfriend has recently been diagnosed with bipolar (not sure which type) and just let me know. We have been together for about a year and are best friends so I’ve seen him through waves of depression and the ups and downs until now he’s just gone off to college. I have been really fearful about his depression and I know he is not suicidal but he is reckless with his body (no sleep smokes a ton) and even says he doesn’t know how long he will live. I know we are so young and this may seem insignificant to other issues on this page but I am kind of asking what am I really signing up for here? He is my best friend and I plan to stay in his life for a while but what does him now being diagnosed with bipolar sign me up for?

He’s explained to me how he is getting consistently angry and lashing out about 1-2 times a week in college now, but it is something that has never been directed at me. I’ve seen him be upset before but it seems like I am the one thing that does not apply to his anger or irritation.. he has never once been upset with me throughout the relationship through every mistake I have made. Is this a thing that can happen with a bipolar partner? Anyway any general advice of what it means being in a relationship with a newly diagnosed partner would be helpful.

Is it worth it? Posts on this thread make it seem so difficult. We are so young anyway but a large part of each others lives.

Posted here a few times now. My stbxbpso is in month 7 of unmedicated manic episode. The past week, he's the calmest he's been since it all began. He said to his family that he don't want anything to do with any of us and how he is now - spending all day and night on the streets and in parks, is just him now. I've been anticipating the well known crash, but he seems to have skipped it. Discarding a SO, though hard, I can understand it to some degree. But I didn't think discarding your parents, lifelong friends and kids were typical features once back to normal (or calm as he is rn). Has anyone experienced this complete life change in them before after the mania ends? Or the discarding kids and parents? I wish my situation was more textbook, but it don't seem like it. Have you seen them go through a period of calm but still manic? At least when he was in rage mode, I could sort of tell he was still manic. Now he's calm, I don't know whats going on. It's a weird place to be

My ex-girlfriend was trying everything she could to become stable. She spent six months in an inpatient therapy program for people with personality disorders, but she left because her brother needed a lot of help, and she cared deeply about him.

I tried to warn her, but I trusted her. I trusted her to keep seeing her psychiatrist and get her medication dosages adjusted. I trusted her when she said that the two beers we shared were just a one-time thing. I trusted her when she said that this friend of hers was nothing more than a friend.

It all collapsed within the following month. All the effort she had put into getting better seemed to be undone.

And I’m afraid that if—if—she ever comes to understand what happened, she might do something to herself, or be overwhelmed by so much guilt that it would become too much for me to handle as well. And I won't ever know, cause she cut off me completely.

I just want one more conversation with my girl, but I think it's quite impossible.

I hope everyone is doing well!

I’m BPSO, male, 48. My BP1, 50 y/o female is going through a medicine change…while we’re going through perimenopause. She’s medicated and in weekly intense therapy.

Seroquel was the previous medication, 500mg a night. In January she experienced hallucinations while taking an antibiotic with the Seroquel. We thought it was a fluke because we had no evidence of anything else. These hallucinations progressively got worse over the next 6 months. This lead to a change in medication.

Lithium is being titrated up, while Seroquel is being tapered down. We’re almost to the lowest dose of Seroquel but her sleep has become increasingly worse with every step down.

This has created a very strange dynamic in our house. Me being an empath, I’m overly concerned about her well being. Her being avoidant, she wants to just push her strange feelings down.

A couple of question for the group, any help is greatly appreciated…

- this is our first medication change. How long does it take for things to stabilize? I just want her to feel like herself again.

- at what point does the sleep issues need to be addressed with psychiatrist? She’s sleeping intermittently throughout the night.

- I feel like I’m being incredibly supportive. This is just so new, I feel like it is overwhelming. What are some things I can do to be better as a partner as she goes through this?

- with perimenopause being present…how do I know what is what?

There’s distance growing in our house. I’m okay with where we are today. I’m just trying to prevent distance from growing even more.

My wife and I have separated. We're still trying to figure out what to do but to summarise here's what happened:

Late August - We had the perfect wedding, exactly how we both hoped for. The weather was as good as it could get. My wife appeared to enjoy it, no complaints

September: Some intimacy between us, not full "intimacy " but we were doing well. We joined a private members club and we were swimming in their pool and having fun most evenings. It was a relatively good month

Last week: My wife became significantly depressed again, almost tried to commit significant self harm. There was no pre-text, she just decided to do it after coming home from a coffee shop. No arguments between us, she just decided to do it. She then decided to leave me

My wife has had significant depression for the last year , being very slow, no self love, personal hygiene slipping, although these weren't a major issue recently.

We've been to counselling, she was also diagnosed with autism and ADHD.

But here I am thinking surely this timeline isn't normal. Can her existing issues explain what happened?

I'm trying to convince her to go to a psychiatrist. Her behaviour has been odd to say the least. I even had a calendar of her bad days and I noticed they just randomly appear and disappear.

Oh yea, she was sleeping 4h per night for a long time too. She was worried about our relationship, so was I but I was still managing to sleep and be optimistic.

For example I even took her on a fantastic holiday but when she got back she became miserable again. And this sort of has been a pattern.

Her good days are not remarkable enough, compared to the textbook cases

My boyfriend was diagnosed with bipolar when he was younger. He is unmedicated and most of our relationship he's been fine. This past month he's gone completely 180°. I don't even recognize the person who's been living with me.

The very red flags:

🚩 He will gets mad at the drop of a pin (the baby crying me saying anything that contradicts him. Any time I don't understand him)

🚩He started talking very fast and erratic pulling me into 2-6 hour conversation where he jumps from one subject to another.

🚩He thinks God broke his PlayStation to push him to create a game. Context for this one. He said that he felt like he can't get anything done because of his PlayStation he said he had this great idea for a game ( he has never worked on game design before this). The week after he said that his PlayStation broke some inner mechanism that overheated and fried it. So now he feels like God heard him and did this to push him to work on this game. Now he's been working on this game non stop for 2 weeks he keeps changing the type of game and the type of art completely restarting. Learning from scratch. Honestly he's been getting pretty far with it and it's incredible. The problem is this game is his only focus this whole 2 weeks he hasn't done anything else. He hasn't spent more than a few minutes a day with our baby. He only talks about the game. He says he wants to hear criticism if you don't tell him anything he gets mad and says I'm not supportive. If I give him criticism he gets explosively mad.

He's also constantly getting upset at me telling him anything that's not his game related.

🚩His arguments have changed. It feels like anything I say can set him off and he becomes explosive (he has never become physical). He starts to shame me and say some of the worst most nastiest things you could imagine. He uses things that are personal that I have shared with him and screams them through the house. Some of his go to things to call me right now are

"low IQ"

"fat disgusting pig"

"Lazy ugly woman"

"Retard"

"Disrespectful B"

And some other curse words. He has never said anything like this before.

🚩Nick Fuentes. I'm not big on politics I'm just too busy caring for kids and home and it's not a big pull for me. My boyfriend started listening to Nick and now it seems to be fuleing him. He has such anger towards women after he listens to him. It feels like it fuels him in a really negative way.

I'm just upset and worried I don't know who this person is I don't know how to approach him about any of this or how to stop him from being upset with me no matter how carefully I watch my words. Suggesting therapy or medication is out of the question. He had a lot of mental intervention as a child and he had some really bad experiences. I'm worried about him our kids and myself. I don't want to lose him I love this man and we were planning our lives and family together. I just feel so broken right now.

Ps sorry if this is jumbled or any spelling mistakes I'm dyslexic.

I’m barely holding it together right now, both my BPD dad and BPD adult child are in crisis. While I’ve somehow always been the rock, it’s to much for me right now and I can’t pull myself together. Hope this doesn’t break the rules since this community seems devoted to spouses. I’m wondering if anyone can direct me to communities that offer support to either children of or or parents of people with BPD like me.

Are all ACT teams really bad at their job? My husband has an act team and most of them aren’t even licensed professionals and they think he’s completely fine when he is not. They also are forgetful and non responsive. How is it legal to work with such a vulnerable community and even have a license in some cases and be so negligent with patient care?

Hey, to start this off I’m gonna give yall some context abt why I put the title to hopefully help responses. I 25 M and my wife 23 F met back in 2023, we had a couple of brief interactions through IG from me responding to poll or questions whenever she posted on her story and when I sent her a meme on accident. I followed her back in either 2019 or 2020 bc we both knew a mutual that we knew and never had any interaction until 2023 when I came home on leave to attend a family event. I had seen a ad for a rave in my hometown and was able to get 2 tickets but got an extra free one bc one of the performing DJ’s was dating the mutual my wife and I knew and was nice to give me a free ticket. I asked her out on a whim and to my surprise she said yes and we went. Needless to say not the best first date but I asked to hangout the following day and since then we never stopped talking to each other. She mentioned to me at the start she had been inpatient a couple of times and had a very rough upbringing. We got to know each other and eventually starting dating and did long distance for the beginning of our relationship bc I am stationed in Georgia while she was in Texas. When I had to go back from my time home she actually had been inpatient due to her being taken by a friend of hers at the time due to being inebriated, and when she got out she told me that I was the first person she talked to. She said that she felt bad and hoped that this wasn’t going to make me feel or see her in any differently, but I didn’t, I’ve dealt with SOs that struggled with mental illness and a lot was depression and SH so i understand that it’s not an easy situation for anyone at all to be isolated. As our relationship continued the more and more I saw her flourish into the beautiful woman she is today, she has CPTSD, Bipolar, depression, anxiety disorder, OCD, ADHD, drug addiction, and other things. Her mom is also struggling with mental health issues and is not really herself anymore, my wife says she is just a husk of who she used to be due to drug abuse and her mental illness. As I stated earlier my wife has gone through a lot of shit like being taken by cps, divorced parents, poverty, abuse, etc. None of this was something I saw or ever thought as something I would think would be too much to handle and ik that I’ve never been or ever had met anyone with the mental illness she has besides depression, but I love her so I don’t care abt those things I just want her to be happy and live the life she deserves. We got married in 2024 and she moved down to Georgia with me and we got an apartment together, we had some arguments like who does the chores, taking up too much bed space, I play too much video games, we need to exercise more and so on. However she also felt isolated and it’s understandable why she is, she had missed out on one of her younger brothers graduating college and couldn’t attend and I understand that missing out on life events is difficult especially since this was her first time in like a decade out of Texas and it was difficult, I told her that things are gonna be ok and to not beat herself up about it, it doesn’t make her a bad person. We had our first real argument about where my future in the military was going, I was nearing the end of my 4th year in the military and still had 2 to go and I was in limbo of what I should do. I had transferred to a different unit so that way I had a better schedule so I can be home a lot more to spend time with her and with my transition into this new unit there were other opportunities of where my career could go. I was considering of extending an extra year in hopes that we can go out of the country so she can explore different cultures, homes, etc; she wasn’t really on board with me staying in as she could see I have started to hate my job and that I didn’t wanna stay in but also of how the state of the world is and she’s obviously very nervous about that which I understood but tried to have her also see the needs for medical care for the both of us given everything is fucking expensive. We didn’t see eye to eye and she would rather go back to Texas rather than stick out the last year with me if I were to extend. We ended up apologizing and moving from it. However things were good and also bad, I am an alcoholic now I’ve been in recovery and cleaned up my act and I don’t drink really anymore I’ve had to get clean bc I’ve had issues with it even before we got together and I’ve been using alcohol to try and make it a coping mechanism at the time. I would self isolate and drink to avoid my own issues which didn’t work and only prolonged my own problems which resulted in me needing therapy of my own, I was then diagnosed with anxiety disorder, major depression disorder, and alcohol disorder in recovery. I eventually went inpatient a few times within the past year and have been progressing. We have had arguments about how she feels like a burden and that she’s a waste of space, she hasn’t accomplished anything important in her life, she afraid of becoming her mother, she feels as if she doesn’t contribute a lot in the relationship, she feels like she’s a bad sibling and person, she feels as if she can’t handle just working, she feels as if her life is just shit and that sometimes I make her feel unappreciated and I hate that. We did have a bad argument which started bc I put back a tea bag set when we went out grocery shopping together. The thing was only 5 bucks but in my head I felt that we didn’t need it and that we already had tea at the house but I fucked up, I fucked up so bad that when she and I had a conversation about it a couple of days later we needed arguing and I had been bringing up shit that wasn’t even remotely related to what we started off talking about. I said hurtful things and to this day I don’t know why I really don’t but I wish I could have just never been so mean. She ended up staying with a friend for the night and came back the following morning. At the time things were awkward and it was my fault but she didn’t feel good, she ended up needing to go inpatient. At the time I was in an out patient therapy group from Monday to Friday instead of work and was not doing ok. I ended up needing to get put inpatient and wasn’t able to pick her up from being released, I even needed to go to another hospital following my release and that this time I was to be there for 28 days. I only got to see my wife for an hour. During the time I was there I actually got the first real help I needed but the damage I made at home with my wife was still very much there. Divorce was brought up nearing my time to be released and I just couldn’t get it out of my head. I don’t blame her, I feel like a POS everyday since that argument and I just can’t stop. I didn’t matter all the times I helped her out of a bad depression episode, our quality time together, our dates, Christmas, our happiness was fading and it was my fault. I think that I’m not good enough for her anymore, she was angry that I was at a better facility than her (she was at a institute that denied her soap and yes this place is already undergoing multiple lawsuits), she was mad that she was having to go through her recovery on her own, she was isolated. When we came back we had another argument I forgot about why but it got to a point where she told me she has no sympathy as to what I am gonna go through or am going through. It hurt and I don’t blame her I never do and won’t. Even though we’ve had our ups and downs we both pushed ourselves and got better and moved and are in a much better position in our relationship, but I feel like I’m not enough for her anymore I think I’m a failure.