tell me honestly PLEASE!

[hopekenzierj]

I have slept with some crazies but to my hubby I am nutter than a fruit cake

[francie]

i live with someone bipolar, besides myself.. she is diagnosed bipolar 2, and i am bipolar 1.

she is more depressed than anything else, and a little on the dramatic side sometimes.  she can be contrary and condescending.  she has no patience most of the time, and can be embarrassing in public.... however,  i have accepted her at face value, and i like her quite a lot as a person.  if she gets on my nerves, i tell her about it.  same goes for her.

living with me when i was at the height of my bipolar glory had to be pretty awful.  i was manic about 4 times a year, sometimes lasting for weeks... i drank, had people over all the time, went "out" a lot, had a few projects going at once all of the time, and worked like a maniac.... plus, when it got really bad, i went to the hospital.

i would also get very depressed, and stayed that way for well over a year once..i had no idea i was depressed, because i was so ILL...  i had a lot of physical symptoms (sore joints, sore jaws, muscle pain, heart palpatations).  I was tested for everything from rheumatoid arthritis to lupus... and was sent to a specialist for my jaw.  He said i was gritting my teeth so much and so often that i was wearing down my molars.  I was sent for a stress test. 

After all that, my doctor and therapist decided i was totally depressed, and eventually all the symptoms disappeared.

Strange what depression can do.

[hopekenzierj]

I know what u mean cause I still hurt ALOT

[k]

my poor husband feels like he's on a carousel and never knows where i'm going to jump off. one minute he thinks i am a lot of fun and energetic and laugh a lot and like to caress and love a lot and clean and clean and and talk and talk and have the answers to everything and nothing bothers me and the next time i hop back on and get off on the other side where i can't hardly get out of bed and cry and he just keeps saying he likes the new parts of me but not so much the other parts but that's the problem - i'm both. it's yet to be seen whether i will wear him out to the point he'll run screaming down the road.

[Ramji]

my poor husband feels like he's on a carousel and never knows where i'm going to jump off. one minute he thinks i am a lot of fun and energetic and laugh a lot and like to caress and love a lot and clean and clean and and talk and talk and have the answers to everything and nothing bothers me and the next time i hop back on and get off on the other side where i can't hardly get out of bed and cry and he just keeps saying he likes the new parts of me but not so much the other parts but that's the problem - i'm both. it's yet to be seen whether i will wear him out to the point he'll run screaming down the road.

I can relate.  Though I seem to withdraw from giving affection.  I think it's because she did before the illness came up again.  I went several years .... maybe a decade without an episode other than an occasional anxiety attack.  Suddenly she withdrew and I did not realize it was because I was having episodes.  I felt I was missing that deep connection when I needed it so much.  Sometimes I still feel as if I'm a guest in my own house. There hasn't been anyone else, except one of my students that I was reaching out to .... just emotionally.  during a mixed episode.  She did not realize I was ill and became upset with me. I know we are "both" ... sometimes I feel like three people in one .... depressed (or mixed), somewhat level and hypomanic ... though I really like being hypomanic.  I become more outgoing and I'm much less likely to have my feelings hurt .... not so needy.  I hate that feeling of being weak and needing ... even rejecting help.  I do experience hyper sexuality, but much less now that I'm on medication.  I could easily be a monk now.  But I find myself being attracted to my coworkers and fantasizing about them.  I'm working to keep this under control because I know it can lead to obsession.  Have I said too much?  more than you care to know.

[k]

i told about my current husband but he basically shares part of the disease with me which makes a huge difference. my first husband actually liked my illness because somehow it made him feel needed. in fact he was invested in keeping me as ill as possible so that i would never be able to make it on my own without his help.  at first it felt like acceptance but then i realised what he was doing and then i think he finally got tired and he actually put the gun in my hand - he didn't want to divorce me but he wanted to be the poor widower of a suicide - now that's a sick relationship but i'm not sure i was the sick one!

[Ramji]

that's the thing I have printed put info for him and read it to him but when I get upset be says very sarcasticly ur doing a great job. I am like kiss my ads and ur doing a great job u know. He couldn't survive a week being a momma.

Neither could I (survive being a momma).... i have enough time surviving being me.  My wife used to get upset with me (before the diagnosis) saying I didn't help around the house.  I've tried taking over when she's away visiting her folks, but apparently ended up having an episode.
I often struggle to get through the day at work, let alone handle finances and other things at home.  I have a stack of 3 x 5's with a different task project on each.
I'm lucky to get to them once very 2 - 3 months.  Even then I try to do 2 -3 projects at a time, going back and forth and not completing any of them ... very frustrating.
Oddly, my work at the office has me responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars for many projects.  But I rarely complete the final paper work ... it takes so much concentration. 

[hopekenzierj]

you know I sit and bitch about my husband but his for the most part the only one I know who could put up with me. To be honest I don't think I could handle my husbands job nor he could handle mine so I guess we're even. When I wrote that reply I was pissed off cause my husband was always at work and I am home handling a autistic 5yr old, a 8yr old with ADHD, and a 4yr old plus my 14yr old step son is moving in next month.

[cathylovesjoe]

i dont know how any one does it, if I could get up and leave this behind I would. but thankfully for us they do!!

[jmiefish]

my family just say they feel like they are constantly trying not to do anything to push me over the edge.. again. they do put up with the crying at night.. i have no idea how lol (im a very loud crier) and they put up with the music at 3 30 in the morning when im in my room cleaning or organizing because i cant sleep and well its gotta get done sometime!! but they say "when you love somebody its not "putting up with" or "tolerating" your moods. its unconditional. its love that makes us deal with your crazy ass!"

[francie]

i agree with lurker... me too..

[AJo1231]

I can't speak for others but I can tell you why I stay and "put up with it".

I have loved my husband since we were 17 years old.  He can be the most wonderful man you'd ever want to know.  He has been my best friend for 17 years. When we married I took a vow to stay with my him in sickness and in health.  Bipolar disorder is a disease just like cancer and I wouldn't leave him if he had been diagnosed with cancer. The only difference is that with BP the symptoms manifest themselves in his personality.  I feel that as his wife I have a duty to hold his hand and help him live through this.  (I love him so much that I can't imagine not walking through this with him.)  Our motto is "we can get through anything together with God"

I have been able to seperate Harry, the man I love, from the sick person and I know in my heart that it is not the man I love that is doing the painful things it is the disease causing him to act in ways that bring pain. 

I try to remember that as hurt as I may be by the lies and behaviors, he is hurting so much more because this disease is causing him to act in ways he can't control and hurt people that he loves.

While it is true that because of this relationship I have felt more pain than I thought I could ever endure I have also experienced more joy and love than I thought was humanly possible.  Walking this road with him has made me a stronger, more compassionate person and I do not regret one second of the time we've spent together.  I only wish I had known in the beginning what it was so I could've educated myself about the disease sooner and possibly prevented some of our suffering by getting him help sooner.   

Have a Blessed Day! : )   

[high maintenence]

AJ...It is so nice to meet you...Your comment sounds exactly like the comments that my husband makes. I don't know if I could be as strong as he is, and as you are, if the shoe was on the other foot...Does he ask you why you stay?

Has anyone heard from HOPE? I just realized that she hasn't been around in a while when this topic was pulled up from her.

[AJo1231]

Nice to meet you too High.  : )

Thank you but I really don't see myself as strong.  The glory belongs solely to the Lord because I could never have made it this far without His help.  I just feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.  To me marriage means you get the whole package for better or worse.  I laugh and tell people that I'm sticking around for the better, the richer and the health because I've lived through the worse, the poorer and the sickness. : ) 

To answer your question, yes, he asked me why I stay after this last manic episode was finally over.  What I told him was what I said in my last post about loving him too much to let walk that road alone and I added that I can live without him but I choose not to.  (He was in the Navy for seven years and before that I went to college out of state so we spent a large portion of our early relationship apart.)  I know what life without him is like...it's empty and cold.  I don't feel whole or like myself without him.  My life without him is not a place I want to be.  It's a nice place to visit sometimes when he gets especially mean, but I wouldn't want to live there.  : )

Have a Blessed Day  : )



 

[leftover]

<< how is it liveing with someone with bipolar cause the way others describe it, it sounds like hell on earth? I mean we aren't evil and another thing why would you stay if we are that by? Thanks>>

Maybe I can offer some insight, having been engaged to a bipolar for 5 years. It was pure HELL. Constant lies, unreliability, extreme mood swings, outrages from nowhere, a couple of physical attacks on me, deep extended despressions over nothing, up all night 3 nights in a row then sleep for 2 or 3 days, major paranoid episodes, and always accused me of cheating nonstop when behind my back she bagged almost every man, woman, and couple she got near. She WAS evil and it all began with the onset of bipolar. As a matter of fact her name contained the letters to spell the word "evil". I deeply loved the woman I met but NOT the woman she became.