In 2010, I started talking about my mental illness and path in life with other people. I have conversed with many people struggling with a number of different problems. I’ve spoken with several friends, family, and loved ones of mentally ill people who want to be compassionate and understanding to our challenges. The people who do well at it with least amount of emotional turmoil because of it share one important ingredient. Self-love.
The idea of selflessness is one that is heavily promoted and romanticized in our society because it is a beautiful ideal. You can look at anything from religious figures and icons, to movies featuring heroes and heroines willing to lay their life on the line for the cause, to questionable hero worship of people. Everyone who deigns to undertake some action of sacrifice is doing so for some reason in their own mind and soul.
“I felt like it was the right thing to do.” “I felt it was my duty.” “I’m doing this because I want to make a difference in the world.” “This is my calling…” “I believe in my heart…” All of these things have to do with the emotions and beliefs of the person expressing them. All of them. And I have crossed paths with so many people who think that by emotionally martyring themselves, they can somehow save another person. It doesn’t work that way. You can only assist someone in saving themselves.
I don’t believe that the romanticized version of selflessness that so many people seem to think is a good solution actually exists. And that’s why self-love is so important. Self-love allows you to see a situation more clearly. It helps you set boundaries that will keep you well and healthy. It helps you know when it is time to walk away from a situation, no matter how much you want to help. Self-love can also help you recognize relationships and friendships that you should not be in.
“I don’t care! I care about X more than myself!”
And that’s a problem. You just can’t do that and expect to come out of it unscathed. That’s not a mentality that will bear a healthy relationship with respected boundaries. Furthermore, someone that genuinely loved and cared about you wouldn’t want you destroying yourself for them. That all gets into much trickier territory when you’re talking about parental love or mental unwellness that is so severe that it’s really twisted the person’s perspective inside out.
Even in those situations, there does a come a time when one has to say enough is enough to ensure they can survive the situation intact. Love is not an infinite resource for many people. It’s something that has to be fed and nurtured to keep it healthy and strong. And that’s something that you need to do with yourself, just as much with the people you care about.
Parental love is different. I’ve met several parents who would sacrifice anything and everything to help their child – and quite a few that have. That includes wealth, property, and their own physical and mental health. But, again, you can’t save someone from themselves. Burning your own life and health to the ground will not help an adult child who refuses to help themselves.
And if you can’t see that for yourself or feel that your well-being is just as important as the object of your affection – that is something you should speak to a certified mental health counselor about. It may point to something in your own mind that needs to be sorted out so you can find more peace and happiness with yourself in addition to weathering whatever storm you are facing in your life.
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Everyone needs love in their life. Like many mentally ill people, I have experienced a great deal of turmoil in all facets of my life, including romance. I’ve been engaged twice, but never married. I was diagnosed and started on my recovery path around the same time that my second engagement ended.
I distinctly remember her expressions of pained confusion as my mind melted down. At the time I was diagnosed, I decided to just stay single because I was tired of dragging people I loved through pain and misery with me. But, after three years working on recovery, I began to see that it was certainly possible to have a long-term, happy relationship as a mentally ill person. The problem is that a lot of the advice and information out there is aimed at a generic, lowest common denominator “typical” person.
The following thoughts are derived from my own recovery, as well as listening to the woes of several married couples where Bipolar Disorder is present. Your mileage may vary.
1. Accept that not everyone can handle mental illness.
You don’t have to look far to find articles about how people with mental illness need kindness, compassion, and understanding. That is true. However, it’s also true that not everyone has a thick enough skin to handle mental illness. It can be frightening, disturbing, and confusing. Not everyone can handle that, and that’s okay.
It is worthwhile to consider what kind of experience and opinions a potential partner holds about mental illness. Have they ever been emotionally close to a mentally ill person before? Do they accept it is a medical problem, an illness? What kind of challenges have they faced in their lives? Will this person fall to pieces if they are confronted with the worst your mental illness has to offer?
I find that there are a lot of people that want to be understanding and compassionate, but the extremes of mental illness are just so different and unsettling that they don’t understand how to be.
2. The traditional tropes of partnership don’t necessarily apply.
A traditional idea of marriage sees two people joining their life together in many ways to be partners in this life. I know it’s a heart-warming, romantic notion to many. In a relationship involving Bipolar Disorder or other mental illness, there has to be at least some degree of space between the partners.
I’ve heard the following scenario dozens of times.
Husband has Bipolar Disorder and is the primary source of income. Husband swings manic, cleans out the bank account, and bails on wife and children. Husband may be a fantastic guy when well and balanced, but for the next several months, he’s teetering on the edge of out of his mind while mania does what it does. Wife is forced to cajole, coerce, or literally beg husband to keep their family afloat and a roof over their heads, not always succeeding.
In my well, placid state of mind, I would never want that for my family. Any half-decent person with a conscience wouldn’t want that for their family. So, I would never want to fully intertwine my financials with a long-term partner, because who knows what I might think is a good idea when I’m out of my mind? Separate bank accounts, avoid cosigning for things if it can be avoided, maybe a mutual bank account for paying bills and rent at the most. Need to build or rebuild credit? Get yourself a Secured Credit Card instead of cosigning a debt.
Not everything needs to be meshed together. And in my opinion, it definitely shouldn’t be. Boundaries are necessary.
3. Patience. Take your time developing the relationship.
Personally, any time I start to feel too good, I just assume I’m escalating until I can confirm that I’m not. Hitting things off well with another person can certainly be a escalation trigger for Bipolar Disorder. In fact, the following scenario is the most common that people write to me about.
Person A meets Person B and there is immediate chemistry. Person B lives with Bipolar Disorder. The relationship takes off hot and heavy. They’re my soul-mate! It’s intense, it’s passionate, everything seems to be perfect for about three to six months. Then, things change. They change because Person B triggered into mania, the cycle runs its course, and they crash hard into depression. Person A is confused, they want the person they fell in love with back!
Well, that’s what they think they want. In reality, the person they fell in love with may not actually exist. Mania can be a distortion of the person with Bipolar Disorder. It can also create totally fictional feelings and beliefs, making it not real at all. So many people are looking for this romanticized notion of a soul-mate. They think they find it in manic Person B because mania isn’t anything like what they’ve known before, unless they’re actually familiar with Bipolar Disorder, in which case they would know that it’s not a good thing at all.
Patience is a virtue that everyone needs more of. Date for at least two years before making any major decisions like getting a place together. This is good for both parties. It prevents the person with Bipolar Disorder from acting on fictitious emotions they may not actually feel and it gives the partner a chance to see a wide sampling of the mood swings and how things can be.
If you meet a person and you’re flooded with all of these overwhelming feelings of perfection, love, beauty, and purity of passion; assume it’s mania until you can prove otherwise. A lack of doubt is a major warning flag for escalation.
4. Do not hide your mental illness to achieve a relationship.
People come and go in life. Living with mental illness, we often see a number of people go. Friends are nowhere to be found, relationships crumble when drastic unwellness hits. It can be tempting to want to hide this facet away from a potential partner, but that’s a mistake.
You can’t build a healthy, loving relationship on distrust and partial information. Healthy relationships aren’t built that way. Sooner or later the partner will find out, and they will be hurt and feel betrayed. You’ll be setting yourself up for failure from the start.
The matter of mental health does need some partnership to it. If you’re going to spend a large amount of time with a person, it would help both parties out if they could communicate and work together to overcome the inevitable hurdles that the mental illness will contribute. I’ve talked to both mentally ill people and their partners who think that it can just be the sole domain of the mentally ill person, that it can be kept from affecting the partner. That’s naive, wishful thinking at best.
When’s the best time to have that discussion? Earlyish. It doesn’t have to be immediately, but somewhere before love and serious relationship sets in. I prefer sooner so I don’t waste our time.
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Love is not greater than mental illness. I’m writing that sentence out because I find myself needing to regularly tell people that love is a product of the brain. It’s not the heart, which pumps blood. It’s not the soul, an often debated construct of belief. Love is created, grown, and hosted in the mind. Therefore, love is just as vulnerable to mental illness as any other emotion or thought process.
Bipolar Disorder unwellness can create a fictional reality and emotions out of thin air. From the outside, it is incredibly confusing. From the inside, the fictional emotions and beliefs that arise from them seem as though they are reality. To say that, “they are not real” is incorrect. They are real in that the unwell mind is saying that “this is reality.” They are not real in that those beliefs don’t typically align with fact.
A person with a high degree of awareness, who retains enough presence of mind to listen to the people around them who can see when they are unwell, can attempt to counter that thinking by continuously reminding themselves that what they are experiencing is not factual and not base their decisions off of them. But, then there are people who are too unwell to see their illness, listen to supporters with rationality, or become convinced that they are being lied to.
“Why is my spouse being so awful to me now? We had a good relationship before!”
“Why is an otherwise loving parent now treating their kids like an afterthought now?”
“My significant other really loved our pets. Why are they so cold and ignoring them now?”
Mental illness would not be nearly as devastating if love surpassed it.
A majority of the people that reach out to me are the friends, family, and loved ones of the mentally ill who are trying to understand what is going on in the mind of their mentally ill loved one. The problem is that they do not have the appropriate perspective to accurately do that. They try to filter mental unwellness through the filter of how they experience and interpret life. It’s not the same.
A person with a typical mind may get angry with their partner but they still retain love.
A Bipolar mind that swings into mania can have that love overridden by the unwell cycle. Instead of anger with love, the person may wind up with intense anger and frustration, impeded decision making ability, impulsiveness, recklessness, racing thoughts, in addition to a removal of the filter between the brain and the mouth. Irrational emotions that are not based in reality flow through actions and words, free to deal drastic damage to a loving relationship.
And then the cycle will end sooner or later. The Bipolar person goes back to who they were before the manic cycle blasted its way through. Then the people involved are left to sweep up whatever ashes they can, because we can’t take back actions or words. All we can really do is apologize and try to put it back together as well as it can be.
“But, if they really loved me, they wouldn’t have done XYZ!”
No. Love is not greater than mental illness. In fact, I would argue that love is the single most vulnerable victim of mental illness, because it’s something that is an essential part of every person’s existence in some way.
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I receive correspondence from people dealing with a wide variety of issues relating to mental illness. One of the more common themes include parents, usually mothers, who are trying to figure out a way to make their adult child realize they need help and work toward recovery. I’ve talked to parents who have developed severe depression and anxiety, who have claimed strokes and heart attacks from the stress, who have gone so far as to take out additional mortgages to try and fund rehab, and far more.
In many cases, these parents have gone to mental health groups or counselors of their own. They’ve been told about the need and importance for boundaries; but feel that they can’t do these things to their child because of potential repercussions like violence, homelessness, self-harm, or suicide. All are very real possibilities when it comes to Bipolar Disorder and other volatile mental illnesses. That’s why it is vital to have the input and support of a qualified, licensed mental health professional. Being that I am not, it is not my place to tell you what you should do in that kind of situation other than seek professional help. Instead, I want to address the internal struggle of those parents.
On Waging the War…
I look at my mental wellness and my efforts in trying to help other mentally ill people and their loved ones in the context of fighting a war. You need a loose strategy that can be adapted as you push towards your goals. You need to have and manage resources. In war that includes troops, morale, weaponry, and money to keep the machine going. In mental health it’s professionals, your own emotional and health, therapy, medications, and money.
In war, you deploy your resources in a way that will push you closer to a victory. You do not want to arbitrarily waste your resources on battles that will not bring you closer to victory. In war, your troops may have advanced on and taken a hill. Intelligence indicates that a massive counter-attack is coming. Do you hold the hill? Does it serve a strategic importance to keep your troops on that hill and commit additional resources like air support and artillery to ensuring they hold it? Or is it a better idea to withdraw and let the enemy retake it so you can conserve resources and keep your troops in fresh, fighting shape for future actions?
In mental health, the wise will pick their battles in a similar way. You commit your resources when they have the greatest ability to make an impact and serve a strategic purpose. The most common piece of advice I give to people is don’t bother arguing with a Bipolar person who is manic. It serves little purpose. On the off-chance you actually do get through to the person in that moment, their instability can wipe out any perceived gains that you’ve made. What’s more likely to happen is you end up throwing fuel on the fires of their unwellness, anger them more, drive them further into instability. Then you have the emotional energy that you’ve expended in the form of your own anger, sadness, and frustration with the lack of meaningful gain.
In trying to get through to a mentally ill loved one, you must conserve your resources because it can take years for a person to not only realize they need help, but foster the desire to change their situation. You cannot sacrifice your mental and physical health, career, money, and home for someone who is not ready to help themselves. If you do, then you may not have those resources available five or ten years down the road when they could have been employed to make a real difference.
I Can’t Do What Is Suggested to My Child…
No one in this world is going to love your child as much as you do. No one. No one is going to put up with as much shit, sacrifice, or care as much as you do. What happens when you are no longer there? Will they end up on the streets? Will they commit suicide? Will they jump into a terrible relationship to just not be alone or on the streets? Will they turn to drugs or alcohol to escape? Maybe they are already doing those things now; but the difference is you are alive and reading this right now. That means you have the potential to be there for them and crack through the distorted perception that mental illness creates.
The boundary setting suggestions that mental health professionals make serve different purposes. Not only do they help you retain your sanity and well-being, but they also contribute to a controlled descent based on choice, whether that was the intention or not. Enforcing these boundaries forces the person to acknowledge that they have choices that will have repercussions. That helps to contribute to a controlled fall where hopefully the person won’t have to hit rock bottom to realize they need to change.
This is not something you are doing TO your child; this is something you are doing FOR your child. In following the recommendations of your mental health professionals, you are fighting the war FOR your child, which will hopefully push them towards the realization that they need to fight, too. Nobody accidentally recovers from a serious mental illness like Bipolar Disorder. Recovery is a major victory in a long-term war that requires a great deal of fighting, effort, and work. It is not something that can be handed to another person.
Your child, or loved one, is the only one who can truly help themselves. Enabling that person to realize it and that they have the strength to overcome will be two of the hardest fought, bloodiest battles in the war. Thus, you need to pace yourself to make sure your own life and well-being doesn’t get destroyed in the process. If the situation is so bad that your professional is suggesting extreme measures, you can’t tell yourself you can’t do them. You may not have a choice if you want to win the battle.
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Ever say the phrase, “I try to see the good in other people?” I hear it all the time from the people that reach out to me, particularly from people who are in abusive situations. It’s a romanticized sentiment that is not really applicable in the real world. Not all people are good. Some people only have a sliver of good in an ocean of bad. Others are a majority good but have a sliver of bad that is so negative that it can’t be overlooked. There are others simply project being good to the world and do awful things behind closed doors. And there are plenty of people who are just entirely apathetic to it all.
The people that announce “I try to see the good in other people” are essentially announcing to the world that they are an easy target. In my experience, these individuals will cling to the fragments of good that they see in another person, like an abusive partner, to further convince themselves that this person that they love is a good person and thus deserving of their love. And it’s not limited to romance. It’s parents, siblings, children, or really any interpersonal dynamic.
They hold onto this idea that if they are good, loving, and compassionate to this person, that the person will notice it, respect it, and return love. I don’t believe respect and love work that way. There are different types and levels of both. The respect you have for yourself is different from the respect you have for an enemy is different from the respect you have for a loved one. And love is the same way. There are different levels, types, and strengths of love.
I never look for the good in anyone. I look for their humanity and what makes them who they are. In doing so, it doesn’t really surprise me when someone does something good or bad. There seems to be a common belief that good and bad are absolutes; but I’ve known quite a few people who have done bad things because they felt they had no other choice. Those decisions can be driven by circumstances like mental illness or environment. Actions that are good can certainly have bad elements to them and vice versa.
As someone who is High-Functioning Autistic and tends to see things in black and white, this was a challenging thing to identify and accept. My brain just doesn’t do shades of gray very well. But that’s life, isn’t it? It’s all just different shades of gray. The color of gray you interpret a situation as is dictated by your emotions, perception, and life experiences. What’s good and bad to me may not necessarily be good or bad to you. That’s totally fine.
Instead of good or bad, it’s more helpful to look at the destructiveness, motivation, and that person’s response to their actions. We, the mentally ill, can do some pretty awful things to ourselves and other people while we are unwell. I understand that because I’ve lived that life. As a result, I’ve been able to forgive some pretty serious unwell actions out of others because I could see they were trying their hardest to rectify the situation and change it.
But then you have the people who simply do not care how their actions affect you and your life. They use kindness and compassion as leverage and a weapon against the people that care about them. Well, I see no reason to be a victim to those people. If they can’t understand or don’t care how damaging their actions are, then why should anyone suffer along with them?
Maybe they will see the error of their ways in the future or maybe they won’t. Either way, will you still be healthy and well when that time comes? Or will the pain, chaos, and misery destroy you in the process? Compassion and understanding are limited resources and will dry up sooner or later. I’ve watched that destruction happen numerous times. You have to be the one that ensures it doesn’t happen to you. No one else can do it for you.
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Many people in my audience are here because they are attempting to better understand mental illness, help a mentally ill loved one, or better help themselves. The ups and downs associated with the process are emotionally taxing and difficult to handle. So today, I want to share an important tip that can significantly ease a lot of the stress and emotional turmoil that goes along with not only this process, but several other aspects of life.
That is: work to reduce the amount of emotion you invest in the process or outcome.
What the hell does that mean?
In trying to help a mentally unwell person, their instability can be a great deal of stress and anxiety. It’s only natural to start letting hope peek in when they appear to be balancing off. Maybe this time they will finally be ready to seek help? Maybe this time they’ll listen to reason and their doctor? Maybe this time they will take their medication as directed?
In a situation like this, it’s also possible that they don’t make the right decisions, aren’t ready to commit to their wellness path, or have a bad reaction to the medication they do take. Investing hope into that situation is fruitless because the pursuit of wellness and stability is not a straight line. It has it’s ups and downs. It’s a long road to travel and there are many obstacles that can knock a person off their course. And most people, I find, have to learn things the hard way. You don’t want to find yourself getting angry, frustrated, sad, or depressed because things didn’t resolve how you thought they would.
That is not to say that you should never be emotional. You’re human. You’re going to be. You should celebrate successes and acknowledge failures; just don’t celebrate or mourn until you have an actual, tangible reason to.
Work to maintain neutrality and it will make things much easier in the long-term. The ability to last long-term is important because the realization that one needs help and the pursuit of wellness often takes years. You can’t compromise your own mental and emotional health in the process of trying to help someone else.
And really, it applies to most other areas of life as well. It dramatically reduces the emotional impact of the process of pursuing your goals.
Far too many people look at things like failure and rejection as an end all, be all. They’re not. They’re just part of the process of succeeding. That’s why you can’t let your emotions dictate a setback, failure, or rejection as a devastating end.
Let me frame it in one of the most common examples that people write to me about.
The mind of a Bipolar spouse runs screaming into an unwell cycle. The cycle is burning hard for months with all of the “fun” that goes along with it. Eventually, the cycle ends and the Bipolar spouse reaches back out because their perspective is finally starting to clear up. So, what is the Supporter spouse now feeling? Hope since it appears the person they loved is back and clear again? Anticipation that the situation is changing for the better? Relief? Happiness? Comfort? It can be any number of things.
What happens to the emotional state of the Supporter spouse if a few days later, Bipolar Disorder takes off into another drastic swing and all of those relief-based emotions are yanked out from under them? What happens if the Bipolar person realizes they need help, but can’t get in to see their doctor before another cycle takes hold and convinces them that they are fine? That it’s everyone else that’s fucking crazy!!! Not me!!! And then you find yourself back to square one after months of suffering with little to show for it.
You must work to maintain your wellness, balance, and stability while trying to love and help a mentally unwell person or their instability will destroy your emotional health. It is very common for Supporters to develop their own mental illnesses as they try to cope.
I use a very simple process myself.
1. Identify what the long-term goal is.
2. Temper emotions by keeping your eye on the long-term goal.
3. Force yourself to not dwell on the immediate successes and failures.
4. Repeat until you reach the long-term goal.
Seems simple, right? It’s not. At all. It takes time and practice to get used to; and you’re not going to get it right all of the time. I mean, you don’t need to look too deeply into my work to find anger or frustration. I definitely have it and experience it still. But, it’s a lot less intrusive than it used to be. Even a small gain in control over these emotions can make the overall journey much easier.
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I had a recent request for some tips on relationships where both partners have Bipolar Disorder. The following would be applicable in about any relationship, but I feel as though these points are the most important for a relationship involving mental health and stability.
1. Both partners need to have the same attitude regarding their wellness.
You can’t have one partner who is recovered and the other partner just doesn’t put in any effort into recovery. Why? Loving and living with an unstable mentally ill person is a hell of a lot of stress. Stress can easily serve as a depressive or escalation trigger that can cause unwellness in a person with a mood disorder. Minimizing stress is an important facet of mental health management for many.
2. Remember that wellness is an individual path.
I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard some variation of, “Well, my boyfriend tried this, so I’m going to try it, too.” or “Well, my wife had a bad reaction to that, so I’m not going to try it.” Your path is not the path of your partner. Their success with a given treatment or approach has zero affect on yours. You can walk the path together, but everyone experiences their mental illness in different ways. And we all have individual body and brain chemistry that means you can’t know how a medication is going to affect you until you’ve taken it as directed for as long as it takes to reach its functional range.
3. Work to not respond to your partner when emotions are running high.
Attempt to approach problems and challenges in the relationship from a position of neutrality. The couple can easily destabilize one another into unwellness by constantly fighting. Take some time to cool off and let your emotions settle before you toss more fuel on the flames. That small campfire can easily explode into a volcano of emotion. Work on improving communication in the relationship. There are tons of self-help books out there about it or you may want to consider a relationship counselor to work on communication skills.
4. Have and enforce boundaries to keep yourself well and healthy.
In my experience, a Bipolar partner who is doing better than their partner will often flex their own boundaries. They understand what it’s like to be misunderstood or for people to not have patience with what they are dealing with and want to be compassionate. That person may wind up destabilizing as they bend their limits. Boundaries are important because they help you stay balanced and healthy. I’m not saying to never flex boundaries, just be mindful when you make that choice and don’t flex them too far. I will note, this is just an observation from interacting with many mentally ill couples.
5. Work to turn your home into your sanctuary.
Ideally, a home should be a sanctuary, a place of peace and respite where a person can retreat after dealing with the bullshit of their day and life. Life is hard and stressful. Both partners committing to making the home a place of peace (as much as it can be) will create a lower stress environment. Of course, that is easier said than done…which is a stupid phrase because everything is easier said than done. Regardless, it is worth the effort so you don’t have the additional stress of dreading your home life on top of everything else.
If you would like for me to write about something specific, please feel free to let me know in the comments!
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There is a relatively common fear among the mentally ill of involuntary hospitalization. It is perfectly reasonable for anyone to fear the loss of their freedom of movement and choice without any real say in the matter. In relation to Bipolar Disorder specifically, the fear can easily get exploded out of proportion in a mentally ill person’s mind. Remember, Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder, which primarily affects emotions, and fear is most certainly an emotion.
The best way to combat this fear, whether you are mentally ill yourself or the loved one of a mentally ill person who fears it, is to arm yourself with the knowledge of the process and requirements for involuntary hospitalization in your local area. In the United States, involuntary hospitalization follows proof that the person poses a real and imminent threat to themselves or other people.
The best way to double check this is to inquire with a local facility and ask for a patient rights pamphlet or ask your doctor.
Every place I’ve received mental health treatment has given me a pamphlet that clearly outlined my rights as a mental health consumer. If you have not been given one or it’s been awhile since you started treatment at a particular facility, ask.
As it relates to trying to soothe the oftentimes irrational fears that mental illness creates, the best route is to ground the other person in truth and reality, reinforced with boundaries. The approach I personally use is:
“I will not promise you that I will never call authorities. If you are suicidal, violent, or making threats, I absolutely will. But beyond that, I will not.”
Clear, concise, with fair and meaningful boundaries.
Involuntary hospitalization is meant to be used as a last line of defense to help a person in dire need and prevent them from hurting themselves or someone else. It is a tool to be used if a mentally ill person has completely disconnected from reality, rationality, and poses an imminent threat. It’s not something that can just be evoked over whatever. The authorities are not going to haul a person off and lock them in a padded room just because another person says they are a threat. It’s not that simple.
My personal opinion? If I were to ever reach the point where I would need to be involuntarily hospitalized? I would be glad for it once I leveled out. I’m sure it would have been used at a time when I could have done serious harm to myself or someone else at a time when my mental illness was overwhelming me. And you don’t get to take back the actions you take in those times.
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Many people write to me about a number of different things. I find myself pointing out that a number of these people are relating red flags of an abusive relationship. I’m not talking about the general difficulty that can come from mental illness or an unwell cycle. Sometimes, we Bipolar people can do awful things during an unwell cycle that are entirely out of character for who we actually are.
I’m talking about consistent, long-term abuse or severe red flag behavior.
There is a camp of people where those terrible things are a general part of their personality and character. They have toxic qualities about their personality that goes past what Bipolar Disorder is actually responsible for. A well-adjusted person who is open, loving, and accepting makes for an ideal target for a predator. That well-adjusted person can easily fall into the cycle of excusing awful behavior because of their loved one’s problems.
I’ve read a crapload of literature on “identifying abusive relationships.” This literature typically focuses on identifying the negative markers, but does not provide a lot of context. In answering these messages, I will typically point out the red flags and then provide links to good resources that point these same things out.
A majority of the time, I get one of the following responses:
– “But they are such a great person because XYZ reason!”
– “But we really synced on a deep level! Things were great until they got unwell.”
– “But they have all of these really great qualities!”
– “But I’ve never met anyone so intense, passionate, and wonderful!”
Here’s the thing I find myself repeating on a very regular basis that isn’t often covered in resources.
Abusive people are rarely completely awful people. Most of them have positive qualities about them. Media likes to depict bad people as damaged to the core, which is the only reason I can think of for this perception. Real life is rarely that black and white.
It really doesn’t matter if he’s amazing with puppies and children if his insecurities make him so jealous that he undermines his partner’s self-confidence, edits her friends and family, and forces his partner to sacrifice key components of herself to be “loved.”
It really doesn’t matter if she’s a vibrant, well-liked person by everyone she meets if she is unhinged and violent when angry.
If abusive people were 100% awful then no one would ever end up in abusive relationships. You’d just go, “Oh, that person is an asshole. I better avoid them,” and that would be the end of it. But that’s not how it works. Instead, the abusive person wears whatever mask is socially acceptable. As their partner gets more emotionally invested and the relationship continues, that mask starts coming off more and more.
I should also note that this isn’t always a willful act of manipulation either. Yes, there are people who are master manipulators, will get in your head, and use whatever your weakness is as leverage to tear you apart. Other people grow up in terrible situations where abuse and shittiness is the normal that they know. Sometimes it can take years for that person to realize that isn’t how they should conduct themselves. Others never realize it.
But no matter the case, that person is not going to change unless they want to change themselves. I’ve heard so many rationalizations to the contrary.
– “But if I just love them better they’ll be inspired to change.” No. No, they won’t.
– “But if I just do what they ask, then things will work out.” No. It really won’t. They just keep taking more.
– “But what if I can’t ever do any better?” That’s a matter you should discuss with a therapist.
Simply put, you’re better off not being in a relationship at all rather than staying in an abusive one. An abusive relationship takes a very drastic toll on the abused in the long-term. That kind of relationship destroys a person’s self-esteem and confidence. It can completely destroy one’s ability to trust and the damage carries over into future relationships; assuming the abused doesn’t decide to stop having relationships altogether.
The most frequent inquiry I get goes something like this.
“I met this wonderful person about six months to a year ago. They were so smart, charming, intense, vibrant, and passionate. I’ve never experienced anything that wonderful. Now, they are a completely different person.” Sometimes they are just different, sometimes they are acting in awful ways.
That is a very intoxicating experience for the second party. I’ve talked to several people who fall into the trap of thinking that they can get the person they originally met back if they just tough their way through whatever the Bipolar person is putting them through. The truth is that the vibrant, passionate experience was likely an unhealthy anomaly.
“But how can anything that felt so pure and right be bad? It’s love!”
Anytime I hear the words “intense and vibrant” in conjunction with Bipolar Disorder, my first question is, “Was the person manic?” When a Bipolar person is manic, their mental illness is creating a lot of false emotions and impressions. That includes feelings of love and attraction. No one can simply trust a Bipolar person’s feelings that are founded in mania because they likely do not represent that person’s actual feelings.
I catch a lot of shit from Bipolar people for that sentiment. “You don’t know me. You can’t tell me how I feel!” Correct. I do not know how everyone else feels. I do, however, know how an unwell cycle of Bipolar Disorder can cause delusional thoughts and feelings. And if you are Bipolar and thinking that, I would challenge you to look back at your previous manic cycles and compare feelings you had during those cycles to feelings you had before they started, after they ended, and see how consistent they are.
I digress.
Putting up with abusive behavior to get that “intense and vibrant” person back is not a solution. I would conclude that the “intense and vibrant” Bipolar person was manic until proven otherwise; because people aren’t usually intense and vibrant without some reason. In Bipolar people, mania is a pretty common reason.
I know it probably felt amazing; but I’m told heroin does, too. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to indulge in it. Feeling good does not necessarily mean it is good.
As I’ve stated many times, my rule of thumb is simple. Is the person trying to help themselves? And I don’t mean just talking about it. It’s easy for a manipulator to lie and say, “Oh, I’ll go to the doctor and do what needs to be done.” Managing mental illness is hard, tedious, frustrating, and fucking annoying at times. A person that is not actively working to be well and following through on all of that tedious crapwork is not going to stay well.
No amount of love and compassion is going to inspire that person to want to be well or not be shitty. For every one person that claims that to be the case, there’s a thousand who wind up an abused, damaged husk of who they used to be.
Every situation is different. If you feel you are in such a situation, I would highly recommend that you speak to a counselor about your situation or reach out to a local organization that deals with abusive relationships. They will be able to provide better insight on your specific situation and may be able to provide resources to separate yourself from that relationship.
Compassion for the mentally ill and people that struggle is wonderful; but there must be limits. If you hold on too tight, you’ll just sink to the bottom and drown with that person.
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