That does totally suck. Having support is essential to getting well. I'm kind of lucky in one sense that due to the economic downturn I only can get 1 day of work per week. Otherwise, I wouldn't have enough time to go to all my Dr's appts and start to manage the disease (considering they just figured out I'm not unipolar depressed). My mate just wants me to feel better and has seen me at relatively normal times or even on highs when I was intensely creative, so he knows this prolonged depression is just the fluctuating chemicals and not me. I think there may be some people who use their diagnosis as an excuse to not do anything productive with their lives (but those are rare cases and usually the people are not in treatment, not taking their meds, and not trying everything they can to get better, which you are). Also, these people tend to have been trashy and irresponsible and uncaring of others' feelings prior to their diagnosis.

You are still the same person you were before your diagnosis and I hope you will find the support you need on the road to managing this serious illness. Mental illness and disorders will probably always have a stigma attached to them, but only by those who refuse to understand them because they've never had someone they loved be transformed before their eyes and against their will. And they've probably also never seen the wonders of treatment they have today. Like the artists of old, we might have ended up in a sanitorium and/or ended our lives were it not for the medications and talk therapy now available.

This is serious and I hope in time your SO will be un-stressed enough to understand that and you. It's not really her fault that she's overwhelmed. I mean, everyone has stress in their life to varying degrees. I'd suggest making an appointment with her for sometime in the future where you can have a weekend or a couple days of relaxation and education aobut bipolar. Going to therapy together could just be one of the events in an otherwise vacation-type time to just be with each other. You're not the problem and neither is she. It's this blasted illness and things will get better the more the both of you understand and continue to treat it.