I am sorry to hear you( and by proxy your husband/family) is bearing the brunt of a person in throws of cycling. I know it's not easy to deal with those of us who are bipolar and are in an unbalanced state. It sounds to me that she is dpending on you too heavily as her only support. I would like to ask you to consider National Alliance for Mentalhealth Issues(NAMI as it is commonly referred to as). It has resources for people with loved ones that suffer from mental health issues. I am glad that your friend has you as a support. But she needs to learn to develop INTERNAL coping skills. She is too dependent on you to get healthy herself. She feels like you are her sense of sanity and she needs to learn to be more self sufficient.

Disclaimer here - I am not diagnosing. I don't know her or her situation well enough but you may want to Borderline Personality Disorder ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderl...ality_disorder ). Again I am not a doctor and I am not saying it to be the case but it may be something to take a look at because of her extreme swing in intimacy levels. Even if she isn't, understanding abandonment issues may help you deal with her better, because she has developed a very strong bond with you and has lost most of the others in her life. I hope this helps. This could use be a form of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder from years of hurting and being dependent and all the chaos that ensues because of it). Good luck and I hope you, your family and friend all find some peace in all of this.