Hi. First of I apologise for the length and detail of this post. I'm writing this as much as an exorcism as for advice, since I'm having a hard time keeping it together.

My girlfriend suffers with Bi-polar. It's nothing new to me, we've been together for years. But recently, over the last half a year, she's been getting steadily worse, becoming more and more manic.

Last christmas I found out that she had been cheating on me with this real low life. He'd been taking money from her, using her and later on harrasing her. It wasn't all him, she had her part in. When she's manic, nothing I do is good enough and she act as though she hates me. It's unwarented, this hatred, at least in my eyes. I believe this affair began to spite me, but got out of control.

When I found out I tried to be understanding. I let her come stay with me so she could get away from this guy and let the situation blow over. I didn't let on that I knew the full story, but dropped hints, giving her the chance to come clean. She didn't, at least not until the very last second, when proof beyond doubt was about to be laid before her. She begged and pleaded to be forgiven for what she'd done, promising that nothing like this would happen again. It's a promise she hasn't kept. Perhaps a promise she's incapable of keeping.

A week ago she had to go into the respite that the Mental Health Team have set up for her to attend every so often. When she came back out after two days, her character had changed totally. Before going in, there was no problem really. She was a bit high, but not excessivly so. Going into the respite seemed to have kicked her into a full blown manic episode. She was rushing back and forth from the hospital with illnesses; phoning me and my friend to shout abuse at us; demanding unreasonable things such as can I transport her cats about for her at 3.00 in the morning or give her a sum of money which I owe her when I have nothing to give her, then screaming and threatening to smash my windows if I didn't comply.

I lost it, snapped back, shouted at her. We ended up breaking up over the phone.

Over the next week we talked, reconciled somewhat, made progress. All the time she seemed distracted, couldn't focus, didn't seem to take anything I said seriously. I know that's part of her condition. At least she was half listening to what I was saying.

A couple of days later she phoned me up with an emergency. One of her cats had fallen out of a third story window and had to go to the vets, but she had no money because she had blow it all running around the bars in town with another bi-polar girl. I offered to help her, with the promise that she would give me the money back the next day when she got paid. We then cleaned out my bank account to sort the cat out.

The next day she called and said that she hadn't been paid. When I protested she started going on about how I wasn't being supportive of her condition and how that money would go towards the money I owe her, even though doing so would leave me with nothing to eat for over a week. We ended up rowing again and had another bust up after a week of sorting things out.

Angry at what was happening, I went onto her facebook page to see what she was saying about me as she'd been excessivly using facebook since her mania started up. In the comments I came across an old post between her and her bi-polar friend talking about how things were going between her and her new man. Not well it would seem, and it was dated around the same time as her sudden character change. I confronted her with the fact that she was having another affair, which she denied. But then she'd say things like "why do you care anyway" and "people do cheat you know". Stuff like that which confirms it. I also learned that she's been having contact with some of the people that caused her trouble over christmas as well. Add on to that the fact that I suspect that she may have taken some random bloke home from town when her and her mate were out getting slaughtered, though I've no proof to back this up, just paranoia and some suspicious things she's said.

Anyway, with all the hate mail that she was posting on facebook my family took notice since she's added them all as friends. When they started to stick up for me, she turned on them. Now my whole family hates her.

And that's where things stand at the moment. I'm torn in two by what's happening. On one side I have my family, my friends and my self respect telling me that I should have nothing to do with her, but on the other hand this is someone I love, someone I've spent years with happily who is suffering from a horrible illness. The Mental Health Team are doing nothing to help her. I mean when she was having the episode at the respite where they are supposed to monitor her, and they just let her walk out to go running around town. They've given her no therapy programs in about about a year or so and her CPN dosen't help her beyond ensuring that she gets a sizable benefit check and upping her dosage when she's bad, which doesn't seem to be helping at all.

Anyway, if you read all that, have a cookie... seriously, have two. I just feel so lost in all this, so conflicted. I don't know how I can help her, or even if I should try. And the worst thing is it seems like she doesn't even want to help herself, or to admit that the way she's acting is wrong.