Wow, I had missed that in the book -- really strikes a chord with me. To MangledReality, I was in the same place exactly a year ago, and really hurt the person that I am in love with. I also felt like you described, out of character and externally driven.

Meds are an important part of controlling this mania-flirt urge, but what you're doing by telling your husband and stopping yourself from acting on the urges is HUGE. I really hope you can see how strong you are by doing this. When I was manic I felt possessed by a drive for either food or sex, and no matter what else I did, all day long it was there, nothing could fulfill me or make it stop until I got it. Like a mental addiction. Try not to place too much blame or shame on yourself, as this is something which is physiologically beyond a normal temptation or desire.

Which relates to something that my pdoc and I have been going over, which is that bipolar people often lose focus of what control they do have (however small that may be) in the face of being overwhelmed by what they can't control. The idea is that thinking "I can't make this urge/situation/feeling stop," actually gives you less control, while thinking "I can control this one, small aspect" gives you more control, which can be built on with other small pieces of control. I accidently cut my thumb last year, and my roomates' responses reminded me how important acting in control can be to actually gaining control: one roomate started freaking out, causing me to become more upset; the other calmly assessed the situation, quickly found someone to drive me to the ER, and calmed the first guy down in the meantime.

I don't mean to minimize what you're feeling into something that can be conquered by a few positive thoughts; following the analogy, the focus-on-control approach helped me to reach the goal of bandaging my hand more quickly, but was not an end in itself. Anyway, this is REALLY long, so I'll stop, but just wanted to tell you some things that I wish I could go back and tell myself.

Jessie