Hello. I have had a hard time drafting in my head what I wanted to say, since I'm not sure that I actually believe anyone can say anything that will help me or make me feel any better right now. But here I am, and I won't know unless I try so here goes...

I have been married for 9 years, and with my husband for 12. I have always been a bit odd -- "quirky" if you will -- and prone to mercurial moods and flights of fancy. I once started a cake business out of my house and did marathon 20 hour sessions of decorating to make really fantastic designs. I have always waffled between periods of depression and periods of "happiness" which I now know were actually periods of mostly hypomania. After my second child was born I descended into the pit of a true post-partum depression. It was horrific, and my husband sacrificed immensely to pull me through. That was the first in a string of major depressive episodes over the next six years. (I didn't know it at the time, but my first major depressive episode actually happened in college, when I was 19. I didn't know what depression was, as my family wasn't one that really ever discussed or believed in mental illness for "normal people".)

Earlier this year I suffered a miscarriage at 12 weeks (after a month of knowing it was possibly an imminent event). I went a bit off the rails after that; I started drinking much more than my usual social glass or two. I started going out alone in the evenings and on weekends, and walking around new towns and places. I basically began to cut emotional ties with everyone in my life, though that was never something I consciously decided to do.

A few weeks ago, my husband (who has had frequent occasions for business travel over the course of our marriage) went away for a week abroad for business. It happened to be the same week I started some college courses (Never having finished the first time due to the aforementioned depressive episode) and that our 2 oldest kids started school. Our second child actually started kindergarten that week, which was an emotionally charged event all by itself.

I had a babysitter to help me that week, and so by the end of the week when a school friend suggested we go out for drinks to decompress I jumped at the chance.

That night I drank more than I can actually remember (I stopped counting after 5 or 6 mix drinks) and ended up with my "friend" driving me to a house party with some guys we met at the bar. I had sex with a perfect stranger I had just met in the grass behind the house.

When I met my husband I was a virgin. I have always been faithful to him and, until that night, had never gone past second base with anyone else.

Needless to say, when I came to my sense I was shattered. I confessed to my husband the minute he walked in the door (I had decided to tell him, but planned to wait until he had a chance to settle in after getting home from a long international flight. That didn't happen, I burst into tears the moment I saw him.)

After a few days of hell, he mentioned that someone he confided in asked him if I was bipolar. He didn't think so, but he started actually LEARNING about what bipolar disorder is, and a lightbulb came on. We sat down and made a list of every episode, either up or down, that we could remember from the past six years. It was a very long list. I shortly entered treatment with an IC and a pdoc and now, about a month out, I am a diagnosed bipolar 2 and doing everything I can to salvage a shattered marriage and a broken life.

So now I am here. I don't know if anyone else got diagnosed after a one night stand. I remember very little of the actual infidelity and, in fact, I'm fairly sure I could pass the guy on the street and not recognize him. Between the alcohol and the state of mind I was in, I remember only a few details and a few explicit moments of the event and the hours leading up to it.

I am gutted. My husband is a wreck, and is now also in IC. We don't have many friends where we live; we moved here for the kids, but have had a hard time making friends outside of acquaintances from kids activities. My husband and I have always been best friends, and kept each other entertained. We have always been one of those couples people envied, because we have been so happy in our self-contained little world. Now we find ourselves without sufficient support to get us through this.

He sought support on a forum for people whose spouses have been unfaithful. And now, I guess, I am here... seeking .. I'm not sure what. Maybe just someone who understands the smallest part of what I am going through. Is there anybody out there... anybody with BP who found it turned them into someone, even momentarily, that they didn't recognize...

Just sending my queries out into the ether, and hoping somebody is listening. Thanks.