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Originally Posted by Elyria
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.
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Your story is so recognizable to me. I am married for a second time for 18 years. I wasn't officially diagnosed BP1 until 2008 (and I am 48 years old). As I examined my life I realized I had been depressed, hypomanic and manic since my teens but I was undiagnosed. I varied between serious depressions and hypomania during my college years. I dropped out of college in my junior year. I started more than one business and pulled all-nighters working at them. Throughout these experiences my drinking increased. I then had 6 or 7 years of depression and was diagnosed Major Depressive. Then I escalated into mania in 2008 and I had 2 affairs along the way. I was hospitalized for a week at the height of the mania. My husband to this day only knows about one affair. Before that time I had never been unfaithful.
We learned about BP together after my diagnosis. We also went into counseling to deal with the damage in our relationship from the affair. I don't think it matters if it was a one-night stand or a longer term involvement. The fact is, with BP, (especially the mania IMO), YOU are not controlling IT, IT is controlling YOU. During these episodes, rational decision making is virtually non-existent.
The way it's worked out for us is that my husband and I came to understand that I was not rational or in control when it happened and we've worked on re-building the trust that was demolished when I was manic. It sounds like you are doing the right thing by being in counseling together. We found a counselor who had knowledge of BP and I think that was important. Your infidelity wasn't the "garden variety" of cheating. You were ill when it occured so it has to be viewed in that context. It will take a year (sometimes longer) to start to get back the trust that was lost. Things are often shattered in the fall out of BP behavior. My decision has been to work on accepting the diagnosis, getting a good P-doc, seeing what meds work best, and including my husband in helping me monitor my moods so as to prevent another escalation. I know how you feel with the guilt and despair. In my experience it can work out OK with love, understanding, patience, counseling and medication but it will take time. I know it's difficult when you're in the thick of things, but try not to be so hard on yourself. To begin with, if you can both work at understanding and accepting that you were really sick and not in control mentally when the incident occured it will be the first step to healing.