Quote:
Originally Posted by hamster-bamster
In the course of your planning to run away with the girl from the virtual reality, when did you inform your wife about the plan, or, when did she find out about it on her own?
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The reason I asked this...
Bipolar disorder is episodic - the episodic nature is a hallmark of the disorder.
So the key thing is to observe patterns from episode to episode.
Manic people are not really in the best position to practice pattern-recognition skills. As you wrote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpiritOfAStorm
I was definitely in a manic/mania because I was taking huge risks in that game, spending money on anything and everything, stopped paying bills....typical manic/mania stuff (i just didnt know at the time that is what it was)
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In the ideal world, a qualified and calm p-doc would be able to spot patterns.
I doubt that you have had the same p-doc for twenty plus years.
OK, so a p-doc who has read about the episode with running away with a lush 20 years ago should have been able to spot the pattern when you wanted to run a away with the video game girl. To enable the p-doc to spot the pattern, you needed to tell him/her about the plan, though. Did you do that?
The then wife was actually through the episode with running away with the lush - she lived through it, with you. So it seems to me that after the p-doc, the next person best positioned to recognize the pattern was the then wife. But for her to spot the pattern, she needed to know of the plan. Did she know of the plan?
What I am getting at is the following: if she knew of the plan, and knew of your bipolar disorder, she should have recognized the pattern and phoned your p-doc. She really was in a good position to practice her pattern recognition skills because, unlike you, she was NOT manic. She probably would have been unable to reason with YOU during that episode, because it is very hard to reason with people at the peak of their manias, but she could have alerted the p-doc.
If she failed to act on recognizing the pattern by phoning the p-doc, she bears some responsibility - you are not solely responsible for "screwing up a good marriage".