OK, so, I have a question that requires some expository back story. I'll just jump right into it. (TIA to anyone who reads it and responds, you ROCK!!)

My teens and early twenties were marked by shifts between being up for two, three, four days in a row creating websites and writing "groundbreaking" novels and doing all manner of creative things with tons of energy to spare, and fairly lengthy depressions. It honestly never occurred to me that anything was wrong, I just thought that's how I was wired and everyone's different so why should I worry? I've always been very high functioning. I became an IT manager at a law firm by the time I was 22 and I've supported a family (with all the sundries--house, cars, vacations) for the last ~9 years. Surely that all made me normal, right?? (Haaaaaaahaha)

So, cut to April 2014. I'd been mired in my worst depression to date for 11 months (yeahhhhh I don't recommend that) with all the nasty thoughts and impulses that come with such deep deepness. I got into therapy the December before for the depression, which I finally acknowledged is a problem. By April I was in to see a psych to see if anti-depressant augmentation would be a good fit. Based on my history, the doc said I would probably be best off starting on a mood stabilizer (Lamictal) for a while, then seeing about an anti-depressant. I'm sure you can see where this is going. A few weeks went by and I was steady enough, but still depressed enough, I said I wanted to try the anti-depressant. The doc agreed and I went to pick up my brand spanking new Celexa rx! Two pills in I realized something was WAY different (and yeah, that's all it took! I love my brain chemistry!) I couldn't stop talking to everyone around me, the ideas kept colliding in my head and needed to get out verbally and creatively, I had no need to sleep, I was bouncing out of bed, I felt amazing! The sun was shining just for me to celebrate the fact that I wasn't depressed anymore, all of a sudden! Well, I called the psych the following Monday and she was like "drop what you're doing and come in right now, please." I quit Celexa immediately and learned I should never take SSRIs again. After several more weeks of not coming down from this high the puzzle pieces fit together and I was told "yeah, dude, you've got dat bipolar." I may be paraphrasing.

I continued working with my therapist and psych to wind myself down and even my moods out, which went well through the rest of the Summer. Unfortunately I lost my job of almost a decade at the end of August (my new hypomania super powers freed up my mind and tongue to tell off the owner for severe sexism--I'm still not sorry it happened.) After that my insurance ended and I was unceremoniously dumped by my therapist and psych. Well, crud. I had enough financial reserves to carry the household expenses for nine months, but not enough to cover uninsured therapy and psych services out of pocket. I tapered myself off the Lamictal thinking that would be a good idea since I now couldn't afford any services to get it, or the support needed to guide it. I took my last dose in mid-September 2014. Thus begins hell...


In the background of all this is my relationship with my wife. We got together when we were 18, married at 21, kid at 22, college, career, loveliness, etc... except not. Shortly after the kid was born my wife wanted to "open the relationship" as they say. I was working overtime to pay for my wife and new kid's roof and food. My spare time was spent with the kid, running errands, doing chores, and spending time with my wife. I have an overactive sense of empathy and after a few weeks of discussion she persuaded me to agree this was what she needed. So, I agreed to have a "polyamorous" relationship on the condition that we communicated openly and frequently and kept each other abreast of any changes. Things went downhill from there. We sort of entered a roller coaster phase where there were months of okay times and months of really bad times for me. The bad times hit whenever she found another relationship. Weeks would go by where she'd say all of two sentences to me a night while spending ALL her time on Skype and IM with other men. I would come home, cook, do some cleaning, spend time with the kid, put him to bed, and get a handful of words from her. It was... not good. So, in 2013 we hit a good period. Work was offering me engaging projects and my wife and I seemed to be reconnecting and focusing on each other anew. Then she pulled away and the 11 month depression hit. By December she'd found a new Other relationship which continues to this day.

In mid 2013 my job moved cities and we decided to buy our first house. I'd wanted another kid and one of her conditions was "we need a house first" so I made it happen, haha. We closed in December and moved in January. Her new boyfriend came to visit us for a week two days after we moved in. We weren't even unpacked yet. I came back home, went to my therapy appointment, and was referred to aforementioned psych that day.

Since then I've improved and learned a lot about myself and started learning how nutso my marriage has been making me. She's steadily pulled away from me emotionally and physically, while still continuing to act as if everything's normal. My money was still being spent on what she wanted, and throughout 2014 that included flying to her new boyfriend's house several times, renting hotels and cars, and paying for their meals and drinks and all that. I decided I needed to focus on my mental health first, then I'd deal with the issue of my wife. That came to a screeching halt when my job ended...


So now we're at September 2014 on both tracks. I'm off Lamictal and all meds except Vitamin D because Costco has like a billion of them for a ten spot, haha. My depression returned (big surprise, huh?) I felt like a loser for not having a job, and my wife was increasingly pulling away--at this point she was referring to her bf as "hubby two." They'd been talking about having him move in with us in one big "happy" "polyamorous" "family". I didn't like this but my objections weren't listened to at all because I'm a spineless doormat by this point and no one respects a doormat, not even the doormat's wife. (Don't feel bad for me saying this. It's true, and that's where I was at. I claim and own that label to describe myself as I existed then.) She ended up having him fly up to stay with us for five weeks. He arrived a couple of days after my birthday, was here for Christmas and New Years, and finally #*%&ing left in mid-late January. It was the worst period of time in my life. He invaded all of my personal spaces. They took over the bed, my office, he ate my food, drank my open sodas, smoked my cigarettes, wore my shoes and hoodies, claimed the whole living room as his, never did laundry, never changed clothes, never showered, and generally acted like an entitled #*%&-head the whole time. They had sex everywhere, cuddled all over the house, and were affectionate in a way she hadn't been with me in years. I ended up paying about $700 to have him stay here so he and my wife could pretend to be married through the holiday season. My car ended up being my only fortress of solitude and I took to sleeping in it and driving to the tops of mountains to write for hours at a time and cry and scream.

None of the above is an exaggeration. This seriously happened. In real life. I'm actually keeping it fairly tame. I've written nearly 100,000 words on the subject of his 5-week visit. I won't bore you with it, haha. But, as you can imagine, this was extremely stressful for me to handle in a depression, with no escape to work, no family or friends nearby, no medication, and no therapist/psych.

I started to phase in and out of reality. I could hear their thoughts and all they talked about was how I was stupid I was and I didn't know their plans and I'd go crazy and get locked up somewhere. Some nights I was up all night ready to bolt from the house because I was convinced they were going to come in and drug me and dispose of me in the river. This was not good.

After he left I was able to get my head above water enough to realize that was WAY not normal or okay to experience. I went into a general checkup appointment with a physician and basically smooth talked him into writing me a script for Lamictal. I read all the product spec sheets, FDA materials, and pharma/psych books on Lamictal I could and stepped myself back up to a theraputic dose. I forced myself to start meditating routinely and to read as many authoritative books as I could on bipolar and mental health and relationships/dysfunction. I reached out to a couple of friends and my siblings and told them what was going on. They all soiled themselves. Basically I single-handedly made myself my own pdoc and therapist and formed a support network from there. I'm VERY proud of myself for that. Since then I've found my backbone and I'm SO ANGRY at things. I realized I'd been bottling my anger up for years... over 6 years. I've been channelling the anger and fury into physical fitness and healthier diet, which has been doing wonders for my moods.

What made me so angry, you ask? Well, a month and some change ago I found a file on my computer that had carelessly been synced via a shared folder... it was a chat log containing text that revealed my wife and her bf have been very seriously talking about having children together (something she'd strung me along for years on, and which I bought a HOUSE for), wishing I'd get a job so it would free her back up to fly back and forth, calling me names, etc... it was the straw that broke this VERY patient camel's back. I looked on her laptop for the first time in our marriage. I found that this has been going on for the bulk of the time they've been together. I confronted her about it and she lied through her teeth, telling me that I told her I'd never bring up past issues, and that I agreed to open our marriage and it wasn't right for me to change that, and how I was obligated to support her, and how I didn't really see what I thought I saw...

I've learned recently what gaslighting is. She's a master gaslighter and I've been gaslit for years, but it's been heaviest since she got together with this... person. I told her I wanted a divorce and she freaked out, asking what she could do. I told her the only hope was to cease all contact with him, her to get into therapy, and us get into marriage counselling, and even then there's not much of it. She agreed after several teary decision days. She told me she ended it with him... I looked on her computer and learned it didn't last 8 hours. She'd lied again. She'd lied for years. She's a habitual liar. Since then she's resumed talking to him and wonders why I'm not okay with it... she keeps trying to gaslight me into questioning my reality. I ended up breaking my silence and told all my family, many of my/our friends, and her father about what the relationship has been and is. I've received unanimous support to end it. I'm staying strong and I'm not getting sucked back up into the vortex. The writing is on the wall. The marriage is ended, it's just about taking care of all the logistical loose ends (finances, living arrangements, kid, etc...) Thing is, she's not accepting it. She thinks it'll all go back to how it was and keeps acting and talking like things are fine and she doesn't know why I keep blowing up. I've been using other people as controls to make sure it's not a manic or anything else warping my thoughts into demonizing her. They all agree and have had opinions for years on this. It's let me know I'm not insane. It's grounded me.

SO, with all that said and done, I've been doing a lot of thinking. My worst bipolar episodes have been during this relationship of hers where the acknowledgement of my rights and existence as a human being, much less a husband and father, are non-existent. Gaslighting is, by definition, the process of making an individual question themselves and their sense and understanding of reality. I was definitely experiencing psychotic depression in January, in which reality is broken. My ultimate pondering is:

Is it possible that the bipolar dx and symptoms and behavior are just a result of my horribly unhealthy relationship bringing them on? Or did the job/house/marriage trifecta trigger a break and bring on full-fledged bipolar? Maybe I don't have it and she's just driven me insane? Maybe it's a feedback loop and the bipolar and gaslighting keep playing off each other and are giving me my breaks with reality? The SSRI reactivity is definitely a physical indicator towards bipolar, but my brain chemistry is EXTREMELY responsive to nearly anything I put in it. Mushrooms put me in a state where I was essentially in a coma for 12 hours, unresponsive externally but vibrant and powerful inside. Narcotic painkillers make me feel like I can levitate and shoot rainbows into other people's brains and I shoot sunshine from my pores. Maybe my reaction to SSRIs is just part of the larger responsiveness to substances by my brain, and the swings up and down are the reality-breaking relationship and manipulation by my wife?

Or maybe I'm just a dude with bipolar and a bad relationship. IDK. Questioning a lot lately. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you if you read through my tome.