It wasn't until I had quite a lot of therapy that I became aware of some of the problems I had with boundary violations. I would cross other people's boundaries without being aware of the implications of doing that, or what it actually meant. Ithought some times I had a right to take out my feelings on other people around. This is the environment I was raised and helpless as a small child. I think the anger comes from feelings of helplessness.

It is also why it is so difficult for me to make good choices about who to involve in my life and why I live alone, except for my son who is moving out and occasional outing with a friend.

I think relationships are even more problematic for me than the usual person with bipolar because of what I learned and didn't learn as a small child. i grew up in a violent environemtn with a lot of fighting where I was also physically abused by my mother and father. My father is an alcoholic bipolar with a history of violence against women and adultery when he was married. As an adult he would intrude in my life and cross all kinds of boundaries by calling people at my workplace out of the blue because of his 'concerns' about me. I worked in a large organization and would get emails from people I didn't know to 'call your father because he is concerned about you'. It was extremely embarrassing. My father had threatened he would do this if I didn't tell him the full name of the man I was involved with, so it was emotional blackmail. After that I cut him out of my life entirely. Still he called me against my wishes the day before I went in for lung cancer surgery despite my telling him once and for all to not contact me anymore. My sister eventually did the same with him. My mother is long dead, was chronically abused and depressed and took out her frustrations on me as a small child, she would poke a broom under the bed to hit me when I ran away to hide from her and do other awful things. My sister had a totally different experience with my mom and didn't get any abuse like that.

Well all I can say is that I didn't have good models in my life to have healthy relationships. I don't know how much my deficiencies in relationships is due to the bipolar, how I was raised or some combination. I can see that lots ofpeople here do much better in relationships than I do, because they have long, enduring ones of mutual respect.

Sorry for the rant!