I'm so sorry that happened to you. How heartbreaking! I hope your best mate will realize that you were under the influence of the bipolar illness when everything happened.

Human beings are only completely responsible for actions that are done with full awareness and knowledge and full freedom of will and without impediments. Mental illness and especially bipolar is a powerful impediment to the full exercise of freedom and therefore responsibility.

Mental illness can even reduce awareness, knowledge and free will to zero and thus voluntariness, imputability and responsibility to zero. So I hope you will become less hard on yourself over the incidents that happened.

I hope you will also be able to introduce some perspective into your evaulation of your actions. Good and bad are not like two positions on a light switch. Good and bad form a spectrum or range of values.

There have been a couple of men in the last 100 years who caused the destruction of tens of millions of men, women and children through genocide. The things you did under the influence of your illness are far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far away from the kind of the mistakes done by people like Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, so please, if you are able, please try to introduce some perspective into your thinking.

Bipolar is a terrible illness. It afflicts people and places a huge and often crushing burden upon them. Just bearing with the illness requires enormous amounts of nobility and heroism. You are every bit a victim of this terrible illness. So in spite of the missteps and losses you suffered during your bout of manic illness, done under the influence of this illness, things could have been much worse. You are a good person suffering a terrible illness. Please try to keep your head held high. Prisons are full of people who have done worse things and who did those things with knowledge, awareness and freedom of will without impediments.

I hope you will be able to feel better soon. Sometimes the illness has a lot to do with that. My heart goes out to you!