[gigi8032]

My boyfriend is bipolar and I am just finding out a week after he abruptly ended our relationship in a very strange way and for irrational reasons. He quit his job, shut off his phone and withdrew from everyone but his immediate family. I love him dearly and I want to help but he shut me out. I also want to know if when he snaps out of this episode will he remember all the love we had, good times, affection, laughter etc… and come back to me. Had I known ahead of time I could have done things differently, learned to me more accepting (although I think I have been very accepting) but all of his mood swings and bizarre behaviors would have made much more sense. I also think he suffers from passive aggressive disorder and he and I have learned to cope with that. All of my friends tell me to let go and move on but they don’t get it. Inside is this most amazing man with so much affection and love to give. He is extremely kind hearted and was very scared to commit to me. He fought it and fought it but love took over. After 7 months he finally told me he loved and adored me and that there was no other option for him. I already knew this but it was nice to hear. That same night he could not sleep and we sat up until 4AM just kissing and being affectionate and sweet to one another. He always held me close and would get downright upset if I wasn’t very close to him. He found a letter the next day that I wrote many years ago to an X and it hurt his feelings because it made him feel my feelings for him where insincere. My man is never one to talk about feelings EVER so he said nothing. We slept very close again through the night and the next morning he left me a very sweet note that said goodbye until we meet again you have all of my love. He then went to his parents home where he grew up, shut his phone off and withdrew from me and his friends. I was very concerned and had no clue we were even broke up. After a week I showed up at his home. He saw me and literally dropped to his knees. Told me I kicked him in his nuts and came back to do it again. He told me I was insincere that I was an actress and asked me to leave. Hesitantly and in tears I left. I wrote a 5 page letter to him and went back 2 days later to drop it off and put it on his truck and noticed his mom and dad were both home from work so I txt his mother to make sure he was ok and she told me that as a family they were going through some things and she asked that I please just leave and drop off the note in the mailbox. Throughout the week I had one person very close to him confirm he is bipolar and then his mother also validated it and told me to be patient as they try to work through this. I am very concerned, feel helpless and want to help. Id never judge him as this is simply an illness. Do you think he will call me again? I know he loves me and I think me showing up out of the blue upset him and made matters worse but I didn’t now any better and now I feel very guilty. I want to wait for him, I will but how long is too long. Please help.. I am so sad> I cry daily. I keep lil journals and mail them to him. At first they were all about how sad I was and how much I love him but now I am just trying to make him aware that I know something is wrong and I want to be here for him. I am now just trying to be supportive. Not even sure he is getting any of the things I send or reading them but I am trying to stay relevant …is this a good or bad idea?

[mokie]

I believe in love. My husband put up with my disorder for over 20 yrs before we both knew and understood what I was dealing with. Now we both have education on the illness and learned my triggers, coping skills and we go to therapy together. It is not perfect relationship but there is no perfect relationship that I know of.

If you want to be there I suggest you start to educate yourself on Bipolar. Read a book called Loving someone with bipolar. It really helped me come to understand and accept that I deal with this illness. There are also support groups with NAMI or DBSA. They also helped me and my husband understand that we are not alone. It helps to have support from others that are in a simiular situation. NAMI has free classes for family called family to family its a 12 wk course. Very educational and you get to meet other families who have a loved one dealing with a mental illness. It takes lots of patients too. It takes both of you to make this realtionship work. Its not always easy but it can be done.

Hope things work out and keep me in touch with how it goes if you don't mind. You can PM with any questions if you like.

[dragonfly2]

I agree with mokie - the best thing for you to do right now is educate yourself. And make sure you take care of your own needs too. I would not continue to send him letters. At this point, it sounds like it will only agitate things further and might be viewed as harassment by his parents.

As for how long to wait? That's not something we can really answer. My sense is that if it's meant to be, he will contact you once he's out of this crisis. But right now I think the best thing to do is educate yourself and give him the space to heal.

[hamster-bamster]

I agree with the advice to take good care of your own needs. As someone whose ex-husband has burned out entirely while living with me, I know, in retrospect, that BP illness drains the resources of those who choose to stay close. So first and foremost, take care of yourself.

[BuggsBunny]

I have to agree. Stop the letters. In his condition they may be doing more harm than good. If you need to, keep a journal about your feelings, and maybe one day you can show it to him. Judging by his response to your letter to your ex, he may be too fragile to see right now. I am going to guess that he was already on the verge of a crisis when he saw the letter, so don't feel guilty about the situation. Just give him time and space, and when he is ready, if it's right, he'll be back.

[gigi8032]

Thanks to all of you. I'm going. To stop with the letters. I was thinking they may do more harm than good. I started to educate myself this week and that is really helping. In retrospect I now see that he was manic before going into this depression so him withdrawing was his way of coping and me forcing him to talk to me and entering conflict into his life I'm sure contributed to his downward spiral. I didn't know he had bipolar until after the fact. NOW that I am educating myself it was clear as day. I wish I would have known so I could educate myself earlier and been more supportive and aware when he was manic. I'm going to be patient as his mother also asked me to be patient and give him time. I'm hoping for the best and will def take care of myself. Its been a very long and hard week with absolutely no contact from him. I hope for a future with him and will def do all I can to help him manage this, if and when he gives me a chance. Thank u very much for your advice. This isn't something I can just talk to my friend about and expect them to understand.

Originally Posted by gigi8032

... In retrospect I now see that he was manic before going into this depression so him withdrawing was his way of coping and me forcing him to talk to me and entering conflict into his life I'm sure contributed to his downward spiral...

Don't blame yourself on that count overly much. Spirals can happen anyway.

Wow, does the "forcing to talk" ever resonate though. (Though I don't believe someone can be "forced" to talk, only pleaded with.) Even outside of BP, there are those who talk a lot about how they are feeling (and feel compelled to), share a medium amount or very rarely. I'm of the last camp. (IRL anyway. And though I talk more about it here on PC, I still hold back a lot.) People who do feel compelled to talk tend to be utterly bewildered by those who don't. Ok, these are observations on general human behavior (ie. non-BP influenced).

Now, this next bit is my personal experience, so there are undoubtably parts of it that are BP influenced. (Keep in mind though that - just by itself - BP is widely variable in experience, to say nothing of its interaction with peoples' individual personalities outside of it.) BF is a talker. I'm not. For starters, it is just not in my nature. When he pleads that I talk about how I'm feeling ("It's healthy, we're in a relationship, I don't know what's going on inside your head, how can I help if I don't know" etc.), it makes me very uncomfortable. Besides the gulf of incomprehension between talkers and non-talkers in general...

I often don't know how I feel, so can't articulate what I don't have a grasp on.

Sometimes there is so much flitting around in my brain, I can't hold on to what I might want to say to get it out properly.

My feelings vary very widely depending on when asked. We could be talking as soon as beginning of day vs. end of day. So I'm hesitant to voice what will be contradicted and therefore confusing later on. They are both complelely true. And that is hard to understand. There is black and there is white. I live mostly in gray, holding opposites with equal validity and an inexplicable balance.

There are a handful of things I feel ONE way about consistently. Some of these can be spoken. A few are off-limits.

I can get paranoid. This plays out in a few different ways. One, my trust is pretty well non-existant, even if that is not logical or justified. Two, because there are some bits I know sound "crazy", I'm afraid to put those out there, you know? And if I can help it, I won't. Three, especially in such times, I am sure things I say will come back to bite me. Bad things will happen (even if in the most convoluted, distinctly unlikely ways), and if (re: when) they do, I'll know the paranoia tried to warn me, so better listen to it now and not risk the repercussions.

There is probably a whole lot more, but that's what comes to mind atm. Don't know if it is helpful, but come to think of it, I've really not seen these things written in a book, so maybe they are.

[gigi8032]

Its all helpful so thanks