Did you lose any friends because of BP?

You cant lose friends if you never had them to begin with

For my part now that I'm actively fighting to recover, I've literally put reminders in my phone to text people so I stay in touch. Depending on my relationship with the person it might be as often as every 5 days or as sparse as every 25 days. I use numbers of days not divisible by 7 so it won't always be the same day of the week.

Though I don't always do it the exact day a reminder pops up I do fight to do it even if I don't want to at the time. Even if I skip one one a bad day, it will pop up again. It's been successful because for me a big problem is once I have isolated long enough I'll simply start forgetting to reach out all but the core couple friends. This helps.

I do this even with friendly acquaintances which may develop into friends. So far it's helping in that arena too.

Yes I have....I relate very much to Camino

I have a hard time building close relationships. I had quite a few acquaintances but no real friends.

I have very few people I talk to -- I shut myself off from the world a lot. I'm comfortable that way. I guess maybe that could become an issue. I don't know if it is due to being bipolar but most of my relationships (friendships included) have an intense connection and spark that suddenly dies out. One day you're talking all day long to them and you blink an eye and 6 months has passed without a word.

I’ve never lost anyone that I didn’t already know wasn’t capable of holding a friendship with me. In saying that my friendships with these certain few people were shallow, but we had a laugh and weren’t upset when we’ve slowly parted ways.

I've kept a long time friendship even through my telling him all the things I thought were wrong with him- INCLUDING, sexually. He is a behavioral pharmacologist AND a therapist. If anybody, he should understand bipolar.

Another friend was new and once she found out I was bipolar, she wanted to keep her kids away from me! (She then changed her mind.)

I do have maybe 10 friends that are my best friends that I can tell mostly anything to. One has even taken me to the psych hospital several times.

Except for my feelings of guilt about stark episodes of poor parenting on my part, the most poignant part of my existence is my inability to maintain good friendships. it has been a lifelong problem even though my diagnosis of bipolar didn't happen until my first manic episode in the mid 40s... It bothers me much more than my failed romantic relationships or loss of ability to work and it seems so bloody intractable.

It is more than just isolating when I'm anxious and depressed or the frightening aspects of my manic breakdowns.

One thing is that alot of people I've picked as friends are narcissistic. It never ceases to amaze me how narcissistic some people are. Probably more important is that I can get really stuck on something they are doing that is irritating me and this one thing then just blows up in my mind. It just takes over all my thoughts about them and I push them away. Then 6 months later or a year later I'll regret it and see that it was my own mental processes and hyperfocus on just one thing that blew the relationship up. Now i've learned to apologize and try to mend things. Some people will open up again slowly but many do not.

I let go of everyone since graduating high school back in 2009. I haven't been able to maintain any steady relationships since then. At work I can have work buddies but nothing serious. I just don't feel comfortable enough to let someone in anymore...
I've been hurt too many times and I'm very selective now. Also, when depressed I'm a very negative person to be around. Nothing gets me out of it. I don't think people like to be around that. No one has the patience.

Yup lost them because they couldn't handle my mood swings

I had tons of friends whenever I was manic . I was a social butterfly. Now I have only one real friend. The others were bad for me(toxic people/drug abusers) I really have no one who understands bipolar disorder or panic attacks. 😢