[yts354]

So 2 years ago I started having bad mood swings. One minute I was energetic, excited, bouts of laughter, rash decision making, the next feeling too sick to talk, sobbing all the time, going days without verbal communication. You can imagine how that affected my ability to perform at work. It took me a while to get on the right dose of mood stabilizer, and now that I am, I still have occasional bad days where I don't feel well enough to speak. And while I have been practicing talking, there are still days that I slip up. But the frequency is low enough that I don't get into trouble at work, and things are actually going quite well now.

However, I still run into the situation where reactions of my friends make things a little bit worse for me. For example, I explained to my best friend that I have a mood disorder, that sometimes I have trouble verbally communicating, and cry for no reason. And that if it happens I don't mean anything by it, and the best thing I can do is to calm down and wait it out and hope that .

A while after this conversation, she experienced a bad day with me. Meaning, I started crying and didn't feel well enough to talk. While I was upset, she told me how she was angry that I wasn't speaking, and didn't understand why I was crying. I told her I wasn't feeling well. She went on saying that I was throwing away our friendship, and was pushing her away for no reason. A few hours later, when I started feeling better I told her I was sorry and and that it had nothing to do with her. I just thought the talk we had previously would have helped her understand.

The problem for me when this scenario is when people push me or confront me when I am down, because that just makes it worse. But I really do understand that not many people know how to handle me when I am not feeling well. So I guess what is the conclusion - what should I have done differently?
should I just avoid people the second I am starting to not feel well? Should I have explained my situation differently? Should I apologize again? She used to be my best friend, and I really don't want to leave things on what she considers bad terms. But I don't want to apologize in a way that makes it seem that I am blaming her (since I am still a little hurt by her reaction, I don't want to say the wrong thing)

On the other hand, I have actually had a lot of success with this scenario with 2 other friends when I have given similar explanations.

[Altered Moment]

I think it is a good strategy. Telling people up front how you are and that this or that might happen and that it has nothing to do with them is great and takes a lot of courage. If they still take it personally it is kind of on them. You could explain it to her again without attacking her for how she reacted. Might take awhile for her to get it.

[dandylin]

I'm hesitant discussing these things up front. Dominating a relationship with that sort of information might come across as controlling. Not to mention that in a new or potential relationship, that's quite a burden to carry for someone that you are still deciding the relationship statues.
Just my 2 cents.

[Sadley]

Hey man, I have the same problem. I have severe depression and I get like that pretty much every single day. I have a girlfriend and she gets super upset when I don't talk to her about what's wrong. I told her it isn't her it's just me, but she still doesn't understand. It's really hard to explain it to her. I don't know of any solution. I get so depressed that all I can do is go to bed. Still, it doesn't help any. I don't know what to do but the whole thing makes me want to die a lot.