Bipolar: Which way hope?

[Julia_Mae]

Well, if you have any ideas what a friend can do to be a friend in a situation like this, I’m all ears.

Email her a link to this thread.

 

[tafan]

EasterJoy, Another thought occurred to me, something a priest told me to remember when dealing with the situation. I think this can help your friend.

A bi-polar person cannot be held resonsible for all of their decisions and actions. This takes a while to accept, as some of the actions can be quite appalling. And waiting until they are more sensible (ie depressed) and being overlly critical of their actions while they are manic does not help the situation. When they become depressed, their mind is actually working more logically than when manic, so they realize how bad some of their actions have been.

However, there is another side to this and it is even more important!!! They are always accountable for one thing, and must be held accountable for that always: wanting to get better and working towards that goal. As the priest told me, they may not be judged for the same sins by God as you and I; but they will be judged for not trying to get better. They are called to holiness, just like all of the rest of us.

That was the best piece of advice I received throughout a multi-year ordeal. Lecturing my brother on stupid things he did never worked, and it made things worse. Continually pushing him to get better did make a difference overtime.

 

[EasterJoy]

…They are always accountable for one thing, and must be held accountable for that always: wanting to get better and working towards that goal. As the priest told me, they may not be judged for the same sins by God as you and I; but they will be judged for not trying to get better. They are called to holiness, just like all of the rest of us…

This seems key…that is, that the afflicted person be intent on doing his or her best. It can’t be expected that the person will never make mistakes, that they’ll never fail to do the good they could have done. None of us ever totally achieve that. If any of us ever throw our hands up and allow ourselves all the behaviors that we engage in when we fall, giving ourselves carte blanche because “everybody makes mistakes”, though, then there is no foundation for a marriage.

I think the real difficulties are a) that the manic stage is a nightmare for the non-afflicted spouse and yet can be an addictive high for the afflicted spouse and b) that the afflicted spouse often has a hard time accepting that their self-perceptions aren’t objective reality.

Over and over, I read spouses reporting that it couldn’t work when their spouse would identify with his or her disordered behaviors and say “that’s the way I am” or even worse “that is what people love about me, that is what makes me a stand-out” (referring to their manic state). If the afflicted spouses won’t give up thinking that people love it when they seize the center of attention for themselves, thinking people love it when they throw caution to the wind, thinking they are fun for everyone else to be around because they are finding the whole thing such a lot of fun, thinking that decisions that ruin their life are the same decisions that make life worth living, and thinking that everyone loves it when they love how they are, the whole effort is doomed.

Unfortunately, this seems to be exactly where her spouse is. My other fear is that he may have anger and honesty issues that don’t resolve when the manic state goes away. If he only thought the rules didn’t apply to him when he was manic, that would be bad enough. If he has a deeper arrogance at work in him as a permanent feature of his character, then I don’t see what chance their marriage ever had. In that case, the question is not if something will drop the curtain on this attempt on marriage, but when it will happen, what will precipitate the end, and how many pieces will their lives have been blown into by the time that inevitable end comes.

I think my task is to gently ask whether or not these issues apply to her husband and ask her to consider what kind of life his guiding “principles” leave them in terms of a marriage, no matter what she does. She is the one who has to come to the conclusions about that, though, not someone else. I do fear that she may be rearranging the furniture in a burning building, though.

 

[Viki63]

Well, if you have any ideas what a friend can do to be a friend in a situation like this, I’m all ears.

My first husband was bipolar. He was very abusive, but I belonged to a church that stressed sticking out a marriage no matter what.
I did not consider leaving until a counselor pointed out that by staying, I was enabling his behavior.
What a friend could do to help someone out, is help her establish boundaries. I honestly could not see that I had any choices beyond crying, pleading, arguing. Your friend may get so used to a bad situation that she can’t recognize abuse when it happens.
You can help her by pointing out that certain behaviors, if she mentions them to you, are not acceptable. With my counselor’s help, I was able to say that if he hit me one more time, I was leaving; and that’s what I did. But it took years to recover from the verbal abuse.

 

[Bill_7154]

I have a major mental illness (as does the husband you speak of). Mine is PTSD, his is Bi-Polar Disorder. I also work in the mental health field and have done so for the past 20 years. With Bi-Polar Disorder in particular, it’s hard for them to acknowledge the illness because when they are in a manic state they feel extremely GOOD, even though in most cases they are making terrible decisions. Giving away money and having an afair sound like typical behavior of someone in a manic state.

The good news is that out of all of the mental illnesses, this one is the easiest to treat successfully most all of the time. Put the person on a mood stabilizer and much of the time ALL of the symptoms disappear. Med’s like Lithium or Depakote. He needs to see a psychiatrist. He needs to acknowledge he has a problem. He needs to commit himself to ongoing treatment. One of the big problems with this illness is that since it is treated so effectively with meds, after a time people feel normal, decide they are fine/cured, and go off their meds.

There is a lot of stigma with mental illness. Some people stay in denial for decades, similar to alcoholics who obviously have a problem in everyone else’s eyes, but not their own.

I would suggest that the wife seek counseling for herself, regardless of whether or not the husband accepts he has a problem. She can get help and learn to deal with her husband better, learn to deal better with herself so her husbands behavior doesn’t impact her as severely.

Maybe he will agree to couples counseling eventually. Maybe he will agree to psychiatric treatment with lithium or whatever med a dr thinks is best at some point.

What I do know is that if people don’t suffer consequences because of their illness/behavior, they are unlikely to decide to work to change. Why would they? They have no problems. If the wife is in therapy she can explore with a professional what steps she might take that will help her cope better and possibly get ideas on steps she may take that will help her husband realize he has a problem. Those are my thoughts.

 

[EasterJoy]

I have a major mental illness (as does the husband you speak of). Mine is PTSD, his is Bi-Polar Disorder. I also work in the mental health field and have done so for the past 20 years. With Bi-Polar Disorder in particular, it’s hard for them to acknowledge the illness because when they are in a manic state they feel extremely GOOD, even though in most cases they are making terrible decisions. Giving away money and having an afair sound like typical behavior of someone in a manic state.

The good news is that out of all of the mental illnesses, this one is the easiest to treat successfully most all of the time. Put the person on a mood stabilizer and much of the time ALL of the symptoms disappear. Med’s like Lithium or Depakote. He needs to see a psychiatrist. He needs to acknowledge he has a problem. He needs to commit himself to ongoing treatment. One of the big problems with this illness is that since it is treated so effectively with meds, after a time people feel normal, decide they are fine/cured, and go off their meds.

There is a lot of stigma with mental illness. Some people stay in denial for decades, similar to alcoholics who obviously have a problem in everyone else’s eyes, but not their own.

I would suggest that the wife seek counseling for herself, regardless of whether or not the husband accepts he has a problem. She can get help and learn to deal with her husband better, learn to deal better with herself so her husbands behavior doesn’t impact her as severely.

Maybe he will agree to couples counseling eventually. Maybe he will agree to psychiatric treatment with lithium or whatever med a dr thinks is best at some point.

What I do know is that if people don’t suffer consequences because of their illness/behavior, they are unlikely to decide to work to change. Why would they? They have no problems. If the wife is in therapy she can explore with a professional what steps she might take that will help her cope better and possibly get ideas on steps she may take that will help her husband realize he has a problem. Those are my thoughts.

Thank you. This is very helpful. They did have couples counselling. He reportedly did all of the talking, so it was of limited use, but the good thing that came out of it is that they are both in individual counselling now. He seems to be on-and-off about believing he has an issue or that medication will help, which I suppose is better than totally off all of the time.

I just hope this works out OK.