I do realize that we’re talking about a disorder with well-defined symptoms. This is not the same situation as chicken pox, although I will tell you that when I got chicken pox as an 18 year old, when I first saw all the spots, my first reaction was to think that I had just become the victim of the worst acne break-out ever. Still, I kept getting zits, too, just like everybody else. Not every one of my skin blemishes could be put on the plate of varicella zoster!
What I mean is that when you have ADD or ADHD, you get really sick of people treating you as if a) you are incapable of ever getting your act together and b) every time you drop the ball, it is some inevitable effect of your “disorder”, as if they never get distracted or disorganized themselves or as if you never drop the ball for the same reasons they do.
Finally, what people with un-attended bipolar disorder do on a routine basis is not the routine for people who attend to how their mental challenges can affect themselves and those around them. Yes, the person who starts a relationship with someone in this category had better realize that their beloved is never going to entirely stop dropping the ball in the way that people with bipolar issues tend to do, and count the cost. Still, if they’re going to go in and interpret everything the person does as “oh, well, I’m not surprised at all, it’s not as if *people like you *can be expected to do better”, then that isn’t going to work, either. The boundaries we are each pointing out marks out a narrow path, and not one that is easy to travel, this is true. I have no quarrel with you on that one!
I think we’re on the same page. If she’s going to see him as Mr. Bipolar, whose every act can be attributed to Being Bipolar, that isn’t going to work. He can’t live that way. If she’s going to see him as Mr. Exceptional, for whom none of the rules apply because of his special situation, leaving everyone else to make up the difference, *that *is not going to work, either. She can’t live like that, and they will have no friends. But as you point out, if she’s going to see him as some version of Mr. Typical who is no more likely to make certain mistakes or to have certain dysfunctional behavior patterns than anyone else, then she’d better bail right now. He is going to have some swings in his life, that is all there is to it.
He is none one of those–not Mr. Bipolar, not Mr. Exceptional, and not Mr. Typical–he knows that*, and if he is to marry, he needs a spouse who gets that. (*If he does not know that, the whole enterprise is sunk before it leaves port…)
) Your point is well-taken–absolutely!!–but it also may not apply in this situation. Sometimes when people don’t call back, it isn’t their mental health issue talking. Sometimes, it is one of the same reasons for which anybody might have failed to call back.