OzBraCasual Contributor
Bipolar ex- my story
Hi All,
Just wanted to share a snippet of my experience with Bipolar Disorder.
I met my ex October 2013. We got along straight away. He was so affectionate and full of life even a bit too intense compared to my past relationships. I really liked that because I always felt like my past relationships lacked that passion that I felt I needed. It was great. He was so into me and I was so into him. I found out he had Bipolar Disorder Type 1, but little ignorant me had no idea about the gravity of that diagnosis. Even after finding out he had been hospitalised before I still had no idea what that all meant. I feel like such a dumbass and I feel like a lot of people think the way I did. That bipolar disorder or any other MI is no big deal and it makes me angry to think how ignorant I was.
We spent all our free time together. I introduced him to my family and friends and he introduced me to his. I really felt like I had found the man I was going to marry. Around July, my ex kinda got a bit quieter than usual, his energy was a bit down and I didn't really understand. He seemed ok though, just more tired than usual.
It wasn't until September/October 2014 that the big change happened. He started getting really excited about life. Everything was great, he had so many projects and ideas. He wanted to make lots of money, he wanted to get married, he wanted to go to the beach everyday, see his friends, socialise. It was exausting for me. He would not sit still. I started to get irritated by his behaviour. He would not answer questions, it was impossible to keep a conversation. He would talk over you and go off on tangents and keep going and going. I remember one day we were going to Palm Beach for breakfast, we lived in Artarmon, it took us around 2 hours to get there because he wanted to stop here and there and see everything and apreciate the view and the whole time I just sat quietly because I couldn't get a word in. He talked for 2 hours straight! About everything and anything. Those were the hypomania days. They were exausting but the worst was yet to come.
After that, the ideas started to come. He wanted to buy and sell cars because he met someone that did that. He thought he could do it too so he started buying cars. He wanted to build a bbq at my mum's house so he started to get all these building materials over to her house. She lived in Canberra. We were going to Canberra every weekend. The bbq later turned into an infinity pool. I really don't know how an infinity pool could have been built with a couple of wood sheets and sand bags. He started to get irritated because I couldn't keep up with his train of thought. He used to say his mind was going at 180km per hour and I couldn't keep up. I wasn't agreeing with his ideas anymore, I couldn't understand him anymore, we were fighting because he was never home and always irritated by the fact that I couldn't understand why he wasn't there. That's when the lies and manipulations started.
The whole thing was a big mess. And I still didn't realise what was really going on. I just thought that the person I loved what behaving so differently and I just couldn't understand what I had done to make our relationship change so much. Talking to my GP, she brought up his Bipolar and told me to look into the symptoms. I knew he had Bipolar Disorder, but I didn't know what that was. When I saw the symptoms, I knew straight away that he was manic.
He is unmedicated and not seeing any doctors. He is in complete denial of his diagnosis and refuses treatment. After learning more about this, I realised that I would have a terrible future with him if he remained untreated. That's when I knew I had to make the hardest decision of my life and break up with the person I thought was my true love. It hurt so much but now I see that staying in that relationship would have hurt more.
Once we broke up (January), it took him 2 weeks and he has come down from his mania. He has lost everything. He lost his job, he had no money, he lost me and had no place to live. I think those factors together contributed to him coming down.
In the ideal world, I do wish he would seek treatment. I have told him that this is the only thing standing between us. He still refuses. I'm just trying to understand what happened and why. I'm glad there are places like this forum where I can share my story and read about others in similar predictaments as me. This has been the harderst thing I have ever gone through. Because of this I understand the true meaning of anxiety. I'm seeing a psychologist for my anxiety attacks and to find a way to cope with this hard time in my life.
Thanks for reading and sorry about the crazy long post!
