Why Do You Stay in Your Bipolar Relationship?
Husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends of partners with bipolar disorder are the overlooked and underserved mental illness support network of the Bipolar treatment world. Why do you stay in your bipolar relationship?
First, we are never secure about our own emotional needs. Are they more or less important the needs of our mentally ill spouse? If we choose to take care of our own needs first, we often suffer, then punish ourselves with guilt, then get angry toward our sick partner that he or she has caused us such misery.
But if we choose to put our partner s emotional, physical and mental health needs ahead of ours after all, he s the sick one our quality of life diminishes.
...with this. Pastoral Counseling Perhaps you're like other people who prefer to seek help for mental health problems from their pastor, rabbi, or priest, rather than from therapists who are not affiliated with a religious community. Counselors working within traditional ...
Second, husbands and wives are alone in coping with our spouses Bipolar Disorder (also known as Manic Depression). Besides managing doctor visits, medications, decisions on whether to hospitalize or not, well partners must fight for our relationships. The line between partner and caregiver is thin and often non-existent. It can make for a lonely and often devastating life.
You cannot share your feelings with your partner; he s the sick one and the cause of your distress! Your parents are empty nesters; you can t burden them with your problems. Your siblings have their own families to worry about. Unless mental illness runs in your friends families, they
...this disorder experience extreme emotional highs (mania) and lows (depression.) Numerous advancements in bipolar disorder treatments have been made over the past few decades. Physicians, however, still do not know exactly what causes the illness. The disorder is now effectively ...
The pressure on us from friends, family and professionals is unrelenting. Those who ask, Why do you stay in your relationship? are not supportive. And neither are the ones that imply that it s your duty to stay married to your bipolar husband or wife. Bipolar disorder runs roughshod over relationships. The divorce rate is three times higher in these marriages than in the general population.
In my personal story, when I did find a spousal support group, there was one man (divorced) and 16 women. A third of the women s
...and other psychotic behaviors. The social stigma of bipolar disorder rises from the fact the onset of it begins in early adulthood and affects the individual throughout their life. Coupled with relatively high rates of suicide (or attempted) during the ...
The last third were widows their bipolar husbands had committed suicide. (The suicide rate for bipolar disorder is 12 times higher than the normal population.) Everyone in the support group thought I was in denial for having a goal to stay married.
Why do you stay in your bipolar relationship?
Elizabeth Atlas is the author of Married To Mania, a book that helps spouses and
...killers. And when this happens you start craving the drug that you replaced the endorphins with. Your body needs the endorphins. So whether it's alcohol, a pain killer or some other addicting drug, in a sense it has the same ...