Bipolar Depression

i want to share with all my most disturbing thought.
my wife suffers from BP 1.dx only came in sept 07 following many phsycotic episodes.

8 years ago she met a guy online,after a short time she set up,and began meeting him in person.at first she kept him secrete from even her closest friend.my worst fear was if something bad happen to her,she knew nothing about this guy.she could turn up missing or worse.i would be the prime suspect.plastered on the news,loosing my job ,my home,maybe my kids,freinds and family.after an investigation the other guy would be discovered.guess what i'm still the prime suspect.now i'm a jealus husband that found his wife cheating.

6 months ago she cheated again.one night coming home from what was to be a quiet evening for us to share,turned bad.i found out he was still calling,and got mad.arguing commenced and continued all the way home.along the way she toosed her cell phone out the van window,along a dark,wooded stretch of highway.i turned around to look for it but gave up.it was too dark.cars went by seeing us along the road arguing.we went home.its now after midnight.she wouldn't get out of the van.i took the keys and went inside,told the family "she is nuts,i cant take it anymore".they went outside to see her and she was gone.van is there but she isn't.after 2 hours of seaching,called the police.then she calls and wants me to come get her.she had walked 3 miles down dark roads to a convenint store.its now 2 am.once again the though of something bad happing to her walking to the store came to mind.

noone saw her come home with me.i said i cant take it anymore.her cell phone would be found along that dark wooded section of road,witnesses would remember seeing us arguing in the area.reciepts would show we were in the area at that time and once again it would be discovered she was cheating.once again i would be the prime suspect.

ofcourse it didn't turn out to go that way,but what if it did?bp actions could be be so devastating.i just wish they would think!!!!!!!

Rob, OMG! What a drama queen! Who throws a cell phone out the window?? I had no idea that these symptoms were BP, I just thought some people have a bad temper and do irrational things. I wouldn't be surprised to find that BP is the #1 cause of divorce in the world! Statistics always say that it's "lack of communication", "money problems" or "in-laws", but they have never looked at the underlying causes of these issues!

I'm just realizing how many people I know have undiagnosed BP! I have a cousin who repeatedly cheats on his wife (she cheats back), is self-medicating with prescription pain killers (he asked me for some and also asked my mother), had had a couple of bankruptcies and lost his wife's family business as well the home he owned with his wife. And, he is constantly complaining about how bad things keep "happening" to him. If you even touch on any of these, he launches into an agitated diatribe. He goes gambling every weekend and stays overnight at the casino, while his wife remains home or she goes and hangs out with a family who is very into religion as she is. She has some of the same issues that my cousin does (spending, drugs, lying) , but with religion thrown into the mix. For a while he took care of my mother and within a year $25,000 was missing from her bank account. He convinced her to take out a credit card and checking account in both of their names and then kept the checking account topped off at $100,000 with money transferred in from her deposit accounts, so that, if she died, he'd get the money. He ran up the credit card to the $5000 limit in only 3 weeks! (But, once I took over, he paid it back.) And, this is after he inherited MILLIONS of dollars of commercial property from his father who died recently! His own son doesn't talk to him anymore because he keeps asking for handouts. I just thought he was a dishonest jerk, but now I think that both he and his wife are BP. They have been married for 46 years. Sounds like the co-dependent BP relationships I read about on this board.

His mother, my aunt, is undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder, just like my mother. And, 3 out of my 4 uncles were all abusive to their wives and children. The 4th one is married to an abusive woman (for 50 years) and is bossed around by her and my mother. The more I look into this, the more I think mental unbalance is rampant in this world of ours. I think it is the norm.

cc,
thowing the cell out the window was easier than just telling the guy to stop calling.the fact is it was over but she didnt really want it to be.

dont be so quick to self dx others.alot more has to go into a BP dx.or a bpd dx. BPD is a repairable disorder.its "unlearned behavior".also a"loss of identity"disorder.but with extensive therapy it can be overcome.
bp however deals with brain activity.chemicals and transmitters.simple therapy doesn't fix that.it takes medication,and therapy just to manage.

i do agree with you that mental unbalance is very common.most of us here suffer from it ,in some form of"ptsd".or codepenancy,or depression.but all that can be overcome. thats what makes BP so diferent.

I understand that BP is a caused by a chemical imbalance, but I believe that it is only diagnosed through symptoms. I don't think there is a blood test or anything for it. I think that the psychiatrists themselves use symptoms to discern which type of mental disorder a patient has and that's why it's so hard to get a correct diagnosis. From what I've read on here, it frequently takes years for someone to be correctly diagnosed because the BP hides his/or symptoms from the shrink while their SO sees the symptoms on a daily basis. This appears to be especially true with BPII where there is only hypomania and less severe depression.

Of course, I'm not a shrink, but it's uncanny how my ex-bf's behavior and symptoms fit right in with the BP paradigm. It is the only explanation for such an abrupt about-face. If I hadn't read about so many other men and women just up and disappearing from their mates, I would never have suspected that he was BP. The coldness, lack of empathy (when he had appeared so sensitive just two days before and throughout our relationship), different voice and one word answers - are all consistent with what others have experienced. And, the leaving isn't the only symptom - he had almost all of the BP symptoms - but I had never dealt with BP, so I didn't know what to look for. I just thought he had a lot of stress. The only thing I am unsure of is whether or not the manic episode with me was brought on by the high dosages or SSRI's he was taking. I have read online in many places where Lexapro can bring on mania.

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