Hey S-J

Thankyou for sticking with it.....its hard living with someone with mental health issues as people find it hard to understand.

stay strong hun and sod the parents they are just scared for you.

Hugs

hi! and welcome =)

i have bp 1 too. i am married and happy. i take bipolar medications regularly. it is very difficult to treat bipolar. it is hard living with someone who has bp. i know because way before my diagnosis, i grew up with it. my eldest brother has bp 2 and takes no medication. treatment is key. but a symptom of bp is not wanting to accept or take meds. what is your boyfriends take? puzzld

thanks for your support..i hope things turn out for the best

hi,
i have no clue what meds he is on..we met online and although we seem to have discussed everything under the sun..i dont have the list of his meds..will check it out..he is still in the hospital and now his mom wants me to distance myself from the relationship since she feels am responsible for his latest espisode..whatever that means..she is blaming me for his not sleeping properly and the recent passion and excitement was not too good for him to handle..it is affecting me badly..now i have guilt trips that maybe am responsible for this..maybe this love is not good for him, for us, his sleep disorder..since we used to talk over the phone long into the night..puzzld please share a bit of your life with me if you want to help me...Would appreciate getting to know you better..it will truly help me..
thanks a lot
s.j

Hi, my name is Pammila and I am bp 1 also. I went 10 years without treatment, and in the end of my marriage had a bad depression that took 6 months to get on top of with medication. My husband of 10 years just up and left me.

Being with a person with bp can take time, for medications to work or be adjusted.

Now I am back on the meds and remarried to a guy I think can handle my moods, though he has not seen one yet. I plan on staying on the meds this time. I am back on disability. Before I was on SSI and they took me off of it as soon as I got married. But this time, they didn't take it away because my new husband is also on SSI.

hi nightstar..i thought bipolar 1 meant you are happy and high alwayz..can you tell me more about your moods...what does usually happen? what generally triggers off these moods..and what do you do during those episodes?? also i read BPD Type 1 are promiscious and lie a lot..is that true?? am not trying to judge or demean anyone..just want to find our first hand as much as i can

I notice that my mood swings are cycling months and even years apart. I have not had a manic episode for most of my life, not since I was put on medication as a teenager. I just have trouble with depression. Since I have been on medication I don't feel up or down, just in the middle like a zombie.

One time was my ex telling me he wanted a divorce, I cried for literally 6 months straight. Now I don't show my moods to my new husband.

Last time I cried, I was watching some women on tv crying and that upset me. They lost a game and could not be consoled. It was very upsetting. It only lasted a few minutes that time.

The Geodone I take keeps me on top of things now for the most part.

I use to be promiscious, I have had over 100 partners, now I am married and won't cheat on my current husband. I also suffer borderline personality, obsessive / compulsive disorder, post tramatic stress disorder, and attention deficit disorder.

I only lie about my past - things that upset me, I won't tell others about. Things that I am ashamed of.

What is the real difference between BPD II and BPD I ?

I have been diagnosed with the exact same criterea as Nightstar but am diagnosed as BPD II. Does it depend on the severity of your symptoms?

P.S. NightStar, same here on the lying front. Also, do you find your past haunting you sometimes? To the point of anxiety?

My sister was diagnosed with BP II and I think the difference is that she cycles more often then I do, within hours and days. I can go months and years between cycles.

My past does haunt me, I suffered child abuse, both physical and sexual, and that made me promiscuous. Today I have Hepatitis C, not been treated yet but plan to fix that.

It upsets me, that I didn't take care not to give it to my current husband, he already has health problems without me adding to it. He just won a bout with cancer within the last 3 years. So I want him to get tested and treated if he did get it from me.

I will tell you a secret, I never go without the tv on in the house, I even watch it until I fall asleep, let my husband turn the tv off. I never allow myself time to think about my past, always drown it out with the tv on. That has helped a lot.

sounds tough. dont be ashamed of your past..its all done and over with..and i know its easier said than done..but trust me..nobody out there has a pristine past..we all have done something or the other we are not too proud of..me i have slept with a married guy and am riddled with guilt thinking about it...now i find myself so very much attracted to this single guy but he has BPD-I and this has confused me. I hate my wishy washing attitude and inability to be strong and firm in my decisions..if there is a disorder for being swayed by things far too easily..then i have it...you said you float in the middle after taking your meds..like a zombie..does that mean you have become indifferent? or are you pretending to be indifferent to avoid feeling things too fast and too soon? also what exactly is a manic episode? Would like to thank you for your honesty and courage to share things here..it does help..i want to know as much as i can about BPD-I

Thanks NightStar,

That would definately explain it I also cycle within hours and days.

I am sorry to hear about your bad childhood experience. As a kid I was always misunderstood, ridiculed and blamed for things that was out of my hands due to ignorance about my conditions. I guess that's why find relationships/friendships so difficult. You could say it was "Inadvertent" emotional abuse

I usually drown my self in computer games, in which case I think your solution is a bit better as mine just premotes my social-anxiety as I tend to isolate my self.

when you say cycle within hours and days..what does that mean? explain a bit more

I guess that you could say that I am indifferent now. I don't have any friends, I hang out with my husband and his friends don't really talk to me, I don't fit in. I stay home all of the time, I go out to see my husband play in a band but that is about it.

I quit drinking, that use to get me into a depression and bring me down, can remember a few visits to the police station when I was drunk. So I avoid that now.

Manic is when you feel good, like you are high on life and nothing can go wrong, the manic side leads to sex and drugs and staying up late, not getting enough sleep. Uncontrolled spending, stuff like that.

Then the depression comes and you are sadder then you have ever been and you may even feel like life is not worth living, it kills your sex drive and drinking only makes it worse.

Sometimes you can go from feeling good to feeling bad just within a few hours during the day, or it may run longer periods like days or months just feeling one way or the other. It differs for each person.

That's rapid cycling

Just a clarification of type I and type II bipolar disorder - type one is diagnosed by the individual having a full manic episode and type II is characterized by the individual having a hypomanic episode. The degree to which mania is experienced is how the two types are differentiated.

Rapid cycling and mixed states can be experienced by type I or II.

Hope that explains the difference.

I didn't know that, thanks for clarifying that. I had a manic episode it lasted for months and then it stopped - with the medication it stopped it from ever coming back. I had my manic episode in my teens and I am 36 now. I don't get manic any more, the only episodes I have had have been depression. But they typed me at bipolar I and they always ask me if I hear voices. I just tell them I hear noting but my thoughts.

I don't think my sister really has strong manic episodes they don't stand out to me really. I notice her depression more, she cries easily and stresses out. She also suffers anxiety and just ran out of her medication and can't see the doctor until November. I tried telling her to take the medication bottles to the emergency room and ask them to call in a refill on her medication. She don't have a medical card like me.

please remember that this is not your fault. you just don't understand fully what this means. how long has he been struggling as far as you know?

you can check out my profile and learn some things about me and bipolar disorder.

before my bp meds, i struggled for 10 years to control my mental illness. i faked my moods and oppressed compulsive behavior. i was told i was bp but never would believe i had it bc i compared my self to my oldest brother with childhood bp. the only time he's been medicated is when he was committed. he is sill under a court order to take meds but none of us in my family can bring ourselves to take it to court. he was committed for planning to kill our mother. it's insane when i think about our reality. my brother and i are very close. but, my whole life i've had to skirt around his sometimes delusional behaviors and mood swings.

like mine, his episodes last for long periods of time. some people have rapid cycling which is when u are up and down in short periods of time. there are two types of bipolar; bipolar I and bipolar II. bipolar I being the lesser of two evils. i have bp I and my brother has bp II. we have huge differences of mental states. i choose to live in la la land and he chooses to live in genius land. he's a self-taught inventor and well trained talented artist. i am also an artist. i do web design for a living and mixed media art on the side. the reality is i haven't done art for art's sake since 2005... college days.

the nuts and bolts of my story are on my profile. feel free to private message me anytime puzzld

well just wanted to let you guys know..that my bf is planning to travel out of country for 2 months..so we wont be meeting for a long time..i wanted to go and see him off..but seems his doc has advised against our meeting ..since the excitement will not be too good for him now..i wonder if he cant even handle a simple thing of his gf coming down to meet him..how will he handle life in general..the stress of getting married..starting a new different life..he still keeps insisting to me to have faith in him..and this relationship is meant to be..but i find myself going into an indifferent mode due to so many restrictions attached and so much opposition from mutual family..i guess am trying to preserve my sanity..so although i talk to him..and am still sweet..lots of doubts are creeping and taking things over..dont want to jump into a situation blind folded and later on regret and make a mess of things..what do you think..would it be more easier if both the spouses were BDP to understand and love each other? lemme know your thoughts..

hi s.j. =)

it could just be as simple as you are not ready to take care of an ill person. that is not a bad thing or your fault. i have a high school friend who went blind in our 20's. she went blind when she was newly married. it wasn't a huge shock... she'd had a dozen eye surgeries. anyway, her husband, another friend of mine, couldn't handle it. so my blind friend decided to end their marriage. anyway, blah blah blah.

i know it's hard. it almost broke my husband. he is my hero and my biggest fan. i am happily medicated, married and stable. my husband is very happy now. he's quite the trooper. i need to write an autobiography.... everyone should =)

keep us posted! puzzld