Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Animallover123]

Hi everyone 👋,

I have stumbled upon this forum via Google when I searched for Bipolar information. I am in need of support and advice for my partner of 4 years and how to best handle depressive episodes. 

Formally, we had been diagnosed with major depression and is taking anti depressants however I feel like it is Bipolar not just depression due to his extreme mood swings. 

He was so happy and ‘high’ (manic) over the holidays but as soon as his mum flew back home (last Wednesday) he has stopped sleeping, and has had a major depressive episode starting Sunday. It is now Tuesday and he was in the process of writing his resignation letter today due to one of the workers simply not messaging him back. I have tried to ‘talk him down’ and stop him from doing such a serious thing over such a small problem. I have suggested he not work over the next few days until he can start sleeping and get his mood a bit higher. The anti depressants doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all. He became very angry at me when I tried to explain that he is having a depressive episode due to coming down from the high of Christmas and his mum being here and not sleeping or eating. I know he is not using logic or reason, and I normally try not to engage with him during these times, but when he is so ‘out of control’ that he almost lost another job due to this condition, I needed to try to reason with him. 

foes anyone have any advice as to how I can communicate with him when he is having these episodes or try and protect our family from his outrageous behaviour at the moment. 

These episodes can last from three days to a month etc. when he is back to baseline I am going to suggest that we both go to the doctor together so the doctor can hear from me exactly what is going on, and see that I have recorded all of his depressive episodes on a calendar for 2023. 

does anyone have any advice as to what I can do and does anyone else experience their Bipolar partner see their support and helping as attacks etc. 

x

[Bee36]

Hello @Animallover123 I am having some similar experiences...my husband has been back several times to docs to change medication, bump up medication and so on, just recently I went to the doctors with him to ask for a referral to psychiatrist. I have attended all the appointments with him, he is now on mood stabilisers and higher dose anti depressants, and is now being treated for BPD by psychiatrist. I took pages of notes to the psychiatrist and half way through reading them out the psych literally stopped me and said i thnk i know what going on here...my point being notes are clearly very helpful to them in assesing someone...I am attending all psychiatrist appointments with my husband. I think its important for treating health professionals to hear from people closest to the patient as I know from my own experience when my husband went off on his own to see the doctor over the years, nothing ever eventuated into anything. It's only been these last few months we have at least gotten these answers. Hopefully this helps in some way. Take care of yourself!

[Animallover123]

Hi Bee,

Thanks so much for your reply. Yes I agree that partners going to the doc with them, is super important. I will need to wait a few days until he is stable and then bring up the subject. Can I ask, does your husband have ‘highs’? I was just wondering what made the psychiatrist diagnose BPD instead of bipolar. 
Jo 

[tyme]

Hey @Animallover123 ,

I had that as well. I was told I had bipolar, was on meds for 10 years, then finally told the meds are doing nothing because I don't have bipolar! That it was BPD instead! I new I had BPD, but one psych attributed it to bipolar.

Both have similar symptoms but the treatment is VERY different. Bipolar requires meds, whereas BPD is about engaging in talking therapies.

Biploar tends to be more chemical-based whereas BPD is affected mainly by environmental factors. 

It's good to speak to the professionals.... I'm only speaking from experience. Hence it's best to chat to a doc about it.

Hope this helps a little 

@Animallover123 @Bee36 

[Bee36]

No highs really @Animallover123 there are definately hyper moods sometimes, but they don't last long at all, and its generally associated with an actual good mood, he dosnt ever have trouble sleeping either. The psychiatrist did mention initially there may be some 'mild' bipolar co-occuring however he was not completely convinced at that stage...him being constantly on edge and his over the top, intense, hostile reactions to things are our biggest issue and have been an issue for a very long time in his life, so much dysfunction in all of his close inter-personal relationships, He makes alot of suicide threats and has had alot of suicidal behaviours over the years, so irritable, cannot regulate his emotions at all, major attachment/ abandoment issues, can flip from 0 to 100 in a millisecond. I knew absolutely nothing about BPD and neither did he. As soon as we did some of our own research into it to better understand what the psychiatrist was saying , we were both like wow. It makes so much sense he literally ticks every box, where as Bipolar dosnt completely fit.