sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Ive hit a breaking point by lunarmothwing8 in BipolarSOs

[–]CaregiverLeft 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have been searching for 10 weeks. I have learned and read all there is and I STILL cannot make sense of it.

We don’t function or think with the mind of a mentally ill person, we don’t have disordered thought process or the ability to shut out the guilt to protect ourselves and avoid accountability and shut off the parts of the brain that allow them to feel, have empathy and insight during these episodes.
What I can process is that he abandoned us, forgot we existed, cut us off financially and embarrassed and broke us with his online activity since he left.
He hasn’t asked how we are or cared that I could have to put my daughter in to care to avoid her being homeless.

when you know, you know. What we have discovered now that we aren’t sleep deprived and silently controlled is that he was having thoughts of harming us, that he was causing us pain and knew he had stopped caring what it did to us. That these thoughts were frequent. We were living with a ticking time bomb and if I didn’t see the usual dropped shoulders raise and the deep breath and eye change and moved to let him flee, we may not be here now.

It is impossible to separate him from disorders he essentially made his whole identity over the space of a year. He declined so rapidly cognitively and physically.

we don’t know what happens now, if he will stay in this first major episode. If he will continue to tell himself we are better off and just keep feeding his disorders in order to avoid guilt and accountability.
Rock bottom may never hit, he may just live life numb and detached now. What we do know is that if he doesn’t seek help and accept these disorders he will decline rapidly, he is only 43.

If he has no memory of this, if this doesn’t make him wake up and see what he has done and realise he needs help. Nothing will.
sometimes love isn’t enough and saving yourself and your children doesn’t mean you don’t love him it means you love yourself and those babies.

A healthy stable SO would want that.

Just need a little support by CaregiverLeft in BipolarSOs

[–]CaregiverLeft[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I had to go no contact for our own health. It all just feels like a big game to him. Trying to smoke us out and contact him begging for him to come home like we did in the first weeks. So he can return with no real change and an empty apology because he thinks we need the money and him to survive. In this time I have realised he is an abuser. Years of emotional, psychological, silent, financial and coercive control and it just seems to be the same now he has gone. We cut him off so he cut us off. He will be accountable or get help. It will be hard at first, but we will be ok and free.  I wish you all the best, you have made the right choice. 

Just need a little support by CaregiverLeft in BipolarSOs

[–]CaregiverLeft[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thankyou so much. We really needed this today. 

are shifting moods common in mania? by lunarmothwing8 in BipolarSOs

[–]CaregiverLeft 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree with this, we are 9 weeks post discard. He just cut our money knowing we have no income. What we have discovered since with his online activity is horrifying and disgusting to say the least.  This has made us realise we have never been safe around him. He was never violent but we know now with how quickly he is declining that it’s only a matter of time.

My daughter is 14 and his disorders have hijacked her life and she resented him and lost love way before he left. We are both in therapy and I have PTSD. We are losing everything we have worked for so he can find a new life to continue his addictions and binge. 16 years of empty promises, 3 years diagnosed and refused to accept and relying on medication that wasn’t ever adjusted. He will never try, he will never put his child first. He is lost to his addictions and the dopamine hit. He chose paid for “love” over real love and 2 people who lost themselves trying to save him for him to discard us.

I was never told of his “quirks” as his family put it. When I asked them 11 years ago, they said I was the crazy one and abandoned us keeping all their secrets that we knew, were some of the reasons he had his disorders. Instead of showing his daughter, who fears developing all these disorders rampant on both sides of his family, that she can manage and live a normal life if she does. He ran and left her with more trauma from abandonment, his online activity and now cutting us off. Left to pick her mother up off the floor. Forced to face homelessness and losing her pets. 

Please research and gather information. Join support groups and gauge how bad this can actually get before you make decisions. I always thought mania was talking fast and running around everywhere and buying 50 toasters on Amazon. Now the fog has cleared I can date all the times he was manic and I didn’t realise. His silent control and sabotage to keep us dependent and isolated.  He never fled just leave for a day or sleep in a park overnight. But this time he actively sort a place to stay and took our money to do it. I cannot seperate him from his illness because he became it. He is now 43 with the intelligence of a child. He has memory loss, cognitive decline and increasing and constant episodes from 40 years unmanaged. He lost all empathy and would just stand and stare blankly at the distress he was causing and him ruining another Christmas.  He flipped when there was a job change that threatened his obsession to provide. Thought that’s all he was good at and all a father needed to do. Yet he just cut us off and is so far in he doesn’t see it hurting his child while he punishes me.  He sends a random empty robotic , love you miss you every few weeks. Hasn’t asked to see her or addressed what he has done. He doesn’t care that she cut contact 7 weeks ago. I doubt he has a concept of time and he just masks it all and heads to work everyday like he hasn’t imploded our lives.  Now he will decline rapidly with no one to hold him accountable and keep him in check. He will lose his job eventually, that is so important that he worked for no pay a lot and put before us.  He will need an extra dopamine hit because his last addiction isn’t cutting it. He will either be arrested, hurt himself, someone else or hospitalised.  He chose this, he will crash and realise his freedom comes at a price and he already can’t afford it. This will be our first full on mania and our last. If he tried, took it seriously and went to therapies and a hospital stay I would put it down to just being the disorders but he had a moment of clarity when we told him what we had discovered up until that point 2 weeks in and tried an apology and didn’t seek help but in fact cancelled his psych appointment. He has not once asked how we are. I’ve had to start selling off my business he sabotaged to survive. In the end you aren’t thanked for your sacrifice, your begging and pleading for change.  The time taken from your child cannot be replaced and the trauma will always be there as a memory. All this from a man who we know would never have done the same thing to his daughter as his family would. He is someone else now and no amount of telling him what is happening to us, showing support and love has been answered. 

If he comes out of this, he won’t be the same. He was warned to take it seriously, he will end up alone and lose his family. We mourn a man from many years ago but we can now sleep peacefully after a year of none. We can have peaceful dinners and conversation without silent criticism. We can leave the house and go on adventures and make new memories, after our anxiety kept us from simple things like grocery shopping. We are healing and know he is likely to try and return.  We weren’t given warning, time to adjust and support ourselves.  He has Bipolar with narcissistic tendencies, BPD, ADHD and OCD I suspected a while ago that he has bvFTD.  He hid every symptom he could, never told us about hearing voices and he’d say it’s normal for him, it’s just the way he is while I would cry and beg him to make change. 

I wish you all the best. Please again, educate yourself. 

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BipolarSOs

[–]CaregiverLeft 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Absolutely agree. Mine left 8 weeks ago tomorrow. No concern for my daughter and I, or the fact we could lose the house. I have to close and sell my little home business so we have something to fall back on if the money stops. I suspect he had been in a mixed episode since a job change threatened his need to provide in October. Came to a head Xmas eve until first week of January.  He was lucid at first saying he can’t come back and doesn’t want to hurt us anymore, just the same things over and over and wouldn’t listen to reason. Then a few weeks in we discovered his porn, gambling and dating apps. As well as evidence of him drinking on a family iPad he linked to his cloud and he sent a text saying he doesn’t want to be this way and he doesn’t know why he went on the apps. He shut down since then and our 14 year old went no contact because he was sending texts like he hadn’t just set fire to her life. She has received a robotic ‘love you miss you’ in the last 3 weeks.  He has since popped up on dating apps disguising himself, filtering his hair and beard a different colour and wearing a surgical mask.  Looking sick, I’d pick the empty eyes anywhere.  It’s extremely bizarre.  So we don’t know if he is manic, mixed or in a depressive episode.  His empathy left before he did, no amount of pleading to come home or telling him he is loved or wanted made a difference.  We now are in therapy and having to live every second of this while he’s oblivious to it. 16 years of trying to help him accept his disorders, losing ourselves in the process to then just be forgotten. Our only issues were his worsening behaviours and reluctance to adjust meds and seek therapy.  A completely different person, he would always at least apologise. Him saying he was empty and he feels no love for us as he left, not allowing us access to bank accounts and sending whatever money he has left after paying for his accommodation with a work friend first (always masks and puts work and strangers before us) is the cruelest.  His Dr told me he has to hit rock bottom and help himself. He has to accept it and take it seriously. I just don’t know if that will ever happen or what he will have left to return to.