After 7 years of enduring a dysfunctional marriage, my wife and I ended up in counseling. This was the beginning of a long process of dealing with a mental illness called Bipolar Disorder. It was a comfort to be able to put a label on such a sinister monster that seemed to dominate our lives together. It was even more of a comfort to hear her psychiatrist tell us that, although there are no cures for Bipolar, there are medications that will significantly reduce the behavioral problems and stop the progression of the illness. My only regret is that we had to endure those many years of mental illness before getting her Bipolar Disorder diagnosed and then treated. I wish I would have had an epiphany and gone straight into researching Bipolar Disorder. This would have put us on the track to a happy marriage much sooner. The fact that you are reading this article indicates that you, or someone you know, may have Bipolar Disorder. Listed below are my personal views about what I observed to be the top 10 indicators of Bipolar Disorder.
1. Hyper focused or screaming fits of rage: The very first thing I observed was a woman totally out of control. Her manic phase would most often be screaming fits of rage, bouts of hysterical crying or periods of being hyper focused on some project. Originally I felt she might have anger issues but soon learned that her manic Bipolar phases were more often triggered by things that others would consider normal incidents of life. I described this to our counselor once as living with a time bomb. You knew she was going to go off and leave devastation in her wake, but you never knew when and you never knew what would set her off.
2. A Switch: My Bipolar wife seems to have a switch. Once that switch is flipped, there is no going back. Nothing you can say will alter the course of what is to come. If she is in her manic phase, the bomb has already gone off and you will have to deal with the destruction. The odd thing about the switch is it can be triggered by one thing today, and tomorrow that same trigger will have no effect on her.
3. Not remembering bad behaviors: The oddity about the switch is that once it is flipped, she does not remember much about the rage or about the severity of her behaviors. I once endured a screaming fit of rage that was focused directly at me for several hours. It was a horrible experience which left me feeling emotionally devastated and mentally exhausted. Toward the end of the second hour she had to use the bathroom. After two minutes in the bathroom, she came out with a big smile on her face and asked me where I wanted to go for dinner. I was stupefied and stood looking at her in total disbelief. Could she really end such a tirade without any hint of remorse? I brought this incident up to her several hours later and she had only slight memories of her bad behaviors and no clue as to the severity.
4. Desperately low depressions: On the opposite end of the scale of behaviors is depression. My wife would often end one her manic phases by going into a depressed state. I am not sure whether this was due to the fact that her previous tirade had worn her out or that she felt bad about having lost control but, as they say, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and depression usually followed mania. Our final battle came just after the death of her grandfather who we were caring for. On the night that her grandfather died we made a trip to the storage facility which ended in a huge manic fit of rage in the parking lot. That was the point that I decided I had enough and would leave the marriage. However, I couldn’t leave her in such a state so I went back to make sure she could get home safely. On our way, she fell into a deep depression that ended in threats of suicide, so on to the hospital we went. That was the turning point for us. While on a 3 day mental hold, the psychiatrists diagnosed her with Bipolar Disorder and put her on medication. The bomb had been diffused.
5. Trouble at school or work: One of the effects of Bipolar Disorder is that my wife has very poor social skills. She does not do well in interactions with others, especially with those in authority over her as in a work situation. I can’t count the number of jobs she has either, quit and walked out on at the drop of a hat, or has been fired from. In addition to her lack of social skills, she has difficulty concentrating on more than one thing at a time which, in this multi-tasking work world, puts any employee at a distinct disadvantage.
6. Associated disorders: In addition to Bipolar Disorder my wife also has several other disorders that seem to also affect most people with Bipolar Disorder. OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where she has a fear of germs, severed hands and loose hair is also a few she stresses about on a daily basis. Narcissism is another disorder that seems to attach to the Bipolar mind. This is most commonly displayed as her thinking that she is special or that she is on this earth for a divine purpose. Both OCD and Narcissism are common to Bipolar disorder.
7. Triggers: Every person with Bipolar disorder will have different triggers that set them off. My wife had several which we tried unsuccessfully to eliminate. The most troubling trigger was lack of sleep. Anything that disrupted her sleep created a major problem. Her next most aggravating trigger was her need for a standard routine. Any time that we had to deviate from her standard routine, even just taking a different route home from work, would cause a Bipolar episode. If you are living with a Bipolar person, you will already have experience with those triggers that set off a Bipolar reaction.
8. Addiction gene: Something to be very careful about is addiction. The fact that OCD commonly accompanies Bipolar Disorder as well as the fact that the person with Bipolar will often try to self medicate, is an open invitation for an addiction problem. According to Doctor Ken Duckworth, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), “As many as 60 percent of people with bipolar disorder will have some form of substance abuse during their lifetime”.
9. Narcissism: According to Sam Vaknin, the author of Malignant Self Love-Narcissism Revisited states that, “Bipolar patients in the manic phase exhibit many of the signs and symptoms of pathological narcissism-hyperactivity, self centeredness, lack of empathy…the patient is euphoric, has grandiose fantasies, spins unrealistic schemes, and has frequent rage attacks if her or his wishes and plans are frustrated”. Whether it is Narcissism or not, the outcome is the same, the Bipolar person is focused on only one person and all other people in their life become secondary and often forgotten.
10. Creativity: Whether it is true creativity or just the manic phase run amuck, the Bipolar person will go into phases where they are hyper focused on their creative side. In many cases, people suffering from Bipolar Disorder are indeed highly creative and this creativity gives them an opportunity to focus their manic phase on something highly creative.
