I’ve been talking more and more about dating. I think that it is because I started dating again myself. The woman that I am seeing has Bipolar I. The main differences between Bipolar I and II is the severity of the emotional highs and lows and the presence of hallucinations; both auditory and visual.
We have already faced her going through a rapid cycling with severe lows and highs. It was a strain on our new relationship. But we survived it, much stronger than we were before. What we learned was that we needed to set a plan for the next time that happened.
Failure to plan leads to disaster. You can’t plan for every contingency, but you can cover the most common things that can happen. Our plan involved me removing myself from the situation if her moods become too severe for me to handle.
I need to guard myself because I am sensitive to the emotions of others. There is a tendency of those with Bipolar to feed off of the emotions of others. When a person is manic there is a tendency to feed off that emotion and be manic yourself. And if the person is depressed then you can crash hard.
Knowing yourself is key to avoiding the pitfalls of feeding off the emotions of others. Also, knowing your own triggers help you prevent many of the problems we encounter.
The Bipolar DM 