Articles by Glenn Stok
I once had a five-year relationship with a bipolar girlfriend. I fell in love with her and accepted her condition.
But I always wondered if my feelings were distorted because she was so very wonderful due to taking her medication. My father talked me out of marrying her, explaining how difficult my life might be.
I wrote the following story about the experience. It’s about the uncertainty of the relationship, the romance, the feelings, and the conclusion, with memories that linger forever.
I never knew the real you, but I was always able to be myself with you. I was comfortable with you and thought I could continue that for the rest of our lives.
The way you cared about how I felt displayed a love that you did not need to verbalize.
You showed me respect by your actions, and you never wavered from that constant display of affection.
However, I was fearful of the future — thinking that I didn’t really know you.
People told me that you were the “real you” when you were medicated. The Lithium helped keep you stable. But who would you be if you weren’t medicated?
I couldn’t know for sure, and making a decision for a possible life-changing relationship was complicated. I knew life with you would be challenging.
Despite all that, you never played games with my emotion. You always let me know the truth. You were always kind and considerate. You were the best through thick and thin. Nevertheless, I was unsure of the challenges ahead.
All I knew for sure was that I loved the person you were meant to be. You were always fine when you were taking your medication. If that was your real personality, I wish I realized it when it mattered. Confusion still stood in the way.
I shared those times with you when your emotions went through roller-coaster rides. I saved you when you suddenly spent vast sums of money buying things you never needed. You showed an understanding and appreciated when I paid off your bills and took your credit card away.
It was stressful when you secretly went off your medication and had to be put in the hospital when your mind started racing so fast you couldn’t talk at a reasonable speed for people to understand you.
It was strange when your hyper state caused you to need to clean the house all through the night, and your body needed no rest at all — until you ran yourself to the bone.
Your wild swings were few and far between, but when you sank into your depression, I felt the need to love you more. You said that helped pull you out of it again.
Nevertheless, I still always questioned who was the real you. The Lithium medication indeed kept you sane, but who were you truly meant to be?
During our relationship, I discovered that disorder tends to give the person inflicted with it the ability to accomplish great things.
Her mania gave her the strength to study hard, learn more, and acquire more knowledge than most people I know. She was very creative and intelligent.
She worked hard at planning her career, and she was good at it. She had the ambition to follow her dreams. However, she also showed me recognition for things I did successfully.
She dressed well and took care of herself. I was always proud to let people know she was my girlfriend.
She showed she cared for me. When I wasn't feeling well, she focused on my needs. That was obvious.
A person with bipolar disorder thinks a lot. When manic, they think extremely positive thoughts, but when they are depressed, their ideas become more negative.
She once told me that I provide the sanity and stability she needs. I realized she was a deep thinker. I knew then that she gave a lot of thought to her life and the people in it. I could see that she was deeply aware of her predicament and knew what she needed for survival.
She wrote a lot too. She was an excellent writer, and it was her way of communicating her feelings no matter if she was manic or depressed.
She described things many times with extremely long letters she sent me. They were well written and made a lot of sense. It was clear that she had a sound mind even though she may not have been functioning reasonably well at all times.
Several times when she went off her medication without telling anyone, she became so manic that we knew something was wrong and made sure she was taking her meds again.
It could go either way. One time she became depressed. We needed to put her in the hospital until she recovered. The doctors must have overmedicated her to keep her from hurting herself.
The extreme medication put her in a trance somewhat like a comma, so much so that she had no physical control. Nobody was aware that she was conscious. She was merely lying there. Nevertheless, she was alive and awake in her mind. Fully aware of her surroundings and what was happening.
Later, she was able to write about that. She explained in her writing about how she was aware of all the people around her. She wrote about her shoes sitting on the floor next to her bed, and the things people were saying as they had discussions around her bedside.
She had so much to say and so much to offer in her way of describing her bipolar experiences.
It's strange how the mind could lose control and go up or down unexpectedly while being so clearheaded to express one’s thoughts about it. I wonder if this is true for all bipolar people. It was evident in her case because she liked to write about it.
It's sad that this mania is sometimes replaced with depression that can be devastating.
Years later, I came to realize that she was smarter than I was. She was more caring and considerate too. She was definitely more thoughtful. One day we discussed our future, and she said she needed to allow me to find a healthy woman.
We both ended up agreeing that there was no point in living together without plans for a future. We decided to break up, and I helped her find an apartment.
We remained friends and stayed in touch. Eventually, she met someone and got married. I was glad to discover that she was able to carry a full-term pregnancy and had a healthy baby boy.
That was one of my concerns if we were ever to get married because her doctor told me that Lithium, the medication she was taking, is toxic to the embryo. So I’m glad it worked out for her.
It didn't matter that I was afraid. What mattered was that she could never be replaced.
I have read several forum posts online where people have mentioned that they have had extremely negative experiences with bipolar girlfriends or boyfriends.
One person talked about his bipolar girlfriend sleeping around with other guys. Another talked about how she was always breaking up with him and then suddenly would call and be all over him again. Yet another had talked about his girlfriend frequently getting violent and threatening. Likewise, one other talked about his bipolar girlfriend wreaking havoc in his life.
I was lucky. My girlfriend was stable most of the time due to her medication. I have learned from my research that many people with bipolar disorder consistently jump back and forth between manic and depressed states.
Despite her bipolar disorder, we had a very stable relationship. I guess that had a lot to do with the fact that we were both very open and honest. That is something that can usually help any relationship survive.
How silly life is, that in a completely healthy relationship, we may give up too easily when things go wrong just because we don't appreciate the reason for negative behavior. We are more easily troubled with a healthy person because we don't know of a reason for their bad behavior.
Life is always full of tough decisions. Choosing to stay with someone or run the other way is one of those decisions that we should not take lightly.
If a person is kind, considerate, loving, and caring, then these things must be considered strongly before letting a fear of the consequences of bipolar disorder spoil a happy future together. Life has trials and tribulations anyway. Who’s to say it’ll be any different.
