Dating a man with bipolar disorder

Dating Someone with Bipolar Disorder

Daniel B. Block, MD, is an award-winning, board-certified psychiatrist who operates a private practice in Pennsylvania. If you are currently dating someone with bipolar disorder , you may struggle with a number of challenges like how you can support them while still caring for yourself. Knowledge is power, so learn as much as you can about your partner's disease. This will also be a healthy sign that you care.

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Oblivious to the fact that his words hurt my feelings, he said this with a sense of revelation. He was learning the landscape of his illness and the depressive episodes that came with it, all while trying to tell reality from the overlay that his brain was creating. When he told me about his diagnosis a few weeks after we started dating, I felt his pain. He seemed like a regular, happy person, but it hurt to hear he was having a hard time.

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Dating, like any noble pursuit, is best approached with honesty and bravery. There are a few different types of bipolar disorders, depending on the severity of your symptoms as well as how often and how long they come up. With bipolar II, the type that I have, a person goes through patterns of hypomania a milder form of mania and depression. I was diagnosed in , when I was 17, after my family and I grew concerned with how I behaved and my frequent outbursts, mood swings, racing thoughts, and recklessness. Now, at 25, after years of cycling through doctors and doses, I am finally in a comfortable place with my treatment. That's because bipolar disorder is often an invisible disability even though it can also be a debilitating one.

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Tips for Dating Someone With Bipolar Disorder

Explore next steps to improve your mental health. Get help for bipolar disorder. Thriveworks offers flexible and convenient therapy services, available both online and in-person nationwide, with psychiatry services accessible in select states. Our clinical and medical experts , ranging from licensed therapists and counselors to psychiatric nurse practitioners, author our content, in partnership with our editorial team.

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