My husband was recently diagnosed following a major manic episode at the end of last year (and unfortunately during my pregnancy). Apparantly I am now his carer and he is disabled, which feels odd.

There must be someone else in Sheffield with a bipolar spouse, 1 in 100 people have the major form, and 4-5% the slightly less severe form, so by rights there should be a large number of people with it.

my dads partner has bipoar dissorder (if thats what its called!) and had it for years. i think it started in her 20s. she is now 34 and has had a child. she is doing great but it is hard to cope with, i guess its very difficult for the partner.

i wouldnt say my dad is her carer tho, she is very independant, but she does struggle sometimes and finds certain things difficult to cope with, such as tv programmes, being around certain people, certain thoughts, things ppl say etc. how are you coping?

I think i'm coping ok thanks, but it is a lot to come to terms with. He is still very unstable at the moment and signed off long term sick, so in many ways I am his carer right now. Hopefully when he begins his long term lithium mood stablising treatment it will be different.

I have been advised to apply for carers allowance though by be community psychiatric nurse. It is very hard for partners though, but i'm doing a lot of research to learn as much as I can, and find the best ways to deal with it/him.

I'm writing a blog, here if you are interested.

http://musosblog.blogspot.com/

One of the most difficult things to realise is that when some-one is acting oddly or irrationally it is the illness manifesting itself.
I've had a couple of friends diagnosed with this condition and when things are going well then it's okay. However if they started to go into a manic phase it did get very difficult as rational conversation could begin to get rather difficult and the smallest issue could soon be blown out of all proportion.
I just had to keep telling myself that when I'm being shouted at or worse that it is just the illness and I hope I've never held it against the person later on.

WallBuilder, that's a great attitude to take. You're right, rational conversation goes out of the window; you cannot reason with unreasonable. It's really good that you don't hold it aganist them, as at the end of the day, it is the illness talking and not them. It's very hard to live with it though, and some of the things he says and does cut so deep, but i'm hoping that now I know when it is the illness talking I can try to let it wash over me instead of taking to heart and trying to reason with him.

I am getting really good at seeing exactly when he starts going maniuc and taking action to stop it escalating. I have lived with it for years, but now can see it so clearly; I can't believe we never knew he had it. He just used to routinely act very strangely and not make sense, and then break up with me.

Stephen Fry is bipolar. He did a series about Bipolar people. Quite a lot of famous people have it . Spike Millighan was also. I don't think it is all downhill. It's like many illnesses it takes some time to stabilize.