Hi All
please pray for my boyfriend to reach out for the help he needs, he has been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder 4 years ago and refuses treatment because he claims the medication makes him devoid of emotion, so because of that when he is in his manic phase he tends to turn to drugs because it makes him feel better
I realize that the situation is out of my hands and that all I can do is pray for him, I Can't fix him because nobody can change someone who doesn't want to change. When his out of his manic phase he cries about how he can't keep living like this because he feels like his throwing his life away.... he does want to change but is afraid to take the step in reaching out for clinical help after his first Psychiatrist just kept giving him meds that did nothing but make his condition worse
my request is simply for someone to pray with me for him to become ready to take that step as it hurts to see someone you care for battle with this. I would also value some advice from anyone willing to give it Thank you.
I run a bipolar group, and I have studied this disorder very closely.
You are not telling me anything different from the usual things that happen when people are diagnosed.
First, you don't say if he is Bipolar 1 or 2. Bipolar 1 stays on the hypomanic or "high" side. It also needs at least one incident of psychosis for diagnosis. Bipolar 2 is more on the depressive side. They do get "high" but they they go back to depressed. This is unlike Major Depression which never features any high or hypomanic symptoms.
Second, you say he is "manic." So does that mean he needs to be hospitalized? Because mania means psychosis. It is not simply those crazy high days. Or spending sprees or hypersexuality! Hypomania, means "under mania" and sometimes barely so. He is not "hyperactive" as some people mistaken say, but hypo (meaning under or below in Greek) and manic.
I'm going to assume you mean hypomanic. If he had a lack of sleep brought on by being too wired or high to sleep, it could trigger true mania. Something to watch out for. In fact, any normal person deprived of sleep too long can develop psychosis. There are lots of experiments to prove that.
Meds! Big issue! Yes, they do blunt the feelings! That is what they are supposed to do! They are supposed to bring the person back to normal - not psychotically high or bottomed out low. But a bipolar person who has gone undiagnosed for a long time, will think that those extreme moods are "normal!" Because that is all they have ever known. It feels uncomfortable to be "boring" and not be able to feel those overly strong emotions. So yes, he has a point about the meds. But it also sounds like perhaps the dose was too high? Once you get to a certain point with psych meds, adding a higher and higher dose is only going to blunt the affective moods and not make the person any more "normal."
This is hard to deal with. Some people fight this tendency of psychiatrists to overmedicate their disorder, by doing exactly what your boyfriend has done, and become med noncompliant. This means, that they are a loose cannon, and even dangerous to themselves and others. This state of knowing you are sick, but refusing treatment is what you often hear about when someone goes nuts and gets paranoid or has voices telling them to kill people, or whatever. And this state is what gives people with bipolar disorder a bad name in the media! But most of the time, the dangerously high bipolar person has no insight into their condition, and they just get worse and worse, blaming others for their problems because people are trying to help them and calm them down.
My group consists of over 30 members, some Christian, some not, and every single one of them has gone through this non-med compliant stage and gotten in trouble. Ruined their lives, in fact, in some cases. They learn their lesson, and take the meds even though no, life is not as colourful and exciting as it once was. Again, that is the price to pay for being normal. It is boring compared to the state of being high.
Drugs and alcohol! This is called "self-medication." So your boyfriend doesn't want the psych meds interfering with his emotions, but he can't take being hypomanic all the time. Alcohol is a depressant, many people become alcoholics as they avoid treatment, and replace it with something worse. I have quite a few former alcoholics in the groups, who go to AA or other support groups, in addition to working with their medical professionals. Drugs the same, but even worse. The whole point of drugs is to warp the brain into feeling, seeing and hearing things that are not normal. So it is kind of hypocritical to say "I won't take meds, because of what they do to me," and then turn around and take different "meds" or drugs to try and control the disease or stay on a continuous high. Besides the fact that it does not work!
So that is what it is about. The real question is "how can I help him through this?" And that is the $64,000 question! First, you are good to be supportive, to care and love him. But do take care of yourself. Like I said, it is easy to be driven to do things that are wrong when you are hypomanic. You've already quite rightly noted that you cannot change him. So if he becomes dangerous or even weird, you need to get out and take care of yourself. If it is really bad, then phone 911 and get a medical team to take him to the hospital. He may hate you for that, but it may be the only way to help him, and to prevent you or others and certainly your boyfriend from getting hurt. He may be the kindest and gentlest man you know, when he is close to normal, but when the brain is unable to perceive things correctly, or if he is hearing voices, (not only schizophrenics have this issue - there is a lot of fluidity between the Axis I mental health disorders!) then he has crossed a line where his feelings don't count. But be prepared for him turning against you, especially if they do things against his will in the hospital.
In order to intervene before this happens, he really does need to get on meds. He sounds like he needs them, if he is constantly high and self medicating with drugs and alcohol. When he complains about his mood, especially when he is in a down phase, that is the time to suggest, over and over, that he needs to see a doctor. Most people with bipolar disorder will not see a doctor when they are high. And why would you want to ruin a high that others have to take illegal drugs to get? But no one likes being down, and if he gets there, that is the time to help him schedule an appointment.
One further thing I would suggest, is try and get him into a bipolar support group. Preferably with real people, but on-line would be good, too. Then he could hear the stories of others, and how meds have helped. And what they have been through without meds.
Finally you don't say whether your boyfriend knows the Lord. A relationship with Jesus has to be the foundation for all of us, mentally ill or not. God will help him, if he turns to him. It is good for you to ask for prayer, but just know that sometimes God has a plan to answer prayer in a slower way than we would like. But that does not mean he is not working. God may totally heal him, but the experience in my group has been that most testify that God was there to pick them up when they foolishly fell down the rabbit hole, and that he brings peace in a way that meds cannot do, although meds are also needed.
I will be praying for both of you.
PS. A good book I was given years ago was "Living with Someone with Bipolar Disorder" by Julie A. Fast. She is a woman with bipolar disorder and it was co-written by Dr. John D Preston a clinical psychologist. They deal with the whole range of this disorder and the many things that you might be able to do to help your boyfriend. I think structure and exercise were two of the things, as well as mood charting. I would google mood charts, and download and print one, and see if you can convince him to do it, in light of the fact that at this point he is not willing to take meds. Tell him it is "alternate" therapy! But push for the conventional.
That's about all I can think about. My friends in the bipolar group are pretty stable, so I forget a lot of the things I learned about this disorder. Although in the summer, a person who had gone med free was greatly used by Satan to attack me after I preached in church one Sunday. It was a full out atheists attack, and several others who were also not medicated (one used pot as her go-to med) also attacked me, left the group, even though I had been friends with them for years. That is the problem I always see with not being medicated! None of them had any insight, and because of their lack of relationship with God, they were greatly used for evil by the devil.
