S1:E2 Bipolar - A Partner’s Perspective

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A free guide for loved ones of people living with bipolar disorder

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ANNA:  Welcome to Courage to Heal, a podcast where we explore the battles we wage within ourselves. I am your host, Anna Khandrueva, psychotherapist, and a mental health advocate. This is episode two - Bipolar: A Partner's Perspective.

Hello to all of you and welcome once again. It's great to have you here today. You will hear an interview with my husband Ken, who will share his perspective as a loved one of someone living with bipolar. All too often we focus on the person struggling with this illness and not on people around them. Those who hopefully love and support. For many people with bipolar, their romantic partner is the one most familiar with their challenges. So, let's hear the partner side of the story. Without further ado, I would like to introduce my wonderful husband, Ken. Ken, can you please tell our listeners a bit about yourself?

KEN: Well, I'm Anna’s husband, for almost seven years, we've been together for almost nine years.  I'm an application engineer, which I've been doing for 15 years.  I lived most of my life in Colorado, which is, you know, where we live now. I have two kids in college. And probably most that I most identify with is, I am an identical twin.

ANNA: Thank you.  And Ken, just to get straight into it, when we first met, neither one of us knew that I had bipolar disorder.  So, can you maybe tell me what your impression of me was initially?

KEN: You were really pretty. I really thought you were attractive, but more deeply, you were interesting, you were intelligent. You were someone who I was proud to show to my friends and to my family.  Overall, it was, you know, it seemed like a perfect match.  I did notice that you had some swings, but I just attributed to, you know, part of your person.

Anna: Thank you. By that answer, I can tell that you know who butters your bread.

KEN: There you go. 

ANNA: So, Ken, we found out that I had bipolar a few months before our wedding about, a year and a half into our relationship. How did that news make you feel?

KEN: Quite honestly, I think I hid this from you.  I was ecstatic. I was so happy, not for the diagnosis. In fact I was, that's why it kind of hid it from you. I understood that you were terrified, you were,  scared,  worried about that, what that meant for me, what that meant for your ki for your son, what that meant for the, you know, public at large for your job. Everything. But for me, it put a face or a name on the emotions that I saw in you. The highs and the lows, the unreasonable attitudes, it just made total sense.

And for me as someone who. It's on the spectrum. It made total sense to me and was overwhelming, overwhelmingly joyful. But obviously that's not what I told you.

ANNA: That makes sense.  And I'm curious, did you ever consider not marrying me when you found out?

KEN: It never popped into my mind. Never.

ANNA: So, how much would you say you knew about bipolar back then and what did you do, if anything, to learn more about it?

KEN: Well, you know, I knew it as manic-depressive disorder. I knew it as something that Robin William had. And, you know, the genius, the genius comedians all had, it was almost like a trope. You know, the like almost physical highs and lows.  But other than that, I knew very little.

Obviously as you learn more about it, I learned more about it. And I did, you know, independent research, I investigated it. You know, I learned. I mean, for better or worse, the pros and cons maybe of it how, you know, there obviously are, there are positives to it.  The negatives far outweigh the, the positives.

But, you know, I learned, I looked into all that and before, before we had the diagnosis, I knew like a layman would, you know, I follow things. I know the capitals of a lot of countries, you know, so, following information that way.  And so, I knew what, you know, I knew the concept of it.

I knew what it was, but I definitely did not know how to deal with it or how to be with someone who had it. I think also, I didn't know what the depressive episodes are. To the average person. I think they know what depression looks like. And I think you need probably be hard to say that almost every single person on the planet has gone through it at some point, whether it be true depression or clinical depression or just sadness.

But some people, almost everyone has gone through that. I don't think anyone has gone through the true mania and the, you know, the antithesis of that. And that was the part that was the most confusing,  the most, hard to understand and also the most telling about who you were.

ANNA: So, what were some of your initial fears?

KEN: I think, if I'm being honest, most of my initial fears were centered around you. How does this change your… I find honestly, probably most directive directing was how do you, how does this change your life day to day? How does this change today? How are you gonna handle it? You know, what does this mean about, what does this mean about you in your own eyes?

Right? For me, it didn't change anything about who you were. It doesn't, it's just we we're now figuring out who you were, if that makes any sense. You were the same as before. We just now know what that is. So, for me, there were no initial fears about, about how I relate to you. It was literally, well, I guess it, I guess it was, but it was more on your side.

How do I keep you, okay, because the problem with someone who has bipolar is the finding out that they have bipolar can trigger a manic or depressive episode. Right? I mean, it's, it's part of written into the code of get, of having the disease, finding out the disease can make it worse in a way.  So that was, that was my initial fears.

There were, there were some, you know, how do I treat you long term? How do I best handle situations? Does this change how I argue with you or can, you know, change your mind on issues? And yeah, that, those were all, I think there were backs there. I think there's truth to that, and I think I learned that over time.

And I'm still learning. And let's be honest, I still haven't figured out how to change your mind on a lot of issues. You win a lot of arguments with me.  But yeah, my, my initial fears were almost entirely centered around you and about how this changed how you saw yourself. Because I could see that.

Especially seeing before we had the diagnosis, the highs and the lows.  Again, I could easily see this and at that time I didn't really know how to deal with it. So it could trigger a catastrophic event. Maybe, you know, I mean, whether that being self-harm or the exact opposite of the true mania, going off far end.

So, yeah. Those were my initial fears.

ANNA: Right. I think it would be interesting for me to note that when I first found out, for me, the fears were about you. I was, you know, afraid about what it means for myself, of course. But I was mostly worried about you and about my son in terms of you. What, what if I do something that hurts them?

What I don't think it really crossed my mind that you would leave me, because you are such a loyal person, but I was afraid of how this would affect your life and my son's life. For sure. And so, I'm wondering, is there anything, you know, now that you wish wishing knew back then?

KEN: Well, yeah. I wish I could have diagnosed you myself and got and wished you to get help.

Yeah, I mean obviously I wish I knew about more about bipolar. I wish I knew how to diagnosis or how to push you to get help. I mean, I mean, even now there are times where, you know, I don't wanna say get to help, but it's the same thing. It's how do you deal with someone who has a true manic episode, or you see it coming on?

How do you divert that? That's in within our relationship because I don't have bipolar. It is definitely part of my duty as your husband is to anticipate, to watch and to, if I see it, to mention it to you. If I see it, I'm terrified about how it's going to come across because the truth is, is that I could be wrong, totally, I could be wrong and I could just come off as a jerk.

And if what outside of the of the parameters of knowing that I'm living with someone who has bipolar I would be the jerk. But in, within our parameters it's my job. And so, sometimes I have to do and take a take that leap knowing that there's a good percentage chance that I'm the jerk.

And that's hard. So what do I wish I knew back then? I mean, a whole bunch. I wish I could… I mean, truthfully, I wish I could have helped you out earlier because, you know, there were a lot of years where you wasted your time, wasted our money, wasted... You know, if you had gotten help earlier, you could be that much further along.

So that's mostly what I wish I could’ve, would've.

ANNA: Right. Yeah, that all makes sense. And from my listeners, just to clarify when Ken says, you know, he's afraid that he's going to be a jerk by pointing out that an episode might be starting, like one of the warning signs we talk about is if I start ordering a lot of things on Amazon.

And so if he sees a lot of Amazon packages showing up on our doorstep, He, kind of for sheepishly, tell me, you know, are you okay? Is everything okay? Maybe you're starting to be a bit manic, and you know, it's an open conversation. Maybe the first couple of times I was like a bit defensive about it, but for the most part I'm very grateful that he notices these things and that he has these concerns about me.

And Ken, I think this is a good segue. From your perspective, kind of what were some of the toughest times that we've had together related to bipolar, well directly related to bipolar?

Ken: There are two specific, in my mind, crystallizing moments. Now, each of these had things leading up to them. So, there's a, a spectrum of time, but from my mind, there are two moments.

One is when I truly understood the this was actually probably before you were even diagnosed. I think actually both of 'em were. But the first one was the spending a lot of money when I, I don't even remember the, the thing about it, I don't even remember how I found out. But I remember vividly you sitting on the couch on the, excuse me, on the bed and you telling me that we were multiple thousands of dollars in debt.

And I did not know it at the time, I let you control the finances. You seemed on the ball. You were in a accounting position. I mean, it was very much that you knew more about this than I did. So, I, you know, let you take that. And I took other things. I sometimes fixed the cars, and you took care of the money kind of thing cause you knew more about it.

Hearing your first interview. I think I actually found a little bit of information when you were talking about yourself, but even right now, I'm not quite sure if you were truly hiding it or you were just thinking that you could get out of it or if that, what that was going on. But it was a shock to me.

I did not know that. And I remember talking to you. I remember you telling me about it. I remember being incredibly shocked, heartbroken that you would keep this from me and that it happened. But at the same time, I remember that vividly. The next words out of my mouth were, “Well, we'll figure this out together.”

And we did. That was even before you got diagnosed, we figured out how to, how to maintain.

 But you did have one evening that it was, I don't even know what you'd call it. Mental breakdown is probably the most appropriate or more, you know, common parlance, I guess, you know, that would, people would call it on the street.

I don't know exactly if that was it. It was an evening… well, not an evening. I remember vividly still being awake at like three in the morning, finishing the conversation. As you kind of went through a lot, you criticized me about, you know, way, way personal, over the top stuff. It wasn't just normal stuff.

This was not appropriate stuff. But you also, you know, said stuff about yourself. It was just, you know, you were clearly going through something. And so, it was a tough night for me. That was probably the, one of the toughest nights of my life, actually. Because it really made me, maybe doubt whether you not only loved me but liked me.

Which was, which was hard. But I think that was the bottom of that. And so those two times were specific times. There have been plenty of other times.

You were having manic episodes, things, things that I look at now and think back about before we found out, before you were diagnosed, and that was really challenging. You know, I think the listeners won't know this, but my beautiful wife will, it’s Neon Trees. We went to a Neon Trees concert, and we had a huge fight afterwards.

That was I think ultimately inspired by me. I think I was wrong, but I think it went way off the rails. Far more than it, than it needed to.

ANNA: Right. That's, that's that bipolar anger that I mentioned.

KEN: Exactly. It is like, I was definitely wrong, but probably didn't need to go that far. So, when I, I think about some of the, the toughest times. Yeah. It's just, it's times like that. It's times when I doubt whether… when I truly doubt whether you love me or like me. Those are the toughest times. Which is ironic because like you just said that you worried about me and that was never a thing. I never, I never worried about it. I never thought about it. I even considered the fact of me leaving you over this, to me, was like if you had a disease or you, you lost your leg and that required me to help you open every single door, and that required me to push you on a wheelchair a lot.

Would I leave you for that? No. Something happened. It's a disease. It's a condition and we'll get through it. Yeah.

ANNA: Yeah, I too remember those tough times and I can indeed say they were tough from both ends. Of course, at the time, you know, with the money spending, like I said, I was manic, and I truly believed that I had such great ideas that they would pan out and we would become millionaires off of them.

Which looking back of course, you know, doesn't make sense. And I would add one more. And it's not so much a tough time as you know now, we can laugh about it for sure. But at the time it was really scary for me is when I had a delusion that somebody was living in our attic.

KEN: Oh, I do remember that. Yes.

ANNA: Absolutely. I was convinced that somebody was, was up there.

KEN: I literally had, I literally had to go up there and show you. Yeah. That there's no place for anyone to live. If they were living, they'd be dead. You know, I could, I kind of, and I had to go through… I used to work at a major home retailer, a major hardware store.

And so, I knew enough about insulation and about attics that I had to go up there and explain to you how somebody couldn't live up here and had to go through the logic of why that was it. And even then, I remember even after that, you still pointed out to me that you go, I don't believe this, but I still feel like there is somebody up.

ANNA: Right. Right. And that, that's something that would be hard to understand I think for people who don't get delusions like that is logically your explanation made perfect sense. I realized logically that yeah, you're right, there's nobody there. But there was a deep feeling inside of me that. There was this fear that no, somebody's up there. Somebody's definitely up there.

So, Ken, I wonder all of these tough times we're mentioning, especially with the overspending and that mental breakdown I had what did you tell yourself to get through those tough times

KEN: I think the biggest thing I told myself… it was just more the way I think. So, it wasn't like a conversation I had with myself, but it was the idea that this was just a condition you had and if you had a broken leg or, and that, that's why I always attributed it to, I always likened it to a broken leg. Cause that made sense. You know, if you had a broken leg, would you get medicine for it?

Would you get pain medicine? Of course, you would. You know, would we get a wheelchair for you? Of course, you would. Would that mean you have to take some time off work? Well, of course we would. Right? I mean all of those things. And so, I likened it to that, I think it was more subconsciously because I had already convinced myself of it.

But it was just that. So, it was this is just something that you have no worse or better than weirdly maybe having a tick, that was the way I looked at it. I always looked at it like what if you just had this, this part of your personality that was slightly annoying, but I loved every other part of you, and I've tried to change this part, but it's obviously not gonna change.

Would I still be with you? Of course. It is what it is. So, you know, it's like maybe you get drunk too early and you say too much stuff at a party. And so, I always need to know that if we go to a party, I need to maintain and look out after you. Right? That's something that a lot of couples might have or they might have something similar to that.

I looked at it like that. It was just a part of your personality. It required a lot more of me and more on a day-to-day basis, not just when we go to parties. But that's how I looked at it. So it was, you know, we had already promised each other, we'd already loved each other, so, and we'd already been, by the time we found out, we were already engaged.

So I kind of knew that if something happened to me, I really believed that you would do the same for me. So, in my mind there was no, there was no choice. I had already made my choice. I had already made my choice when I asked you to marry me. Whether you have this or you have something else, it is what it is. Right?

ANNA: Right. It's, it's that good old in sickness and in health. Yeah. So, it really sounds like likening bipolar to a physical illness helps you cope with the tough times that we've had.

KEN: Mm-hmm.

ANNA: So, is that something that you would recommend to other partners of people with bipolar to do?

KEN: Absolutely.

I mean as you know I've never been diagnosed, but we believe I'm on the spectrum. For me, likening it to any mental condition, to a physical condition helps me understand it and helps me to think of, you know… but if you have covid, would you get medicine for it? Of course, you should. You'd be an idiot not to.

And even if you had a broken leg, should you just walk on it and hope it gets better? No. No one would ever consider you to do that. So, from my perspective and from that perspective, it just helps because the brain is such a crazy thing… It's the thing we use to think about the fact that we can fix it, right? I mean, if we think about it hard enough, right?

I mean, the brain is itself, so if you have something wrong with your brain… it just helps me to understand and maybe forgive some of the times where it gets hard.

Because I think that's probably the hardest part about it, is that if someone who has bipolar and you're with someone that they're going to hurt you. I mean, everyone's gonna hurt each other. If you're in a relationship, there's always gonna be pros and cons. And even in, even in a relationship without it, everyone's gonna make mistakes.

Everyone's gonna do something wrong. So, to get the idea out that you're eventually gonna hurt your partner, that's going to happen without or with bipolar, it can be significantly worse because you're already going through something significantly difficult in your own head.

So, for me, it just helped deal with those times where it was difficult to get over because to me it was like, again, you know, if you asked someone to speed-walk with you and they just didn't care whatsoever and told you to screw off and never sped up, and you said it was really important to me. That would be hurtful if you said it was really important to you and the person was clearly with a broken leg walking on crutches and just physically couldn't speed up.

You might still be hurt. I don't know the situation, but if you were a decent human being, you'd consider it and understand. And so that's the way I look at it. Like there are times where your condition does not allow you to treat me fairly, and I'm just using those words. I don't wanna say that's every time, but I'm just using those words in this time.

And for me to go, you're not treating me fairly this time. I shouldn’t be really angry with you if I love you. It's kind of unfair because I know the situation and I know what you're going through. Or at least I know as much as I can about it.

ANNA: So, during these really tough times that we've had I think you kind of already answered this question, but I still wanna ask it directly. Have you ever considered not staying in the relationship because of the things I was doing?

KEN: No, I never… I can just say that's who I am. That has much less to do with, with you and your condition is much more, much more to do with me and my thickheadedness. That, for better or worse, I made my mind up and I'm sticking to it.

So, if you killed half of my family we'd have to have a real long conversation… Now, I'm kidding. Obviously, there would be, there would be limits, but yeah, I think that honestly has more to do with me. Have I ever considered that this is really difficult? Absolutely. Have I ever considered that?

Absolutely. Have I ever considered that maybe you were slightly different? Of course. But no, I never thought about ending our relationship.

ANNA: So, what are some of your biggest ongoing fears? About me, about my bipolar?

KEN: This is honestly probably, in my mind, the most difficult part of being with someone who has bipolar. This is the crux of the matter. This is so important because, not only does it change… not only do I have fears, it changes how I have to deal with you, how I have to relate to you, how I have to think about you, how I have to think about things, how I have to look at what you're doing and put extra effort in.

Do I do it every time? No, I don't. I mean, there are… I trust you and I love you. And to do that over every single thing would be ludicrous. But like you said, if I see package come from Amazon, I have to think, oh, wait a minute. Okay. How long ago was the last package? How expensive do I think this package was?

Do I think that you're trying to hide other packages from me? Am I… have I been paying enough attention? If I haven't, this might have been the 10th package. . And then even when I figure it out, it's like, when do I mention it? Is this big enough to mention you know, you have your own business so there's plenty of times where you need to, you need to buy 10 things.

And, and honestly, we've gotten better at it. You've definitely told me. We have conversations. You tell me. So, you say, “Hey, you know, I had to order five things for this course I'm doing or whatever. So, you know, I spent 50 bucks and there, but there's gonna be five packages coming over the next couple days,” so don't worry about it.

But then quite honestly, when you do that, I'm thinking, okay, is she being honest with me? Because again, I don't think that you're trying to hide. I don't think you're being dishonest with me, like you're trying to get one over on me. But my question is, do you think, “I understand this better than he does, so I have to kind of hide it from him.”

“I'm doing it for his sake.” You know, “I'm doing it for the sake of our family.” Do I have to worry about that? Do I have to worry about, You know, are you buying stuff when you're not there? You know, I'm not really worried about your hypersexuality because, you know, that generally is just a benefit for me so you know, that's not really a concern. I trust you with that. So, it's not, it's not something I have to worry about. But the money., and you know, it's honestly not even about the money per se. Because even if you're buying a whole bunch of stuff that we don't need, that's cheap, that we can definitely afford, is that a lead into something more?

So, it's even, even if it is small, even if it is just a few items or I still have to worry about what does this mean for the. Do I need to keep track of this? Do I not need to keep track of this? And it's all just because of the nature of your business and nature of my business, you're gonna be buying stuff that I don't know about, that I don't have exact clarity on and everything.

I'm gonna have to trust you. That is by far the biggest…  because and again, even besides the money, it's you know, in any relationship you have a certain amount of responsibility to make your sure your partner's happy and not necessarily happy, but in a good place, right? You can't dictate that your partner's happy, but you can absolutely say, “I can do this to make my partner happy or not.”

And so when you are in those situations, I need to make sure for not just my sake, not just for your sake, but for your son's sake. For my kids’ sake, that you're gonna be in a good place tomorrow or a week from now. So that's the biggest thing. It's the constant vigilance. And more than anything about being with someone with bipolar, that's the worry, that's the concern.

I would think for other people that would be the hardest part. Because, you know, everybody gets into fights. Everyone says things they don't mean. And if you're really dedicated to a relationship, you can move past that. Not only should, you can but that… we'll always be there.

For the rest of our lives, I'll always have to pay attention to that. I'll always have to be more careful of that than the next guy down the road will have to.

ANNA: Right. Right. So, there's this, there's this hyper vigilance there that always have to be on guard of. You know, is this a warning sign? Is this something we just went through? Is that going to be a trigger for an episode? Is this going to be a really bad time for us and worse than something we've ever experienced before? And how, how low is this going to fall?

KEN: Basically, whether it's depression or mania, you know. The other part that's maybe kind of funny that really comes into this conversation is that, you know, women go through a monthly cycle that can also affect their friendliness, their, you know, all those other emotions.

I mean, hell, if I had a whole bunch of hormones changing every month in me, I'd be all crazy. I don't think that I would be even close to the average woman in the sense of stability. You know, there, there has to be uncomfortable conversations cause sometimes it's gonna be that, but I still need to be vigilant.

So sometimes I need to ask you, you know, about it, you know, and generally you tell me, it's your time of the month or whatever. There are definitely times where I've asked you about it. Good thing is we have an open relationship so that it's not that weird. But if someone were to look at a relationship from the outside, they might view it as very, very weird.

I'm literally having to, to talk to you about it and about how that emotion affects you. And thankfully, you are reasonable about it. And listen to me and understand that I'm not trying to blame you for anything that I'm just doing what I have to do to make sure you're safe.  Because that's ultimately what it is.

It's not just about money. It's not just about my happiness. It's not just about your son's happiness and it's about making sure you're safe.

ANNA: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That, that makes perfect sense. And I think you gave a really good overview of not only the fear that you have, but also how you support me in that, that hypervigilance ultimately is, a showing of love that it's a way to support somebody is to watch out for their warning signs and watch out for those triggers.

And, you know, ask them lovingly, gently, “Hey, is this something that's happening for you right now or is there a different explanation?” Because I know that for me, with time, it did become easier being able to tell whether or not I'm in an episode. But, you know, especially having been stable for so long, if I were to start getting into an episode now, I think it would be really hard for me to tell and having your perspective there.

Having that outsider's perspective would be really helpful. Like one thing I mentioned to my listeners is somebody with bipolar or going through a manic episode is going to speak really fast, and that's something their loved one can notice more readily than the person can notice themselves and tell them that, “Hey, you've been speaking way too fast lately. I'm concerned about you. Can we please talk about this?”

And of course, it, you know, depends on what kind of relationship you have with the person. But if you are their romantic partner, I would think that there is a certain degree of openness to where you could ask them that question and have a, a good conversation about.

KEN: Well, you know, that, that actually brings me back to a point when you asked me to do this, there were a few thoughts I had, and I hadn't even brought this up. It’s the one thing that… I don't know if this is for everybody who has bipolar, but for you is when you have mania, you literally think that you can conquer the world.

And I mean that literally, like you really feel that there's nothing you can't do. And then you tell me these ideas and I have to say… that's lunacy, you can't do that. I mean, you have a one in a thousand chance of that happening. So, that's not realistic. And having to smile and nod, and listen because at the same time, if I just dismiss it, you're in your manic mode.

It's not gonna be good if I dismiss it, so I have to acknowledge it. I have to, and then, hopefully over the next couple days bring it back to the realistic idea that this is not realistic. This is, it might be good, it might work. But we need to temper our expectations. That's a huge part of it. Honestly, for me, that's my, that's the, the two triggers that I see in you are buying too much.

And so that's the most, that's really obvious that things come in the mail cause that's how we live nowadays. The average person, you order things online. If things come in the mail, it's easy to catch. And the other one is you starting to have grandiose ideas and you know what is grandiose in my mind.

Or maybe you're shooting for the stars, but you also have a good idea and you might be able to get halfway there. How do I, how do I weigh those out? How do I come in and the woman I love has these dreams and I'm having to go, “No, stop it.” It's horrible. And sometimes I'm wrong. I mean, that's the other thing is that, and even when it comes all this stuff, sometimes I'm gonna be wrong.

I have to, it's… it's all percentages and gambling,  and thinking ahead. But yeah. That's, that's a big one for me. Yeah, that's really difficult because again, you're happy, you're so ecstatic, you are so happy. And how do I reign you in, keep your happiness there. Cause I don't wanna take that away from you and no one wants to take that away from you.

But I can't, I have to try to keep you, because again, this isn't just an idea you have… if this fails, it could easily trigger really bad depressive episode that would harm you. That it could potentially cause us to lose, you know, a lot of money. So, from a pragmatic, “We have to pay our bills at the end of the month” kind of way.

I also have to look out for you and me and our kids and all that. There's also the part of this just for my own sanity, you know, I can't be giving into these ideas, these flights of fancy where it's so over the top that it's unrealistic. It's just a whole bunch of things.

And at the same time, I also have to weigh that with making sure that you're reaching for the stars and becoming your full person. That's probably the hardest one because it's even in the best case scenario, I have to step all over dreams. Even if I'm doing it… even if I'm right, let's say I'm a hundred percent right.

I have to step all over your dreams and bring you down to reality. And then deal with the aftermath of that, which, you know, just from a realistic perspective, no one wants to make their partner upset and then have to deal with it. If I don't have to. Right. I mean, again, I think I have to for the… for all those other reasons, but the reality is, I could just let it go.

And it'll probably be okay.

ANNA: Sure. So, so Ken, to finish up here, I wonder, what would you tell my listeners who have a partner living with bipolar? Do you have any wisdom or any advice? It's, it's so hard. Yeah. I mean, I have a, I have a lot of advice. I'd be, you know, I love to talk with it, every single one of 'em in person, because it, it, everyone, every single person's different.

I guess probably the biggest thing is, is if you love your partner, and hopefully this doesn't sound really, really rude, but it's not that big of a deal, and I mean that sincerely, like it's really hard to deal with it, but it's worth it that I hope that means a lot. Not just to me personally, because that's my husband saying it, but I hope that means a lot to my listeners who live with bipolar.

Is that. It is possible to be loved this way, and our partners are our rocks very, very often during our lowest times. So, Ken, I want to thank you so much for doing this interview with me. I know you are a captive audience in a way because you're my husband and you may have felt like you had to. But thank you so much for talking to me about our relationship, about what it's like to live with somebody who has bipolar. I hope that it helps many people live better lives.

KEN: So do I.

ANNA: Thank you all for listening to this candid interview, please subscribe to this podcast and leave me a review, that would mean so much and be so helpful in spreading awareness about bipolar and other mental health challenges. Also, check out my free guide for loves ones of people living with bipolar disorder; it contains everything you need to know to help your partner or family member, and it’s linked in the show notes.

In the next episode, you will find a raw and powerful interview about bipolar and trauma. Until then, take care and stay courageous.