Mania triggers, mixed episodes, dating & relationships

Oh it's a minefield alright

So in a recent post I talked about bipolar mania, exactly what it feels like and how it can affect your behaviour while undiagnosed, or if simply not managed properly.

Today I’d like to focus on how it can affect love and romantic relationships, in my own experience.

But first let’s talk about about mania triggers. It’s important to recognise these and nip a manic episode in the bud, if you can.

It’s all too easy to get swept up by one and then find yourself dealing with the grisly aftermath. Of course all this is easier said than done.

‘Wait til I get over this phase. A weakness that’s hard to break. Some folks they just got to get high. And ours is not to reason why. Do you like the way that I've strayed
From every promise I've ever made? You told me, go easy, but I got carried away.’

Biggest Triggers?

Oh now we’re getting to the juicy stuff peeps. For me it’s this in a nutshell:

That shiny new, sparkly thing.

Now this can be a piece of exciting news (like say, a plum job I’m in the running for) a nice trip somewhere fun, a new social media platform or a whizzy, new bit of tech, or umm yes, a new person in my life.

Oh yes, here we go. Time for a bit of cringe. Hmm.

Well let’s be honest here, it’s usually a woman, because well, I’m a straight man after all. I can get a little overexcited if I meet someone new who seems fun, pretty, glamorous and exciting, especially someone who resonates me, seems to be on the same level.

And if they also get a bit hyper at times, or have that special, bipolar energy perhaps, with a dash bit of wit, wordplay thrown in for good measure, well then I’m really in trouble folks.

(And yes, I fully realise that the whole ‘manic pixie dream girl’ thing is a rather twee, problematic notion and cliched film trope, but still it can be pretty powerful, compelling stuff when you encounter it head on in midlife. And anyway, they really shouldn’t be using the term ‘manic’ quite so lightly, if you ask me.)

‘I was waiting to be struck by lightening. Waiting for somebody exciting like you. Oh that thing that you do. It makes me go ooo, with the thing that you do, oh you do, you do!’

I can even get like that if I haven’t actually met them. I once went all the way to Paris from Brighton just for a date. Hopped on the Eurostar in a mixed manic state to meet a lady for the first time - oh yeah and she was bipolar too. What could possibly go wrong?!

I couldn’t really afford it, so it was all highly impetuous, compulsive behaviour. I even changed my train tickets at the last minute just to spend more time with her, which cost even more.

Suffice to say that little whirlwind romance (actually more like a tsunami) did not end well, lasting as it did for an entire weekend, but we’ll save that sorry story for another time I think. Pure unfiltered craziness on my part anyway.

Overinvesting in the ‘shiny new thing’ is sadly inevitable too. Just recently I experienced this with a job I applied for and got VERY fixated on.

That’s what sent me manic this time around. I had it to a lesser extent with improv for a wee while too.

So getting unduly fixated on things, or people for that matter, can be a serious issue for me. It can easily spark mania, or hypomania as is usually the case for me, and while I am gradually getting better at spotting the signs, it’s never easy to manage.

And if you have time, just Google the words ‘limerence and bipolar.’ Some bipolar people get that and it can be a proper shit show alright. Especially when it strikes in the middle of a depressive phase when you’re already unhappy in a long term relationship.

Anyway it doesn’t seem to matter how often I go through this particular manic mill, I still fall for it, hook, line and sinker.

The compulsive urge is just so God damn powerful and utterly compelling, it can easily make me act against my values and best interests, if I’m not careful.

Once the touch paper is lit, all sorts of emotions surface and judgement gets impaired. Especially if you’re undiagnosed at the time, which I was until the age of 45.

Mixed Manic States

I seem to suffer with these at times. They can be hard to describe properly to ‘normal people’ but basically they entail intense, rapidly cycling moods, where you’re constantly flitting between bursts of depression and mania.

They are sheer hell really. Looking back, I think I’ve struggled with these ever since adolescence, perhaps even earlier. I remember very little about my early childhood though.

They’re highly emotional affairs and they can dredge up many difficult thoughts and feelings about childhood, upbringing and family.

Shifting Tides

You can feel euphoric, loved, happy, relieved or excited one minute, then suddenly something relatively minor happens, you get a piece of bad news let’s say, or someone you like, respect or value ignores your message or is a bit rude to you, and everything just turns to shit quite quickly.

That positive mood crashes and you feel utterly depressed, despairing, conflicted, overwhelmed, even suicidal. Just in absolute turmoil with lots of self loathing, guilt and shame thrown in for good measure. So begins your trip on the big old emotional Big Dipper.

(And I actually hate real rollercoasters anyway. I once went on one as a teenager at Margate’s Dreamland and I loathed every bloody second of it. I just did it to fit in with my school friends of course.)

Many people with Borderline Personality Disorder (or Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, as it’s more frequently called these days) often get into these states too, which muddies the waters somewhat, as mental health professionals understandably have a hard time spotting the differences and diagnosing with precision.

You can feel utterly powerless, a hostage to your own hard-wired emotional make-up. Agency just goes out the window.

I was convinced I was borderline for a while after the Paris debacle, but I’m less sure about that now. It sounds a little extreme, even for me, and I don’t seem to meet all of the typical diagnostic criteria anyway.

It’s still a highly stigmatised condition because of the emotional wreckage it often reeks on relationships of all kinds, so you do have to be careful not to be misdiagnosed with it and be labelled or written off as a ‘difficult, unstable, unreliable person.’

But don’t get me started on dating apps! I’m happily coupled up now, but back when I was single, living alone in Brighton, lonely, isolated and desperately under-employed during the Pandemic I invested an AWFUL lot of time and energy on those. Whoo boy.

So much so that I even carved out a little side niche for myself getting paid to review them. Write what you know eh. ‘Everything is copy’ after all.

‘I don’t even like to think about it. Sometimes I like to think about it.’

Capacity to Love, Care and be Generous

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that many people with bipolar have a higher than average level of compassion, empathy and capacity to love and care deeply and fully. That can make us pretty decent partners obviously.

Yes we’re pretty hard to live with at times, but just like L’Oreal, we’re SO worth it.

The Problem with Dating and Bipolar

I tend to go all in, when it comes to anything I’m passionate about, including people I love or even just fancy. It’s not for everyone of course, and the extra effort I tend to put into these things can easily put some people off.

One lady I once dated briefly a few years ago found it all a bit much I think.

Not only did I send her a flowercard to her workplace for Valentine’s Day, complete with a lyric from one of her favourite songs, but I even went so far as to make her a quick (ok, it wasn’t exactly quick, I spent HOURS on the damn thing!) TikTok video lip synching the bloody song and aping the video for it!

Ahh yes, the dial on the old cringe-o-metre went off the scale that time! This was after only two dates mind.

Here’s the song below if you’re curious, and yes you can still find the video I made on my TikTok, if you must. I was going to delete it originally, but now I simply don’t care.

These days I firmly believe in being your ‘authentic self’ online. There’s more than enough fakery out there on the super-information-highway, as nobody calls it, so why add to it?

‘Who gave you eyes like that, who said you can keep them?’

Yes, THAT was the line I wrote in the card. Good grief. Well she did have very pretty eyes, so at least I meant it.

We connected quite strongly over music at first, having very similar tastes, especially a shared love of Prefab Sprout. For our second date we went to see pop poppet Carly Rae Jepsen at the Brixton Academy. Her suggestion.

Not my usual sorta artiste of course, but I was happy to suspend my inner indie snob for once and give it a bash. We actually arranged this second date before we’d even met for the first one, if you follow me, so she seemed pretty keen on me to begin with.

I genuinely enjoyed the gig more than I thought I would. The support act even did a cover of Running up that Hill, a song which resonated deeply with me as a youngster, long before it had its Stranger Things-fuelled renaissance a few years ago. We’ll come back to that too.

But all this does mean that I tend to love fully and deeply at least, or try to in my own special way. It just makes me rather difficult to love and tolerate perhaps… Hmm.

Generosity

I like to think that I’m fairly generous too, despite being desperately skint most of the time. Heck I even got engaged on the bleeding Orient Express. The erstwhile Mrs Jools was pretty wowed by that at the time.

Like I say, I don’t do things by halves, I go all in, and that extends to love and relationships.

This generosity extends to other things like social media sharing too. Now I used to get a little bit frustrated by the fact that this was so rarely reciprocated, especially during my blogging years, but I like to think that I’ve grown a little older and wiser now. So I no longer bitch about it online. Well, ok, rarely.

All of these tendencies should be seen as an asset of course, but some people just don’t trust it and think that it’s just someone trying to get something back.

And I guess I am, being brutally honest here. I just crave love, respect, rapport and attention. I won’t deny it.

And of course there’s also love bombing, so such wariness is totally understandable.

Nostalgia and Sentimentality

I’m a highly nostalgic and sentimental person. I don’t tend to cry easily or often though, at least not when I’m stable.

But I do tend to get attached to things that mean something to me and I find it hard letting go of them sometimes.

This makes me a bit of a natural hoarder, though I’ve definitely got better at curbing those tendencies in recent years.

It can mean that I find moving a bit more stressful than the average person too. Only recently was I able to say a final fond farewell to my collection of Word music magazines, for instance.

As my partner rightly pointed out, I hadn’t even looked at them once since moving into my previous flat over the past four years. Still found it hard to let them go though. I dearly loved that magazine and long harboured ambitions to write for it.

I’ve been taking medication for four years now, on and off. I’m still not sure how I feel about meds, but we’ll save that for another post. I’ll be honest: I was keen to come off the ‘happy pills’ and had been for a while.

I was back in a good place you see. Being in a great, solid new relationship, and more recently moving to a new place with said partner - a small, cute, cosy village in rural Surrey called Smallfield - has obviously had a massively positive, stabilising effect on me.

We met in May 2023 via the dating app Bumble. We have a great relationship I think. We get on, have a laugh, do fun stuff together and look after each other pretty well. Well OK, she’s been doing most of the looking after lately in truth, but it seems to work so far.

I moved in with her and upped sticks from Seven Dials in December and have enjoyed it here more than I expected, despite the fairly abysmal bus service and lack of amenities compared to Brighton.

I’ve started to eat much better, thanks to her (this year I will mostly be eating BREAKFAST! Well that’s new) and generally look after myself better too.

These are many things I seriously neglected while living on my own in Brighton, lonely and struggling to get by, if I’m honest.

But with her patient help, love and support, I’m gradually getting better at it now.

So yeah, this song is for her. Excuse the mush.

‘I should say I keep your picture with me every day, the evenings now are relatively easy. Here with you there’s always something to look forward to, my lonely heart beats relatively easy.’

She even grooms me now, using a variety of facial products she bought me for Christmas. This is all new terrain for me I must say.

Selfishness

Yeah, we need to talk about this too. So you know what I was saying earlier about mania feeling like being on a combo of the best premium grade Peruvian marching powder and loved-up pharmaceuticals known to man?

Well that’s not necessarily a good thing. Much like certain users of the frankly awful drug that is cocaine, going manic can well turn you into something of a self absorbed, selfish arsehole. You can become a single-minded bore too.

Obviously this affects relationships. It pays to be mindful of this of course, but it’s also so very hard when manic. I think that’s because mania does often feel so fun, empowering and exciting.

You just feel like you’re on your best form, more fun to be around, more charming, witty, affectionate etc. You often lose sight of just how annoying you can be. It’s one helluva a seductive beast alright.

A Domestic Vignette

Only last night when I was so fully absorbed in writing this and chatting to various other people about it on social media, among many other things for that matter, it came to my attention that I was completely neglecting my lovely partner, such was my fervour for my various projects.

I was chain vaping away, clouds of it billowing in the lounge, the big lights on, upbeat music blaring away, hammering away at my laptop feverishly, well, maniacally.

All at 9.30pm, when she just wanted to chill out and wind down before bed after a long, tiring day at work. She’s an early bird see.

She wasn’t too happy, understandably. She had to actually send me a WhatsApp message to get my full attention. Yeah. That’s not good.

Well I did warn her before I moved in that I can be a fairly difficult person to live with at times and now she’s seeing exactly what I mean.

She’s even been diligently researching bipolar and how to support someone with the condition, bless her. I really lucked out with her.

She will nag me every now and then. I actually don’t mind it. It actually helps. My brain is often just so darn busy I’d forget my own head at times.

I don’t always listen very well. I’m working on that. And being more present. Carving out time to just relax and veg with her in the evening in front of the telly, put my phone down for a minute, step away from my laptop, and just listen to the radio or music together. That stuff is so important.

So yeah, relationships matter. But obviously they require careful tending, particularly when you’re battling a bipolar manic episode, as indeed I am right now.

Especially real relationships. Romantic ones. Grounded ones. Connection is everything to me.

Long may that continue.