ANONYMOUS ASKED:
hi! so im currently dating someone who (most likely) has cyclothemia, and i love her so much and i just wish i knew what i could do when shes having one of her irritable/depressive stages…. especially when she’s lashing out at me, because im never sure how to respond in a way that won’t set her off more. any advice you could give me would be hugely appreciated!! 🙂
So, first up, I’m not a doctor and I’m not a relationship therapist. I don’t know you guys or your situation. Also, it’s completely possible that any advice I offer will be off-target and may blow up in your face – I can only talk about what works for me. So I want you to take what I say in that spirit, and hopefully you can cherry-pick the parts that work for you.
Ready? Here we go.
Depression and irritability make it hard for me to do. For me, they cloud out possibilities – from my future as a professional, to the chances of starting a family, right down to the possibility of getting up to make toast. It all becomes too hard, too annoying, too ugh. Like standing in the middle of a desert – any direction you choose is the wrong one.
Because of this, it’s easy for depressed-me or aggressive-me to enter a shame spiral when interacting with the world. As an example, if I turn down an invitation to a party (for me a wise decision because I will be horrible company) I won’t think about how this is an intelligent and rational decision – instead my brain will focus on how I am a horrible human being for being so negative and avoiding people.
Does this make sense so far? Good.
Now, the tricky bit – how to deal as the non-bipolaroid:
- Show them it’s about liking them, not about helping – depressive-me cannot accept help because it makes me feel worthless, and aggressive-me hates the idea of other people thinking I need help. But I can still accept that people want to hang out with me – because then it’s not about me needing assistance, it’s about them enjoying themselves, and I’m just, like, there. I can live with that.
- Work with their capacity – appeal to the parts of their personality that are not under attack. If they’re not hungry, don’t invite them out for a meal, but if they’re okay watching cartoons on their laptop maybe offer a binge LoTR session or whatever. Build on their strengths.
- Keep it simple – understand that the person does not have full access to their emotional range, and will neither be able to instigate activities nor accept vague invitations. So instead broadly stating your intent (“I’m here to help, what you wanna do?”) offer a specific, pleasure-based invitation (“pizza and Netflix for the afternoon?”) as these are much easier to digest and accept.
- Respect their space – if I turn down every invitation for a week , it’s because I just don’t have the capacity to deal. I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad – I don’t have the energy to do that. I’m just trying to get by. So blowing up about how we “never see each other” doesn’t help. Instead, my friends just accept that there’s no energy, and understand that I will reach out again when I’m a bit more stable, apologise for my distant behaviour, and try to engage socially once more.
I hope that helps you, guy! Thanks for reaching out!