BP & Sexual Promiscuity

[BeeKeeper]

Please understan that I am not trying to use BP as an excuse, but for anyone that has been affected by this side of BP, I'd really like to hear your thoughts.  I've had a history of sexual promiscuity over the past 20 years - either emotional or physical.  Until recently diagnosed with severe depression and then BP, and until I started really - daily - tracking what's going on with me, did I give this pattern any thought.  Needless to say it has ruined a marriage and relationships and has been the catalyst for many suicidal thoughts.

The pattern has been when I get into a depressed place I turn for "comfort" to someone I want to believe can help...unfortunately it has not been the person I should be turning to like my spouse.  These actions are not planned or premediated, but more of an action of opportunity and desperation.  It is absolutely not a reflection of my love for my spouse..it's just a reaction...something I can't explain nor excuse.  I have always been extremely sorry for my actions after the fact...and part of my depression now is that I can not forgive myself for the things i've done and the people i've hurt.

So the questions I would ask:
. How do you forgive yourself for this behavior?
. How do you "bend" this emotion/reaction to where you turn to the right person?
. Past history has repeated itself so many times that even though I know it is wrong, i'm scared of being in any relationship for fear of this happening again.  What do i do with that?

As always to the folks here who have helped me get a handle on this relatively new diagnosis, your thoughts are appreciated.

[larysa558]

My partner has just been diagnosed as bipolar, unfortunately after the police took him out of our home, put a restraining order on him to stay away from us (me and my children) and charged him with aggravated sexual assault against me.....

I am wondering if there is anyone out there, who has dealt with a bipolar person in a similar situation, that can send some... advice?

My boyfriend was sexually assaulting me in my sleep.  I suffer insomnia, so regularly use sleep aids (usually natural, but man, they can knock someone out)    This continued for months, even after i asked him to stop, and explained how worthless and disrespected it had made me feel.  

We have been together about a year, and in the past few months, there have been outbursts, severe detachment, loss of interest and identity.  He is a whole different person than I knew.  I love him dearly, but this whole situation is awful...   I hear he wants to be treated, and work things out and come home (once the courts allow) but I'm not really sure how I feel about that yet.  I would never turn my back on him, for being ill, but the emotional scars he has left me with, and this time apart, is making it really hard to understand how I feel......   still, I know.... without a doubt... That I love him more than I could ever believe I could love anyone, other than my children.

My questions really, are..... after treatment, do I believe him again? or is that just a bad idea? He blames his sexual issue on the information he can find about bipolar and sexuality.  Every time I asked him, pleaded with him to stop hurting me, he'd promise not to, and we'd be there all over again in a week.  Half of the time, he doesn't even remember.  From what I've read, people with bipolar engage in negative sexual behavior with strangers... not partners.   If he did remember the incident, he would say 'well i was just trying to make you feel good' ... Even knowing how it made me feel used and hurt.

He has been good to us, in every other way, but for some reason, when I go to sleep, he just helps himself.  Has anyone had this sort of experience that could link it to bipolar? or is that just being used as an excuse?  

Dark times, call for light.

Thank you.

[Bec99]

It was only when I was so upset about my own repeated sexual promiscuity and I broke down and told my gp that my bipolar was finally diagnosed. I had been diagnosed with depression  17 years before, but the same sorts of behaviors had been repeating for even longer than that. When I finally saw a psychiatrist and we talked about the patterns in my life. He told me that I didn't have the ability to control what was happening at those stages and that even though I felt guilty afterwards, I was not to blame.
My husband and I have been together for 17 years and I have affairs on 4 different occasions. He is unaware of any of them. Both my psychiatrist and gp advised that I not tell my husband as it would only cause more upset and stress in our lives. I do love my husband, and don't intend to ruin my marriage. But I do intend to stay on my mess and work on staying stable. This way hopefully I can avoid  going down that road again

[afraid2love]

Well, because of my moral standards, I actually have never given in totally to the strong desire to be promiscuous. While some women long for the white dress with a beautiful procession of bridesmaids, I almost obsess over the idea of having multiple partners. Good thing they remain as thoughts rather than illicit acttions. On the other hand I have put myself in numerous situations where I could have easily been raped. With the worse being going home with a random guy that lived in the woods. I have sought out so many different men during moments of depression that I can't even remember each face or name. Past fooling around, I haven't slept with any of these men. The problem now is my inability to have both an emotional and physical connection with just one person. Its almost as if the two must always remain seperate. Either there is a deep trusting bond emotionally or a physical warm body to provide nothing more than sexual pleasure and emotional release. This makes me feel I will never have a healthy relationship if I cannot invest both emotional and physical closeness into just one person. As crazy as it may sound, although I have been technically rather physically chaste, I have allowed strangers to go far beyond the limit of what is reasonable. I feel I have bn emotionally promiscuous because during times of intense depression, I have given so much of myself to random men in hopes that opening up to them emotionally could provide a sense of comfort. Unfortunately, all that has come of it is that I'm devoid of emotion although wanting to be in a relationship. I'm afraid however, that I would have nothing left to give. Being bipolar is like saying leave me alone, I'm lonely, comfort me but because you couldn't possibly understand how I feel, I'll give myself to someone who doesn't know or care about me all.  ....please post if u understand. ... thx.

[dawgbite]

I was just searching the web for a situation like yours. I’m not bi polar, but my girlfriend of 4 years (off and on) is. Over the years we have had a very hot cold relationship. She is on meds, but she smokes a lot of weed too. She’s very smart and educated, but can’t hold a job for longer than 6 months. If we have a fight and break up for say, a week, she is on craigslist meeting strange men and women and sleeping with them. When I find out she cries and blames me for not coming over to check on her. She says if I’m not around to keep her level she doesn’t know what she will do.

She also gets very jealous, to the point where she attacked me once and I pushed her to the floor to get her off of me. I got arrested for that. A year later she attacked me in a hotel room while I was sleeping because she was offended by a comment I made. Our relationship was awful!

For 9 months we broke up and didn’t speak, and new years eve of 2011, she contacted me and told me she didn’t love her boyfriend, she still loved me. We slept together, and afterwards I begged her to stay but she insisted on leaving. She went home and her boyfriend beat her up. She stayed with him and a few months later they were over.

She then came back to me and begged me to take her back. I eventually did. She would tell me how we were so connected, how I was her “medicine” and blah blah. She went on to tell me that she loved me so much that she could never do things with the other men she was with after me, such as nude photos and video. Well one night she went on a rant about how men she thought were friends were only trying to get in her pants. She insisted I read the texts they wrote and how she responded. I told her it wasn’t important, and that I trusted her to do the right thing. She was marching around, smoking weed with a serious attitude because she really wanted me to read these texts. So I did.

Then she wanted so show me pictures of some of these guys, while she was scrolling I saw a video and asked her to play it. It ended up being her screwing some guy. Needless to say I was very upset about this. Though it happened while we were apart, I was more angry that she lied and said I’m the only man she has done that with. I calmly kissed her on the cheek, got my things and left. I was fed up with the lies and all her men that she just cant let go of. And also the meeting of random men whenever we have a spat.

Well the day I left her which was last week from today, I changed my phone number, created new emails and closed my old ones. For two days She couldn’t contact me so she called my job to see if I had been going to work. Then one day she called my new number, began to gloat at how she tracked me down, and chewed me out viciously for trying to “drop off the earth”…her words.

Today I spoke with her on the phone, she said she was with her friend, a girl who is a known crack head, and telling me if I don’t take her back that she will run off with this girl to Alabama (We live in Chicago).
I told her no, I will not take her back and to quit calling me. She swore this would be the last time I hear from her again. This was at 9 am. Its now 11:30 and im worried to death about her. I don’t want to be with her, but I love her and don’t want her running around with a crack head and sleeping around and get herself hurt (she was raped once last year while being manic).

My point to this is, after my experience with a bipolar girlfriend, I don’t think I could handle another mentally Il person. I’m sure not all bipolars are like this, but from the stories I’ve heard, so many are. That girl drove me crazy while we were together. Sometimes I felt like I was bipolar too. She claims now she has found a great combo of meds and she is much better but I am so fed up that I don’t even want to see her again. I now have to get std tests done to make sure she didn’t give me anything.
I urge you, please please don’t put anyone through this. Before you make up to him or get into a new relationship, get help and be damn certain you can control your “crazy” (My ex and I referred to it as that) before you make this commitment, because if you don’t, you could not only hurt yourself, but your man so so bad. Your second paragraph really struck a nerve with me, because I remember asking her one time how she can give herself to all these men like that and she basically told me what you said in your second paragraph.

If a person knows they have moments they will sleep around, they just shouldn’t get into anything serious until they get help and know with no doubt that they can resist these driving emotions.

Just my two cents while getting stuff off my chest lol.

[goosey802]

I have a good idea of what you're going through. My brother and my partner both suffer from severe mental illness. My brother is schizophrenic. Around the time when he was diagnosed I was still living at home, and life was utter hell. I was deeply depressed and suicidal. I know what it's like. It's even more complicated when it's your partner.
You NEED to take care of yourself. It's the most important lesson I learned at the time. You are suffering too. When it's your partner who you live with, who you have a child with, it's your life, too. A lot of people don't understand that it hurts the person who isn't sick too (or who wasn't initially sick..i have a pretty bad anxiety disorder now and have had my bouts of depression). It's not JUST upsetting because you care about the other person. You're unhappy for yourself too, and justifiably so. You need help as much as he does. Is there anyone in his family toward whom he doesn't feel animosity that you could maybe convince to talk him into letting you in on his therapy? the patient-doctor confidentiality thing is problematic.
My parents are very closely involved with my brothers therapy, and it's been his saving grace, but also theirs. I truly do not believe they could handle dealing with this completely in the dark. I have insisted that my partner let me in on his therapy, but he doesn't get why. This is why we no longer live together, and he's back living with his parents for the time being. I know it's harder when the person's thought process is so confused that he doesn't understand what's really going on, but regardless of the reasons, you have to look the facts in the face. What's happening, what needs to be, what's possible. You have that responsibility to yourself and your child. I know it's terrifying and overwhelming, and that's why you shouldn't even try to do it alone. Life WILL go on and it WILL get better once you figure out how you're going to deal with it, and I strongly suggest you find a therapist to talk it out with.  
  
  

[allie93]

mine is a different issue.  i've only had one partner since 1998, my husband.  But in 1996 when i was coming of age, i had to work in a topless bar for 6 days to avoid sleeping on the street (long story).  i felt super sexy and was in a super sexy mindset for a few months.  i gave a ** to a guy w/ gf, fooled around with a married woman (i'm a woman), flirted back to taken people.  i mooned a couple people.  i'm very against being w/ someone taken, which is why i did so little.  from 1994 to 1998 i had was hypersexual and had quite a few single partners.  not usually on purpose, i just let things move to fast.  all this happened in arizona.  i got over it quick and never felt bad too much, moved on.

then in oregon in 2006, a catty neighbor mom dug for dirt, i thought of my minor past dirt and blushed.  she spread false rumors.  i began explaining all the details of my past to other moms, to prove how moral i've always been (no relations w/ married men, no sex w/ a taken guy, etc).  but women here all hate me now and ostracize and gossip about me.  like a whole huge community of them do.  they make me feel terrible about myself and unforgiveable.  it's really messed up my mind.  i went to see a counselor, but she also seemed to be very puritanical, scarlett letterish about sexual mistakes.  it's gotten so bad i developed a strange fear that my dead grandma is cursing me unless i go back to the mormon church.  i can't shake that curse and it feels real.  i know it's not but it still overpowers my brain and makes my social anxieties sky-rocket.

i wanted to say that i'm not judgmental at all and love all.  i wish i had a friend.  i feel like oregon is very non-sexy and perfect while arizona is often much the opposite.  i want nothing more than to never think about this and be happy with my kids, husband, and life.

yes i was abused sexually growing up and psychologically too.