Gettyimages.com/Depressed teenage girl looking down, arms crossed.
If you are in a relationship with someone who has told you he’s bipolar, you may have thought it’s no big deal. The person has seemed completely stable since you met him—you’ve seen him go through some ups and downs but nothing out of the ordinary—so you think, “How bad can it be?” Well, you probably met this individual during a stable time, and people with bipolar disorder can sometimes go months without an episode. If your partner’s ups and downs seemed normal, it’s because they were the ups and downs of a person who was stable for that time. But being present for your partner’s first bout of mania, or depression, can be a bit of a shock. It never ceases to be difficult, really. Here are bipolar triggers you should know about if you’re dating someone with bipolar disorder.
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Sudden extreme changes in plans
Those with bipolar disorder need things to go as planned. As a part of the manic side of their disorder, when they have plans, they can get ahead of themselves, and picture those plans, thinking of exactly how they’ll go, imagining different scenarios within them and setting up great expectations for themselves. So if you tell your friend, who is all dressed up for a concert, that you lost the tickets and you’ll just be going to dinner instead, this can trigger her.
