Has anyone else struggled with a close loved one with bipolar turning on you seemingly very abruptly / getting angry at you very easily in a way that leaves you confused and very hurt? I've never posted in a forum like this before but I'm so devastated and shocked that reading other people's stories of bipolar loved ones has been the only thing that could offer me any kind of solace, which is why I'm so glad I found this group and any advice / insight / support would be greatly appreciated. I'll try to make the story not TOO long, bear with me.

My best friend has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder for almost 2 years, and has been on a dose of mood stabilizers that's been good for them since they were diagnosed. Our relationship was very close and special and different from my other friendships, we would talk every single day and were inseperable. We were friends about a year but became rapidly close and each others #1s over the pandemic. I love them so much, they are a beautiful person, literally one of the most emotionally intelligent and self-reflective people I know, I was always inspired by how articulate and smart and wise they were.

I'd always known they had bipolar, but they were on steady mood stabilizers and only talked about it occasionally so I didn't think about it much because there was no reason to. About 3.5 months ago, 2.5 months before this story happened, they stopped taking their mood stabilizers without doctor advice or weaning off or anything because they were tired of feeling unmotivated / sleeping so much. Everything in our friendship was going amazing and we'd never had any kind of a disagreement or anything before, so I didn't think much of them going off their meds aside from a fleeting "is this a good idea?" because I was very uneducated about bipolar. They told me being off their meds gave them a very short fuse, and in retrospect I noticed they were a bit snappier / more short with me when we'd spend extended periods of time together, but I still didn't think too much of it. However, when we started to talk about finding an apartment together is when things went south. They wanted to move out of state and start looking for places immediately, and I needed more time to think about it but they wanted an answer immediately (they were still trying really hard to be understanding / supportive / kind). I eventually told them I didn't want to move out of state and assured them it was nothing personal, they were very hurt by this but assured me it was okay.

After that they had a depressive episode and didn't talk to me for a couple days, which I know happens but it had never happened in our friendship before, and this is when I was less educated about bipolar. We had planned a roadtrip the day after the depressive episode, and on the roadtrip they were acting more irritable than I've ever seen them, making little critical comments about me and getting very irritated at what usually would be small things. When we got to the airbnb neither of us could hide our bad moods anymore. I was feeling very on edge and it put me into such a bad / anxious mood that I didn't know how to fix it, and they got really angry that I was in a bad mood and ruining what was supposed to be a fun roadtrip and why can't I just try to be in a good mood. They also got mad that I kept repeating myself because I was trying to explain why I was so anxious but it was not working. They started to say more hurtful things than they'd ever said to me, really personal jabs at me that were extremely hurtful, and told me that it was draining for them to have to have so many vulnerable conversations with me (about the housing) and they were sick of it. I kept trying to find something to say to alleviate the tension, but nothing was working and everytime I'd try to apologize or explain why I was in a bad mood they'd give an irritated response.

After the trip they took space from me, I was expecting to hash out the miscommunications we'd had but they told me they wanted to move on and talking about it more would be excessive. This is where I started to get really confused and frustrated - when I would try to have a serious, vulnerable conversation with them, they would get really visibly frustrated and like hold their head in their hands and flop down onto their back and emit these loud sighs and show really big signs that the conversation was draining. This really confused me and made it really hard for me to figure out how to communicate effectively with them, and we kept miscommunicating and it was very frustrating and upsetting. After a couple more days of space, they told me they hate having vulnerable conversations and it's still bothering them but they don't wanna talk about it anymore and that's a boundary they're setting. I thought we still had to talk about it because I was genuinely confused why they were upset and I still was holding onto hope that we could clear any hurt feelings by chatting, but they told me that they can't talk about it anymore for their own mental health and energy, and I pushed this more than I should've because I thought we had to hash it out to make things normal again and I thought it was unfair to me to not let me talk about it. From what I've read about bipolar, I think this was really bad of me to do because you should NOT argue with a bipolar person, especially unmedicated, if they say they can't for their mental health. So after that, they didn't talk to me for a week then sent me a long text ending our friendship. This was shocking to me, as breaking up with me over text is something I thought they NEVER would've done, very out of character. They said a lot of EXTREMELY hurtful things in the text that totally devalued how much they'd always said our friendship meant to them - it was a really long and confusing text, basically said it was too draining to have all those emotional conversations and me crossing their boundaries made them too angry and hurt. They also immediately started talking about our friendship in the past tense and deleted all traces of me from their social media.

I'm just so incredibly hurt, shocked and heartbroken. I don't want to take possible accountability away from myself and blame it on their bipolar, but the level of anger / level of exhaustion and reactions to having serious conversations / breaking up with me over a text so abruptly is VERY out of character for them and I think could help explain the situation. I think maybe having vulnerable conversations triggered them and it was all downhill from there? It's especially confusing because they're an EXTREMELY emotionally intelligent person so I'd think they'd be more open to having open conversations. Just a week or so before this they were telling me they don't know what they'd do without me and they love me more than anything, etc. I'm struggling to accept that text is actually the end of things. I read that it's difficult to maintain friendships if you're unmedicated, and you can get really angry at things you normally wouldn't, and you often lash out at loved ones and even break up and later regret it but feel like it's too late to make amends. I have no idea how they're doing and no closure, I'm just so lost. I guess my questions are: has anyone had an experience similar to this? Do people who are unmedicated know how their actions due to being unmedicated affect others? Once someone is off their meds and did it cold turkey, does their state get worse? Any thoughts would be much appreciated!