Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
Hi,does anyone have any experience with bipolar disorder either in themselves or their partner?
My husband has what seems to me as dramatic mood swings. Several of our friends and acquaintances( including 2 with medical training) have suggested that he may suffer from bipolar disorder. His mood swings go on a 1 to 3 week cycle. He can be happy and talkative,kind and considerate of me etc, then over the period of a few days he gets more and more morose and withdrawn. Finally he blows up at me and tells me that his feeling down is because our marriage is crap, I am doing this or that, not communicating enough, not being intimate enough etc. After blowing up and raving at me for sometimes several hours, he then slowly reverts to happy and cheerful again.... Til next time.
Can anyone tell me if bipolar disorder is associated with verbal abuse?
The situation and recurrent nature of this is causing me huge amounts of anxiety. I am SO sensitive to his moods. My body has started to react on a 2-3week cycle of building anxiety as it anticipates the next 'down'.
Would love any advice or comments
My husband has what seems to me as dramatic mood swings. Several of our friends and acquaintances( including 2 with medical training) have suggested that he may suffer from bipolar disorder. His mood swings go on a 1 to 3 week cycle. He can be happy and talkative,kind and considerate of me etc, then over the period of a few days he gets more and more morose and withdrawn. Finally he blows up at me and tells me that his feeling down is because our marriage is crap, I am doing this or that, not communicating enough, not being intimate enough etc. After blowing up and raving at me for sometimes several hours, he then slowly reverts to happy and cheerful again.... Til next time.
Can anyone tell me if bipolar disorder is associated with verbal abuse?
The situation and recurrent nature of this is causing me huge amounts of anxiety. I am SO sensitive to his moods. My body has started to react on a 2-3week cycle of building anxiety as it anticipates the next 'down'.
Would love any advice or comments
Abuse also rotates in cycles. Mine goes through mean periods of 3-4 hour rages, then he gets nice when he worries I'm going to leave and he starts the honeymoon period and "just LOVES me so much". But it always comes back around. And even in his honeymoon period he makes very covert comments and insinuations meant to demean me and keep me in my place.
So yes, definately abuse! Bipolar, who knows?
I was even contemplating with staying with him if he did have bipolar and went on treatment, but he was totally against going to the shrink in the first place...Also, abusive traits like extreme jealousy and possessiveness (which my ex had) are NOT caused by bipolar disorder, I don't think. They are inherent in the thinking patterns and assumptions of the abuser.
After doing a lot of research myself, I also reached the same conclusion as DivineSilence. Bipolar is NOT directly related to abuse. Mental illness of any kind is not related to abuse, it is separate, with some exceptions (according to Lundy Bancroft who wrote Why Does He Do That).
Abuse is caused by many different factors, although experts seem to come to the conclusion that it is a LEARNED BEHAVIOR and A CHOICE on the part of the abuser.
Think about it, they have a choice to stop, but they choose to continue abusing us. Because if they couldn't stop, they would abuse other people, like their boss, or their co-workers, or a person on the street. (Although my abusive ex wasn't particularly always kind to other people either...) So they choose to heap the worst abuse on the ones closest to them because it is a control tactic and they will get away with it many times due to their crazy-making behaviors, incapacitating us to think for ourselves.
In your situation, could you get him to a shrink? It could help to clear things up if he was diagnosed. Although the verbal abuse would have to be dealt with separately if he is willing to do some form of therapy around it.
Did he grow up in a dysfunctional family as a child? Was he abused himself? How long has this been going on?
Emotional and verbal abuse is many different things including controlling behaviors, belittling, degrading, possessiveness, jealousy, crazy-making behaviors, including when a partner makes you feel that you are "not good enough" like in your case. That is classic abuse.
I would also suggest looking up Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder.