u/Full_Wave4181

Hi there..

I don't even really know where to begin, I feel like I'm in a crisis now and this community might be able to provide some insight.

To try to keep it short, my partner and I have been together for two years and have been non-monogamous the entire time. I also have regularly having mixed episodes about every four months since we have been together that usually last a couple weeks. Every single time that I have a mixed episode it is incredibly painful for both of us, so much damage is caused and we have never gotten any better at handling them.

I get angry, accusatory, and I see things from such a different perspective that I think I could be experiencing psychosis, I just get so delusional and my world view shifts so much I just believe so wholeheartedly that what I am thinking/feeling is true, even if there is literally zero real world evidence for it. I pull away, I don't treat them well and I say something that hurts them really badly and the whole time they are unable to give me the support that I need (not that I even know what I need in those times) because I hurt them.

Then I come out of the episode, say oh nevermind, I didn't mean what I said, and I feel completely fine and totally over it. Then they are left feeling whiplash, and they take to heart what I said when I was in the episode and carry that pain with them, while I don't because I just don't feel that way anymore.

Now for the non-monogamy part: recently they told me they would prefer to use the label poly, started seeing a new person, and I met that person in person all over the course of a couple months. Before we had been taking things slow but this felt like jumping off the deep end. When I met this person it made me disassociate and I then fell into an incredibly intense mixed episode where I again thought and felt things that stem from a place of fear and insecurity and are not rooted in reality. I still don't really know what I actually think and feel and how seriously I should take the things I think during episodes. But I basically said to my partner that I never wanted non monogamy, that I have always been doing it just for them, and that I think it is stupid. These things hurt them so bad that now they are rethinking so many aspects of our relationship and seeing patterns and signs that have been there throughout. Now they are thinking of breaking up with me because they think we don't want the same things, aren't compatible, and they just feel emotionally exhausted from all the damage I've caused during episodes.

So I guess my question is, how do you protect your partner from mixed episodes and keep yourself from hurting them? Once you are capable of being rational again how do you figure out how true/untrue your thoughts and feelings in an episode are?

I'm also afraid that being bipolar makes me incapable of non-monogamy or poly. For the non-monogamous bipolar people out there, how do you manage it?

This ended up being pretty long in the end oops. Also my partner is autistic, which I think can be relevant because they are very direct and always say what they mean, whereas I am obviously not like that at all so I think it is harder for them to understand that aspect. I think in some ways us being an autistic-bipolar couple is great, their rationality and decisiveness complement my mercuiral nature really well, but I think in this particular context it makes it hard for us to understand each other.