Hey all. Ive been here on and off for about 3 years now. I dated someone extremely bipolar for 2 years who dumped me literally by disappearing one day. I saw full unmedicated mania firsthand and I'm severely traumatized. I have BPD and a lot of other things wrong with me, and my ex nearly killed me with his bullshit (i have saved most of the details but it was bad), it took me over a year to get over what he did. I hate to generalize but bipolar symptoms/that level of instability is a severe trigger for me to the point where I won't date someone diagnosed with bipolar because it's not fair to them that I can't handle their illness on top of mine or being triggered by their symptoms constantly. The disorder is hell and i feel for those who have it but I need to protect myself first and unfortunately that is how it has to be. Anyways fast forward to now- been dating my current partner for almost 2 years. I am happy with him but he comes from a toxic home where getting help was looked down upon highly and his family members are all severely mentally ill (like his sister running down the street naked in psychosis bad, so he definitely has the genetics). He is not used to getting help or can't communicate well how he feels (autism), but to be with me you either get help for your issues or I'm out. He is stubborn but accepting of help after getting with me, he is medicated but our psychatrist picked up him possibly being manic and put him on abilify (in combo with wellbutrin and buspar which does well for him). That scares the ever-loving shit out of me he may have emerging bipolar and i don't know how to calm down.
A few weeks ago something snapped in my boyfriend to where he switched into an angry and emotionally abusive person. For about 2 weeks i didnt recognize him anymore and the ptsd symptoms were so severe i nearly broke up with him. I even told him he's kinda acting like he's bipolar... That's when i took him to our psychatrist who picked up him maybe being manic :( talking to my boyfriend, he says that a lot of it was a build up of him not communicating how he feels/not sleeping/having a bad reaction to qelbree for months and not being able to articulate what side effects he's suffering from. But a few days on the abilify and he was significantly better. I was extremely skeptical at first when he got it perscribed considering he doesn't have psychotic features but it was a good choice. What bothers me though is besides that one episode he doesn't have bipolar symptoms. He sleeps decently well, no extreme mood swings, no mania like being super hyped up, no angry agitated mania, no depression episodes, no cyclic mood swings/certain times etc. It was just this one time which really scares me :(
Any insight appreciated