My Loved One
Is A Manic Depressive

My Boyfriend Has Stopped Talking With Me

"My boyfriend is a terrific young man who is bipolar. But for the last couple of days, he's not been speaking to me -- no explanation, nothing."

If your boyfriend has just stopped talking, he may be depressed. I know when I am depressed, communication fails completely. I don't even have the ability to tell someone I am depressed. So if you are asking yourself, "Why didn't he tell me something, so I could help?" Well, he probably couldn't even do that. Even if he wanted desperately to do so.

I know this sounds impossible to believe, but it's true. My parents, who live close by and act as my primary support system, are often exasperated that I couldn't call them to let them know I was feeling down. They usually find out about two days later when I don't show up for work.

I only need to make one phone call, but I am too filled with anxiety or apathy to make it.

To make things worse, you might visit and find him pleasant, articulate, and making the same jokes as usual. He might look a little under the weather, but no worse than if he was getting a cold. You know. Normal.

And you two might go for a pizza in the afternoon, and make plans for the next few days and the weekend and you would come home thinking that everything is okay. And then he doesn't contact you again and everything falls flat. And you will wonder what is going on and what you did wrong. Or what the heck your boyfriend is up to.

Have you ever seen the little dancing daises that they sell? The ones with the shades that wiggle and dance around as long as there is noise or music playing and which stop moving when there is no sound. Well, being depressed can be like that. Your presence alone could probably bring your boyfriend up to something looking like stability, so he looks and acts fine. But nothing was solved and as soon as you leave, he falls back to being depressed.

I bring this up because I am sure that you are trying to help out as well as wondering what in the world is going on. I can tell you that if your boyfriend is depressed, it isn't your fault and that there is no easy fix you can do.

If you can, get him to take his medication. However, it is wrong to believe that if your boyfriend takes these pills or sees this doctor or goes to classes / work tomorrow, then the problem will be solved.

If you like the guy and want to be with him, you have to deal with his being bipolar for the long haul. Being bipolar is a problem, but to see it as only a problem is being one-dimensional. Given my experiences, there is a good chance that you have been the recipient of many thoughtful little indications of love / affection from him. I'll also bet that you have gotten original poetry from him. Bipolar people tend to be bright and articulate and charismatic, which I'm sure describes your boyfriend a lot of the time. And we work hard. Well, we work hard when we can.

To live with your bipolar boyfriend, you are going to have to accept that he is bipolar and will be erratic. This is not an easy thing to do, I admit. At some point, you and your boyfriend are going to have to sit down and talk about his being bipolar and after that you will have to balance the pros and cons of the relationship and choose if you want to continue the relationship.

I'm biased, but I would suggest that you try, with your boyfriend, to keep the relationship working rather than writing it off now. It's the romantic person in me that says this.

So what do you and your boyfriend do now?

Well, talking to him and discussing the relationship while he is depressed is probably a pretty useless thing to do. At best, the discussion will not register with him in any meaningful way. At fairly bad, he will agree with you on anything just so as to not deal with an intense discussion at that moment and will then renege on promises made once he is not depressed. At worst, if he is in the grip of being self-destructive, he will dissolve the relationship just to get peace and quiet at that instant (he may regret it later, but that's a little late).

You may have to wait until he is out of the depression to talk with him.

I haven't come up with good suggestions on how to help persons who are depressed because few things actually work for me and none work consistently. And so many suggestions to "help" me are intensely irritating.

Also, be careful about keeping in contact. The little games on who telephoned and who didn't and who should have just don't work with bipolar people. Bipolar people are too erratic to play the game properly. If you haven't already spoken to your boyfriend, once he is able to talk, you should have a serious talk about trust in the relationship and set some ground rules based on that trust. Including one which says trust the person even though he or she did not follow through for me when I needed her / him.

About all I can suggest is patience. And no anger or guilt. You didn't do anything wrong, and your boyfriend isn't doing this to spite you. Regardless of the appearances. So if neither or you are doing anything wrong, just relax and get rid of the anger and guilt. And blame.