I know we have a mental health forum, but I know a lot of you here in the F&F forum have experience here as well & I'm waaaay comfortable asking just about anything here.
Background:
My friend's AH has been diagnosed with BDP after YEARS of craziness. He goes through these constant cycles of up/down, although it's absolutely more down than up. In fact his only "ups" ever happen
following events that cater to his ego - spending large amounts of money on his toys or hobbies, etc.
His downs are much more frequent & enormous. He stays in bed for days at a time, skipping work whenever possible & utilizing every paid day off he earns the minute it becomes available. (he earns hours off based on hours worked, so as soon as he has 8 hours stored up, he uses it.)
He committed himself 4x in the last year+ for mental evaluation & has been seeing a therapist weekly. (last hospitalization was late spring) Every time he goes through another down cycle (although, again, there haven't been many, if ANY, "ups" in that same time frame... in fact he has not left their house for anything other than work or a family obligation in close to 2 years.) He has been medicated since then as well & every time he gets "bad" they adjust his meds saying that "they" haven't gotten it just right yet. (I say "they" in quotes because she has no contact with his drs & is not at all involved in any of the conversations about this OR in actually seeing the meds to know what has actually changed.... it's all based on what he tells her, there is no verification.) He also opted to go through electro-shock treatments on his brain the last time he was hospitalized for about a week, doing 6 of the 12 prescribed treatments before realizing that their insurance company would not cover it.
She & I spend a lot of time together on the weekends because she can't stand to be around all that negativity & wants to be out of the house with her DD doing fun stuff instead. We've also been doing a lot of girls nights out & going to the beach at night on the weekends because it is one of her favorite places to relax. Last weekend she had said she was going to stay home for a change (lol) and then on Thursday he started his dive down into depression again, not making it to work & staying in bed until Friday. Fri morning she texted me saying she was going to bring pumpkins over that evening after work for her DD & mine so they could do some carving & she could get out of the house. (Not knowing that this was happening, it didn't phase me - we often do things on Fridays with the kids)
When she told him she was going, he pouted & reminded her she had said she wanted to stay home. She basically said, yeah - but not with you like THIS. She calmly re-stated her boundary that she chooses to NOT get dragged down with him when he is like that.
So Friday afternoon just before she got off of work he texted her to let her know that he was fine now, everything was all better so she could/should just stay home.
Is that POSSIBLE? Can someone with a true mental illness like this have that much
control over changing their mental state? FWIW - this is not the 1st time he's done a 180 when he's trying to gain her attention, although he used to do the opposite - dive deeper & deeper into it, becoming needier & needier until she called his bluff & told him to commit himself. Now that he's done that multiple times, it's not getting any reaction from her & she's been discovering that she is capable & happy on her own.
Admittedly, I know very little about BPD so maybe this is all much more common than I realize. She's calling BS, saying it's amazing that he can suddenly choose to get better in less than a working day, when in the past he's needed hospitalization, therapy & his meds adjusted (per him) in order to affect a change like this.
She asked me for an honest opinion & I'm all -->
