Right i'll start by saying that i dont have bipolar, my mother does so it that respect i can only give talk from this perspective

Some backstory, my mum was misdiagnosed again and again, from schitzophrenia to psychosis, depression and bipolar disorder. Eventually the doctors settled on unipolar as she never got depressed, only manic, and boy did she get manic.

The doctors had prescribed her all sorts of drugs and antipsychotics to calm her down over the years including the dreaded lithium which i would never ever wish on anyone. What that drug did to my mother is almost unforgivable, but i try and understand that little was and still is known about mental disorders and that perhaps i should try and release my anger rather than point it at anyone. I was 15 or so when this happened first time so as you can imagine, rage was an overiding emotion at that time! Anyway the lithium permenantly knocked out my mums thyroid gland so she is on thyroxin for the rest of her life now as well on top of everything else.

Back to the point in hand. During my mothers manic episodes whe was a terrible person. And i do seriously mean terribel, to me, my dad, my brothers and sister, friends and everyone she knew. For a little old lady she was genuinely terrifying when she was like this. Insomnia led to mania and mania led to extrem narcissim and vindiction. Telling my dad he was the reason she was ill, telling me that i was good for nothing and wasting my life and wouldnt amount to anything. As you can imagine this was hard to take from someone you love but to be honest, the way i coped with it was simply the cliche'd "its the illness talking" and genuinely i know it was - she seems to have no memory of it.

skip forward 10 years of "cycles" of this maybe twice a year, usually around mid summer and christmas...every year...for 10 years. She was back to my sweet old mum for 90% of the year (to which i'm thankful i know many sufferers and familys of them dont get this kind of reprieve) or she was a demon or she was a zombie due to the drugs she was on.

The problem was medicating. She has always been hyper sensitive to medication, a normal dose for someone might be say 100mg, she could safetly take 2mg. this didnt help. and also mid mania she saw nothing was wrong, so getting her to take medication we all knew was fucking her up was heartbreaking

thankfully for us all we found a more modern compound at the right dose that has seemed to sort her out. i believe she will be on it for the rest of her life but aside from a rare blip here and there she has been fine for about 8 years. I got my mum back.

I'll move on to how its affected our relationship. We have never discussed what she has said to me in the past, how she was, how afraid i was, how it hurt me to have to send her to the funny farm, how i struggled to forgive myself, how helpless i felt etc etc. Because of this we have been distant. its got better with time but ive never managed to summon the courage to go through this with her. shame because it has affected us but in a way we have all "forgiven" her if thats the right word. Nothing to forgive because she was ill, we can never understand what it was like for her but you get what i mean.

Ok so lets move onto you.

You are going to firstly just realise this is something you are going to have to live with and self medicate yourself, both in terms of medication and therapy. Now this may just be support groups, there will be plenty online but i know what helped my mother the most was speaking to other sufferers of bipolar, for only they will understand. They WILL be support groups, free ones in your area. you are not alone

as for your relationships, if your friends and family are even vaguely worth their salt they will always support you. It may be hard for them, as it has been hard for me but its not over! The way you feel about these relationships is entirely related to your condition, i have no doubt. Its the only thing thats changed? Time and a stability and support will help you as will recognition that there may be no quick fix, but that what your feeling right now will not be permenant

literally no structure to that wall of text but hope it helped

edit - realised i kinda ran out of steam here, sorry for just talking about myself there! hope someone better informed can come help here!