7 Ways Your Partner Can Help You Manage Your Bipolar Disorder

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Whether your primary support person is a spouse, relative, or trusted friend, enlist their help in managing your bipolar disorder symptoms when times are tough.



As a therapist, I assist people with bipolar disorder in making a plan of action — and enlisting a spouse, trusted friend, or relative in co-creating such a plan — for managing things when the going gets tough.

Here are seven ways you can help your primary support person know how to be a partner with you in your diagnosis.

1. Make a Written Agreement

Sit down with your chosen person and a pen and paper. Explain that you need a partner to help you manage your bipolar, and that this will require the two of you to work out details together.

Make certain that your person trusts you and your judgment when you are well, and is willing to take this on with you.

2. List Your Unique Early Bipolar Symptoms

Both mania and depression can be managed more easily if they are recognized before they intensify. Make a list of the personal ways in which your illness manifests itself in its early stages.

For example, you might both realize that when you are starting to get depressed, you play certain music. Or that when you are becoming manic, you feel the need for more air and wish to keep the window open when you sleep.

Tell your partner what you would like them to do when you show any signs that you are edging toward depression or mania.

3. Have a Mutual Understanding About Medication

Make certain that you and your partner have an understanding of medication and its role in your well-being. You know that the temptation is strong to discontinue medication when you are doing well and that this can lead to trouble. Your partner needs written permission from you to contact your therapist or doctor if you stop taking medication without your doctor’s knowledge.

4. Include Your Partner in Therapy

Since you have chosen a special person to trust with these agreements, it is important that your treatment team members have some familiarity with them. Decide together how often your partner will be included in your meetings with your therapist and your prescribing doctor.

This might range from every meeting to far fewer times but should be no less than twice a year.

5. Specify When Your Partner May Reach Out

Agree on which behaviors, besides medication non-adherence, give your partner de facto permission to contact your therapist or psychiatrist outside of regularly scheduled meetings.

Be precise about these behaviors, such as not sleeping at night, uncharacteristic aggressiveness or belligerence, or major loss of interest in your usual pursuits.

6. Make a Video of the Agreements

Record yourself on video reading the written agreements you and your partner have made together. State in your own words that you know if your symptoms flare up, you will not want to follow through with these agreements, but that you give your partner permission to continue with what the two of you have written.

7. Urge Your Partner to Become Informed About Bipolar Disorder

There is an abundance of information available. Strongly request that your partner attend local support groups and family education courses available through mental health associations. Your trusted person needs a mixture of education, support, and direction — and you need them to be as informed as possible.

While you are well, remind yourself that bipolar is “an illness that tells you that you don’t have an illness.” Being realistic about the tricky nature of bipolar and staying vigilant with a plan, combined with medication and talk therapy, can make a big difference in the control you have over bipolar and in enjoying life fully.

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