Help dealing with boyfriend who has bipolar disorder

Hi everyone,

I'm new here. I didn't know where else to turn for help so I'm trying this forum. My boyfriend has bipolar 1. We've been together happily for a year. We've had our ups and downs but have managed to work through them- until now. Friday night we went shopping, came home, ordered food and watched a movie. My boyfriend went outside to smoke marijuana and came back inside. He all of a sudden starts accusing me of sleeping with someone else. At first I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't. This turned into a huge argument because I was extremely livid and offended by his question. He then starts becoming aggressive. He wants to go through my phone to see if I've been talking to another man. At first I said no because we've never had to do this before. But then I gave him the phone. He starts reading my personal messages between myself and family members and I just felt so violated. I try to take my phone back and he was becoming very aggressive about it. I tried getting dressed to leave because I started to feel unsafe and he snatched my clothing from my hands and blocked the door. Eventually I was able to leave the house. He's been leaving me crazy voicemails since Friday, telling me he has proof and people know what I did. I have NEVER cheated on him ever. I am deeply in love with him and would never cheat. I'm so heartbroken that I'm being accused of something I have not done. I asked my boyfriend prior to leaving if he's still on his medication and he refused to answer me. So my question to the community is has anyone else dealt with this before? Is this a common occurrence with those who suffer from Bipolar? Could he be experiencing some type of psychosis? I'm considering reaching out to his family. Thank you for reading this.

Hello Sanai: I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral. I hope you find the time you spend here to be of benefit.

I'm sorry you have had this unfortunate experience. I can't really offer you anything substantive with regard to what's going on here. Hopefully there will be some other members, here on PC, who will have some insights they can share. However here are links to some articles, from PsychCentral's archives, on the subject of what to do when someone you love has delusions. Hopefully some of the information in these articles will be of some help:

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/careg...is-delusional/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/careg...out-delusions/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/careg...has-delusions/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/careg...nes-delusions/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/careg...hout-fighting/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/careg...ional-beliefs/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/careg...dium=popular17

My best wishes to you...

You may also want to visit this portion of the site for some support as well.
https://forums.psychcentral.com/part...ivers-support/

Just keep swimming
I have BPD or Autism or both, we may never know, the focus is always the symptoms, not the diagnosis

I can't speak for your boyfriend, but I can say that I have experienced paranoia and delusional thinking before do to episodes. When I get really manic I start to get paranoid that people are watching me and eventually I start believe the paranoid thoughts are true, no matter what people do or say contrary to those believes. It could just be that his paranoid thinking and/or delusional thinking is that you're cheating. No matter what you do or say to challenge his believes he's still going to believe it until he gets the proper help. I know that whenever I start to have these the wife has to convince me to call the doctor or up my meds. I wish there was something else I could suggest.

On a side note, he probably shouldn't be smoking weed because it is known to cause episodes or make them worse.