my boyfriend is bi-polar

i can't sleep.
ever since i broke up with boyfriend (aka my soulmate - or so i think) i've been quite the insomniac.
if at least, i'd do anything useful with my extra time awake....

my friend mabi tells me that i should stop breaking up with j already, this is getting ridiculous.
- well, i say, i have good reasons. i don't just break up out of nowhere.
- then why do you keep making up a week later?
- i don't know, ...cuz i love him and sometimes my stupid heart is stronger than my mind.

all i can say is that the things i let slide with this man are things i would have never - ever - let slide with anyone else.
i have a 50-something page letter to myself sitting on my computer, telling me why i should let this thing go ..... but i can't.

so, apparently he is bi-polar. "mildly bipolar", they say but be as it might be he isn't functioning properly. he doesn't have his shit together and for someone like him that's just strange.

someone like him? .... well, i mean his IQ and his life before his first break-down. apparently, my dear bfd is a math genius. he has worked for the NASA, received scholarships to prestigious places of education (columbia university included),..... so tell me, how can someone so smart be so dumb?

he isn't dumb. he is just in denial, i think. he really seems to think he is doing just fine and is on the right path to correct his situation. he doesn't need any medication and he certainly doesn't need the advice of his girlfriend. so, instead, he self-medicates (with anything he can think of), and stands outside with the dealers on his block all day.no job, no place to live of his own, no money ever, no car, no way to return to school, in a fight every other day .... but apparently, none of this calls for drastic action..... certainly not for any medication, which might help to function in daily life. de-nial.

i just can't handle it. i love him. god, do i love him. ... but after a year and a half, i am pretty sure i am enabling him.we have become so much better (-- he has become so much better) in our relationship with each other and i am sure i (and the home, love, honesty, loyalty, and endurance i've provided) have been its own kind of therapy for him but i don't think it is enough.it was enough to stabelize (spelling?) him (no more hospital admissions, no more drunken rages, no more irrational outbursts) but i think he needs more than just my love to get his life in order.

anyway, ... so i can't sleep because i have trouble sleeping without him.he's been over twice this week but all we've done is snuggle, which apparently confuses the hell out of him, or so he says.i've tried to explain that the only way i can let go a little - and let him do his thing (all the crap i think is wrong for him) - i have to trick myself into believing that we are not together. so,... we can sleep with each other once in a while (we're all adults here) but not every day (cuz then it's a relationship).

of course, this is stupid ... but i don't know what else to do.i love him and miss him. i feel a connection to him like i have never felt for anyone before but i don't want to be with a guy who does the things he does. i've stood by for over a year now to see and help him get his shit together but it looks like there is no will to do so. and i'm sorry but if you choose to be a "bad boy" then i can't help you. you gotta do what you gotta do. i don't want to control your life ... as much as i seem to have the control freak urges in me. i don't. i want you to make the choices yourself because you think they're right, not because i tell you to ... or you respond to some sort of ultimatum. i just don't want to rob you of this freedom, for one day you will realize that that's what has happened. you will feel as if you'd been robbed of your freedom. i don't want that kind of relationship. i don't ever want to be blamed for anything.

i've started going to therapy.
first i went with j, for it was supposed to be couples' therapy. we kept breaking up with each other but we really wanted to be together.this week i went by myself, for i had broken up with j last week (this time over him disappearing at midnight - with my car - and then not showing up until 7:30 in the morning - high on coke or ecstasy or whatever, wondering why i was taking his house-keys from him at arrival.)
i have an older brother who is a heroin addict, for god's sake. i can't f'in watch this. i have zero tolerance for it. zero. it breaks my freakin' heart.

anyway, ...i was talking about therapy.so, the therapist - who is quite a nice lady but has got a serious case of ADD, in my opinion - ... she mentioned that people with bi-polar disorder, as brilliant as some of them might be, usually get stuck at the emotional age of the time they showed first signs of the illness. Usually, late teens to early twenties. That would explain a lot about the sometimes very immature way he reacts to relationship situations.
But, it's contagious I tell you. If one party acts immature and wild, it's difficult to keep your cool as the supposedly more balanced person in the relationship. i mean, j has triggered feelings of rage in me, i had never felt before. jealousy, being one of them. we have had actual fist-fights - he and i. that's because i'm a tomboy and he was not in his right mind at the time.

anyway, ... friends who know me for years say they don't recognize me. never have they seen me so emotional ... and jealous?! really? moi?

but things have calmed down - more or less.i really don't know what will become of him but i know i want him in my life somehow. i want him near to me. i can get used to anything, i think. even if he moves on with another woman... all i care is that i don't lose my soulmate as my friend.