If you could see the big picture Casper, you would see I am not coddling Bacon. I did something that you all could/did not manage to do in years, and that is realize how serious his bp issue was, draw it to his attention repeatedly and relentlessly , and pretty much strong arm him into getting treatment when in the first stages of mania, when he actually listened to me. I made the phone calls, talked to the area doctors, gave directions, talked to him thru the initial ER visit, offered to pay for initial treatment (didn't become necessary) consulted with Cami etc etc ad naseam. I fought him tooth and nail for him to get Cami severance which he was not wanting to do. There was not a lot of coddling early on.
I stopped communication, when necessary, and called him out on his bullshit every time there seemed to be an excuse for him to not start the meds. But he is down to his last excuse and that is the insurance deal. Time will tell. Chances are he may choose to not start medication. Mania is like a cocaine addiction...but I have hoped that pressure from the forum, along with encouragement from his employer will convince him to at least give it a shot. Firing at him needlessly will not help me to that end.
I have been on the receiving end of the same love/hate texts that you have. I have told Bacon to fuck off when necessary, but I am not abandoning him completely in the final stretch of what I view as a make or break time in finally addressing this. I have too much time invested. If I fail at this, the last 6 weeks of Bacon's bp negatively affecting almost every aspect of my life, will have been for naught.
7 weeks or so Cami asked me if I would mind putting in a few plays for Bacon at my book. Before this I had not talked to either of them outside of the forum in a year or so. He only made a couple of plays (broke even) before the mania hit. I probably got more involved than I should have (in large part due to my friendship with Cami) but I did grow to understand him a little more, and certainly understand that Bipolar is more than just mood swings.
You are aware that he is mentally ill but keep baiting him and arguing with someone who is INCAPABLE of seeing reality right now. So you either don't believe that he is bp, or you are handling it very poorly. I am not handling it perfectly either, but I am trying to hold on best I can for another week til he either is on the way to well, or choose to remain unwell in which case my "coddling" will be over.
The stuff you see on the forum doesn't hold a candle to what I have witnessed and dealt with, and thus truly believe he is very VERY sick. He has confided in me about family history with the stuff, and it isn't pretty. I think you know down very, very deeply Casper what type of person he is when he is not manic. He is the guy who stood up for you when NO ONE else here was. I know deep down that you guys will figure this out in the future.
My frame of mind may change in a week when it's time for meds because at that point he is choosing not to be well and therefore he is directly responsible for all his behavior. We can debate his responsibility at this time, but if he outright choose not to get well, there will be no debate. I understand it is frustrating for you and Pucky. Watching the shit he pulled with Cami, it was tough not to abandon my position, but here I am...for better or worse. Who would have thunk it a year ago?
I don't go into all this to sound like a saint. I have purposefully tried to avoid details of the last couple of months. But when someone says I am "coddling" Bacon, I think it's important to understand where I'm coming from.
As an end note, Cami girl is a saint and even after he fired and dumped her with little to no warning, she did her best to help me help him, and be a friend to him. I'm sure on some level he has realized what he lost. Maybe that was caused by the mania, and maybe it wasn't...but he referred to some deflection of pain in one of his last postsm and that is something I predicted and warned him of early on. I'm sure that pain is real. Let's all just try to hang on for another week or so. I realize that despite Bacon suffering from BP, the posters of this forum are also suffering as a result. You all can respond to him how you want...but me personally, I'm trying to hold on...at least another day.
