For me, it's not a SO, but my father. He's been depressed since his early teens, and these symptoms manifested into bipolar disorder and alcoholism. He is now in his early fifties. He was diagnosed in his twenties but due to his belief that psychology is a load of bullshit and he knows better than anyone else, he never pursued treatment and instead allowed these symptoms to fester. Until a few months ago, I knew none of this. He was impossible to live with for my youth, prone to furious outbursts of emotional abuse followed by periods where he would shut himself off and hold grudges for weeks, if not months. He would refuse to be reasoned with and believed that he was the only one right in the world. He was often drunk throughout my childhood and this manifested a cruel, dark minded drunk man. He would alternate between manic periods of wanting to be involved in my life and an active father and depressive periods of shutting himself off from his family minus the occasional violent outburst. He was never physically abusive, but the emotional abuse has left lasting impacts in my family. My parents would get into fights that would result in my mother and I leaving and sometimes not coming home for a few days at a time. My sister was substantially older than me and moved out when I was still very young, leaving me and my already unstable mother to deal with my father. My childhood was largely hell. While there were good times, they were often overshadowed by the actions of my father.

A few months ago my father completed an enormous project at work that had taken a huge emotional toll on him and a slew of other problems arose. Facing a chance of losing his job, my father had a complete nervous breakdown and admitted his alcoholism and depression, and explained to me that he had been living with it since his early teens. It made me angry to not have known this earlier, since my own issues with depression manifested in my early teens and I feel as if this knowledge would have been beneficial to me back then. But that's passed and nothing will change it. He was even worse to live with than usual, sinking further into his depression which nothing seemed to pull him out of. My mother and I were constantly on pins and needles around him. He is now in therapy and his doctors are attempting to regulate his medications so he can function on a day to day basis and return to work after a multiple month break. It has been stressful and often impossible, and the strain my family is under every day is immense. My already splintering relationship with my parents is pretty well shot nowadays, and we're barely able to speak to each other without it becoming a conflict. I greatly look forward to moving out within a few months and being free of this oppressive, uncomfortable environment. That's all I got. If you've got any questions or anything, have at it. I'll gladly answer them.