Yes it can, you need to go to the doc and get started on some meds, and stop and take a look around you at what and who is there. Sounds to me like your mind is like mine was and still is at times, A f5 tornado things just running wide open 24/7. Just look back at the one you fell in love with in the beginning, I think that you will find you are as in love with them today as you were then. Its not an easy road for you or your mate but if they are willing to stand beside you and support you through it all, take the steps to make it easier on the both of you. I personally hate my disorder and taking meds but it has made my and my wifes life easier and were still trying to get the meds right, I'm not ashamed of the bipolar that I have nor am I of taking the meds, it helps. Just follow your heart and listen to your mate, Don't do what I did and not hear them IT ALMOST COSTED ME THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN MY LIFE, MY WIFE!!!

Hello..I was reading the comments below..about love being an act of the will..and having bipolar myself...loving too much..I am used to that extreme..and getting hurt with excess and my boudaries being too much or too little..so then I would pull away to protect myself...to fall into isolation..because I thought no one  would accept me..so  now I ask the Lord to  help  me to know  when to  speak..when to be quiet..and turn my pain,disappointment, fear of rejection..over to him..

I don't think it's as simple as saying bipolar disorder *causes* a muted or 'out of touch' perception of things. 

I think it's a symptom of untreated depression, when will and energy are sapped.

And it's a symptom of untreated mania; our brain has been spinning so fast with sensations, thoughts, ideas, and compulsions for so long that eventually it starts shutting down and can't take any more in or give anything out.

If we don't take care of ourselves - and truly, honestly, as best we can - then our body is so stressed it simply can't extend anything more for others. 

When I was untreated and unaware of bipolar disorder I would swing between being acutely perceptive, loving everyone, and deeply, in hypomania - and being a shell of emptiness in depression. Eventually my moods became mixed.

As I've been recovering (therapy, meds, education, self-awareness) in recent months, the long-term stress my body had been enduring for years is starting to release. I love deeply those who are truly close to me, but I'm not shattered by the disinterest of others. When I'm depressed, it's not so deep that I feel in a bubble anymore, unable to love or be reached by others' love.

Best of luck to you. Wellness is possible with bipolar. Healthy love is possible with bipolar. But it begins -as it does with 'normals' as well - with self-love.

I will try to answer from my own personal experience.  I don't think loving someone is as much a problem as much as listening to the person when they are speaking without interuppting or acting defensive to something they have said.  That is what got me in trouble and I lost someone who I am still in love with, it hurts but I am moving on. I don't take medication (made me worse, zombie like, and so unproductive, not to mention addicted) I researched and found an excellent therapist, a female because I believed that we would relate better due to the fact that we are the same sex, in others words I would feel more validated and understood because we are females.  I also attened AA program, and no I am not an alcoholic and yes, addicted to phsyc meds did not abuse them, you see for me part of the bipolar was living with an alcoholic parent, being sexual abused by an alcoholic, and living with an enabler so, for me personally I had to sit there listen, understand the disease, to see people recover, and many of them claim to have bipolar and alcohlism.  I also read melody beatties books on codependent and a few others.  I finally realized that my bipolar II was in a nutshell emotional sickeness, ptsd.  For the last 3 years I have worked on my feelings and behaviors.  Most of what I learned about myself was that I had low self-esteem, shame, fear, anger, self-less, self-centered, no self-worth. 

I was a scared, abused little girl hiding in an angry woman's body.  I thought something or someone was going to fill that void in my gut, I found out I was wrong, I was responsible for my own happiness, my life and no one else. 

I decided that labeling myself was an excuse not to deal with the painful core issues, the pills numb it somewhat, I didn't have to be responsible and when I really let myself spiral off into an emotional nut I would take a vacation in the physch ward. 

We all suffer from some past family dysfunction, some more than others. The entire american population is on pills because we all have learn that a quick fix is much better than doing the work and getting honest with ourselves. 

Don't get me wrong there are I feel a few exception(s) that should be on medication. 

You know they arrest people for possessing drugs, the consequences are fines, jail and a permanent record. And America can push drugs on TV adds and through doctors and legally get us hooked. 

I ask myself the question "Is American really hurting by giving so many young Americans social security disability for mental health illnesses or do they benefit financially by way of the pharmacutical companies? 

Anyway if you want to love, you got to grow up and do the work of emotional recovery. 

I am a work in progress.  I had to go through to get to the other side. 

Today I am in recovery from bipolar, I see a therapist, support group and I have worked on my communication skills and attitude.  The most important thing that I have done however, is build a idenity of my own.  I have taken on hobbies, new friends and interest that I mostly isolated from before. 

No I didn't get my X back and I am still in love with him deeply but I don't spend my days by the phone, or kidding myself that he will get over my unsavory behavior.  The truth is he thought it was too much work and he wasn't willing to do the work or put up with a woman who he thought he didn't have time to wait and see if I ever changed my behavior. 

And yes he know that I have been working on myself but he like all of has his own fears.  I have accpeted that we will never be and responsibility of the fact that I had no business being in a relationship, especially when I was even in a healthy relationship with myself. 

You have to work on yourself and love you before you can love anyone else in full. 

Good luck and if you really want to find the answer to your question look in the mirror and ask yourself Why you feel mute when it comes to love. 

I was dx with bipolar and I can give love, feel love, I just could never handle all that came with love like a mature adult. 

We only have two emotions "Love and Fear" we can chose which one we want to manifest.  I decided to love and since then I have been medication free for almost two and half years. Today I can honestly say that I love myself.  My relationships are better.  Getting here was not easy but as time when on it got better...the confusion truned into clarity. 

Good luck..........do the work if you want love!

I do al ot of loving when i'm "up" and feel very connected to my husband and child - up to the point where i'm too up to see it's not all about me. When i'm down I can sometimes feel very "disconnected", almost as if I can't feel anything but more like i'm not really here. Other times this evolves into extreme anger and I lash out harshly at those closest to me. I don't think it's all cause of bipolar, but it does not help. I do know that I love them, deep down, even when I feel "out of touch" as you put it. I always have it somewhere in this brain of mine...I love them and that never really goes away, even when i'm ranting (can cause alot of guilt that I sometimes don't want to face as well).

I think if you really love someone that this "out of touch" or "disassociation" feeling will pass, and that somewhere inside you still know you love them, you just can't access it sometimes, often the times when it's really needed.

N

I Have Bi Polar with a case of ADHD I currently take adderal XR extended release.

I've had it since i could remember so far my time i've been commited was at age 8 unsure if they then diagnosed me then or at 13 when i returned and so on and so forth.

I do feel love but its harsh when i do.and im scared to get involved and its a trigger i itch so idk if its letting you see it from another person but.The key i deal with is putting myself into the people i care about maybe you just were going down a path with a return maybe you new it should end but did nothin idk.ask yourself questions with someone you know that will listen so you can figure the anwsers yourself. IT works.

I have been severly bipolar since a young teenager. I thought I knew how to love, though it's expression was muted during depression because I felt so bad about me. The worse I felt, the more I'd withdraw until i'd become delusional as to my .evilness. I believed the devil was part of me. Soon I'd be commanded to kill myself. When I was high, love would obssess me. But it was not a normal give and take relationship. It was all me....and I hadn't a clue. As the high got higher, I became more grandiose, irritable, with a mind that would ramble and then run through the years, philosophy, ideas..until, again I had to isolate to control the stimuli and what was becoming confusion. Did I have a better self opinion...not really because there wasn't a real me in a real world. I was just part of my hallucinations. So, to make a long story short, I could't truely love until chemically I became more controlled and I had to learn to love and accept me. Then came the backslides and the hospitalizations, and the very frequent med changes. Further healing would take 30 years of my own search to accept and understand me and others. The last step was forgiving my mother who was also bipolar and never on meds :  forgive her, she never knew        and me  I never knew why not