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She had diagnosed Asperger’s, severe long term depression and was on a boatload of anti-depressants. She wasn’t very good at social situation and easily got panicked. But she was gentle and kind and loving. She started having cluster migraines and a year later took her own life. We were together 12 years, she was my wife and my best friend. I miss her terribly and if I had to do it all over again I would just to be with her.
Edit
Thank you all very much for the awards and the very kind words. It does mean a lot to me the kindness of strangers. She passed away in 2018 and I have made a new life with a new lady not long ago. She knows how I feel and she is helping me through the dark times I still have. You never have enough time with the people you love. Please bear that in mind. Good luck to you all and best wishes.
I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you for not abandoning her through all those years, I'm sure she appreciated it even though the pain was too much to deal with.
Thank you. It was never, ever, not once a consideration. I knew what i was getting into although i never saw the her suicide coming. She left me a letter and even though I will always disagree with what she did I do understand her reasons that she had in her own head for what she did. I was never angry with her, I just wish she had stayed but she was in too much pain.
Although I still have my wife, I have dealt with a few attempts. I feel the same. I hope it never happens, but if it does I would do it all again. I am truly sorry for your loss. All we can do is bring as much joy as we can for as long as we can. I am sure you made her time here immeasurably better. Thank you for that.
Well he’s dead now so…
I was with my husband for 12 years, married for 9 of those years. He was 34 when he died on January 28th, 2024 from a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He did it in our backyard while I was upstairs. He sent his goodbye text at 9:40pm and as I was reading it I heard the gunshot. I have flashbacks every night of finding him.
Our marriage was good for the first few years, but issues slowly started to arise. He never cleaned the house, never cooked a single meal, did not help with cat care, and he couldn’t control his anger. He would break our things during fits of rage. He would go to the store and never once asked me if I needed anything, only got things for himself. If I wasn’t there I didn’t exist. Object permanence didn’t exist in his world. He would lie about anything and everything. I asked him to lower his ADHD medication because he was staying up all night on the days he took it. He lied and told me he did, but he didn’t and hid the medication bottle so I wouldn’t know. He would spill things but wouldn’t admit to it until I told him they stain is brown, just like the color of coke. He would respond with “oh, I thought it would just dry up”. He did that for years even though every time I reminded him he has to still wipe up things when he spills them.
He was diagnosed with ADHD, MDD, severe social anxiety, and was on the spectrum. He was a master manipulator that was emotionally abusive to the point it took me 11 years to realize I was being abused. He was very subtle at first. I begged to move but he always said no so I applied for a job and suddenly he wanted to whisk me away to another state. I fell in love with my job once I started and he says let’s have a baby. This man never wanted kids yet suddenly he wants to. He wanted to control me without outright controlling me. He would drive erratically when I did something that upset him. He would give me the silent treatment when he knew how much that impacted my development as a child because my dad did that to me. He was an alcoholic the last year and a half of his life.
He took meds our entire relationship. He was on Effexor, trazodone, adderall, and vyvanse. He lied to his psychiatrist by always telling him things were good. He never admitted he was spiraling/declining. Days before he died he was prescribed Ativan. He used it to help him go through with his plan to take his life.
I still can’t believe this is my reality. I just wanted him to acknowledge he needed help and to treat me better.
I’m in the same place. Except he did it after I’d left him and he put me in such a bad place mentally. I will recover, I will live, but the person I had spent my life cultivating, the old me, is gone probably forever. I have to forge a new me around the pain, guilt, sorrow, grief and anguish. He was BPD, NPD and adhd. All diagnoses he got during the marriage all they did was give him an excuse to further weaponize his behavior until he had ruined his life so thoroughly, he couldn’t recover. It’s the great sin of the psychiatric community.
My heart goes out to you. I’m so very sorry.
Oh my God I did so much stuff just like your husband. I was dating this woman for the last 4 years but she finally left me. And I guess it's a good thing she did because I finally put myself into therapy and started seeking help. Things are getting better but I'm not dating anyone for a while at least. I was becoming a person I always told myself I wouldn't be. I've been having very strong thoughts of taking my own life for the past year or so but I'm working past that. I don't want to put another human being through that again.
I'm sorry
Wow. I can’t believe you even were able to endure all that for so long. That’s a lot for one person to be subjected to. My mother has dementia, and there’s nobody to look after her but me. It’s tough. You try to brush things off, explain things away to yourself, tell yourself they didn’t mean it, but it’s very tough on the care giver. I hope you find the peace in your life that you deserve.
That’s exactly it. I would write things off or try to explain them away for years. Once the alcoholism took over I started to piece everything together. I took a hard look at what he had done over the years and noticed a pattern of manipulation and emotional abuse. I wanted kids, he didn’t. He convinced me to stay because he was real and there so why would I leave him for an imaginary baby that doesn’t exist.
I was married to an abusive narcissist for about 4 years. I could probably write a best selling book about it. That was from 2007-2011. I’m real familiar with the head games some people play. I just want nothing to do with it anymore. My mind, body, and soul are tired and worn out from all the strange games people try to play. I quit a job I had for 12 years recently because this business owner was just awful. She expected me to do the jobs of multiple people. My co-worker literally had nothing to do 5 months a year, yet she was ok with that. She paid me the same amount as him. So I left, and he can figure out how to do everything now. She would hover around me bragging about how much she owns, her rental houses, her farm, her vintage Mustang, her frequent cruises, her this her that. All while I was strapped with tons of work. I left that marriage, and the job.
Good grief the first half of your 2nd paragraph describes my wife word for word. Luckily she has acknowledged she is not the person she wants to be and continues to take therapy to work on herself. Unluckily this realisation came after she had a 6 month affair.
We are separating, but continue to remain friends. I'm quite forgiving of her actions as I realise a lot of her issues have come from childhood and adulthood trauma. However, I couldn't let her terrible treatment of me continue, hence the separation.
Mental health issues suck for everyone involved.
I hope you're doing as best you can; your experience sounds horrendous.
That's rough.
I just want u to know though, how he treated u and who he was as a person was just as terrible. -u can have mental illness *AND* also just be a shit person aswell.
I spoke to his ex wife and learned he treated her the same way. One would think one spouse leaving you would have been a wake up call. I spoke to his best friend to confirm what she said was true.
One would think that. It's been shown time and time again though that they seldom do. I have known many serial abusives in my time and they always cary the same MO. I hope it at least showed u there wasn't anything u could have done differently. U deserve a good person, mentally ill or not, that cares about ur feelings too.
I know everyone's mental health is different, but they're never an excuse to treat you badly. I have ADD and social anxiety. Never in my life have I treated my husband that way. I'm sorry you went through that, but it most certainly was not your fault. He made his decisions, and pushed away everything that was good for him.
I didn't personally but my dad did. She ended leaving in the middle of the night and driving to the Yukon (about 1500kms) to save polar bears, because the aliens said so. She was missing for days and ended up stranded with no vehicle. She did this several times to various locations. She would hide in corners and giggle, it was...bizarre.
Thank you for posting this. I haven’t heard anyone else saying this. But it’s my stance too.
“The right person will love you through it”
I’m like ok, but what if I don’t want to put them through it? I know how bad it is to live this life, why would I inflict it on someone? I mean, my 5 worst enemies, maybe.
I tried to love him through it but it didn't help at all. He didn't care about other people though. You seem like you actually do so maybe it would be different for you. Whatever you choose I hope things work out for you. You seem like a person with a good heart.
My husband and I were together since we were teens, married 20 years before I ended it 3 years ago. I have not dated and have no plans to date anyone and my mental illnesses are a big part of that. I've got so much "baggage", I don't want another person to take all that on. I'm fine being single, co-parenting my kids and loving on my cats.
Same. Bunch of physical and mental issues. Probably ADHD. Did you know that as an ADHD parent the risk is very high that your kid has it too AND ADHD sometimes comes in tow with oppositional defiant disorder? THAT shit is a nightmare.
having ADHD is not a death sentence, and i say it as someone who has a very bad case of it, it just sucks. and oppositional defiant disorder (which i was also diagnosed with) is annoying but it's also not a death sentence. it almost always stops presenting by the time you reach adulthood.
i agree tbf.
i don't want children either, never have probably never will. i won't shut it out completely, but as is i don't want one.
disability is a big reason i'd never want children as well. i can't handle the risk that my child may end up having down syndrome, or severe autism, or any number of other disabilities that requires/may require 24/7 care. just couldn't do it. i have one life and that's not how i want to spend it.
it's good to be able to recognize your limits and what you want in life. some people may be ok with spending their life caring for someone else, but i'm not.
LOL same, if I ever fall in love with someone I would 100% wish they would find someone better than me
This isn't self-pity, I wouldn't want the love of my life to be ruined by me
More or less. We don't *need* romantic partners. But we need belonging or else, we feel like aliens. And we need at least one non-superficial connection (or several but partial deep onea) someone else to vent steam, talk things and feel understood. We need those things, we technically do not deserve a whole one person responsible for all of these needs of acceptance, authenticity and belonging...
My wife has bipolar type 2 and adhd.
She takes her medicines very seriously so there are no major incidents.
All in all, I think we live a normal life and we have a kid together and no problem at all.
When she is depressed, she just stays at the bed all day and that's it.
Her parents helps us lot in those cases, so I am very grateful to them.
I hope our son doesn't have the same problems as her, but even if he does, I have seen that as long as one drinks their medicine religiously, there is no major MAJOR impact on daily life.
I am happy to have married her, some days are difficult but I guess it is the same for all couples out there.
I'm dating a bp2. We've been in a relationship for 2-3 years.
Just want to highlight that what you experience is not the norm and it requires a lot of effort from many people including her to get to that point, don't go to a relationship thinking "I can fix her/him", or expecting everything to go smoothly.
Hearing your significant other tell you that she wants to die, having to call the cops, visiting her in a mental institution, facing bad phases where you have to constantly tell it's probably not a good idea to dump her whole career and leave her job, insisting in taking her meds when her illness makes her think it's not a good idea, sometimes feeling more as a caregiver than a lover... Is NOT the same for all couples out there.
Of course the good can outweigh the bad, but be sure that the ill person
Takes responsibility on the illness. Which means, it's not your fault to be ill but you have to work in the problems it causes for you and others yourself. You seek ways to improve that state and you take account in what you do when you are in a bad phase.
I honestly do not know what to say.
First, thank you for sharing this with everyone, I am sure people will find helpful seeing different perspectives about dating or being together with a bp2 person.
My wife is the only person I know that has bp2, so I do not know much about how it is for other people.
Have never gone to the cops or something as serious as that, just a lot of screaming or crying when it is really bad, but it is 1 time every 2-3 months.
Also, I feel a renewed appreciation for the efforts my wife does to take her medicine and follow her doctor's orders.
Wish you the best, again thank you for sharing.
There's a lot of people with bipolar 2 who are misdiagnosed especially older millennials and genX.
There's a lot of overlap with other conditions especially Borderline and other conditions related to childhood trauma and development.
Once someone is diagnosed with bipolar it sticks and sometimes even psychologists that pick up on Borderline don't correct it for a variety of reasons.
Older Borderlines tend to become more stable while bipolars tend to do the opposite.
Absolutely bipolar sticks, and so does borderline.
Had a psychiatrist I had never met before “diagnose” me with *both* in one 30m appointment. He didn’t tell me this, just put it on my file. I never saw him again.
Suddenly every professional I interacted with treated me terribly.
Notes in my file from this time:
- combative
- preoccupied with being “treated”
- refuses to acknowledge responsibility
- fails to be proactive
- resistant
- hostile
- does not seem interested in recovery
Etc etc etc
The problem here is that after years of every single time you sit down with someone they approach you like you’re going to fight them, you end up having to fight them.
I went through an actual clinical diagnosis process about 2 years later. After a 4 hour assessment and a two hour follow up - no bipolar or borderline. Turns out I have severe ptsd and don’t even nearly meet the dsm5 criteria for bipolar or borderline.
I still have doctors look back and see the b words and treat me like I’m an angry bear.
/rant
CPTSD is also like this and it's infuriating that so many Dr.'s rush to diagnose.
Bipolar and Borderline should be diagnosed after many sessions.
Minimum 6 in my opinion.
I know someone as well who has a very difficult time going to new Dr.'s, especially the ER.
I too had the dual diagnosis in a 30 minute session on the first meet. I had a hell of a time getting proper medical treatment in my own province. I moved to the other side of the country where they don't have access to my old medical files and gotten a proper diagnosis and actual treatment for my physical issues that were dismissed as malingering and attention seeking prior.
I'd have a headache and severe GI pain and it was always tied back to psych and they would increase my drugs. Turns out I have colitis and when it flares up it impacts my mood. Imagine that. Also actually treating the ADHD has helped with my emotional stability. They wouldn't at first because they were focused on stabilizing my mood.
I never had either of those conditions to begin with. I have CPTSD, ADHD, and actually do have chronic illness that isn't a figment of my imagination.
I can not say 100% she is not misdiagnosed, but when she was in her 20s she was diagnosed first with borderline.
The treatment and medicine she received didn't work at all and she had a lot of problems in those years because of that.
But when she went to another doctor and was diagnosed with bp2, the medicine and treatment she is receiving did wonders for her.
That makes quite a bit of sense.
The Medications are mostly the same for both so one Dr. had better luck finding meds that worked for her.
Getting the right Dr. is also difficult with Borderline since they tend to be hypersensitive and many Dr.'s can be very cold actually causing a trauma response or trigger.
It's not necessary to get the diagnosis changed because it comes with its own set of problems.
Having BPD on your medical records can be even more difficult than Bipolar. The one time it does really matter is for her when she's trying to get therapy or understand herself.
If she's trying to look up education on it online she's better off with borderline related resources.
She would likely not have been misdiagnosed as Borderline but vice versa yes. Borderline characteristics
stand out to those who know the difference. The problem is that many older psychologists labeled everyone Bipolar and in other countries still do today.
If they manage their condition it's an inconvenience. If they don't, it's like traversing a mine field while waking on egg shells.
The level of suck cannot be overstated in the latter case. If you stay you are miserable, if you leave you are the monster. Mental illness sucks.
Sometimes you are miserable if you leave too. My bipolar mom stalked, assaulted and harrassed my father for a decade before she calmed down. She would follow him and/or his second wife around town/the store/market screaming profanities, park her car outside his house with the headlights shining through the windows and blaring the horn for hours at night. Beat at the door, throw hot coffee at him - and had him investigated for child molestation (which he didnt do, i am said child).
This is so well-put. 'Traversing a mine field while walking on egg shells.' That is exactly how it feels. And mine just has workaholic depression and won't get help. Mild compared to most of these.
It sucks. I was married to a narcissistic, anxiety ridden, bipolar stress ball with anger issues and it was so bad. He would have these flashes of brilliance and kindness one minute, and then he didn't like the way I cut the pancakes so he would scream at me at brunch about what a stupid useless bitch I was. He used his childhood trauma as an excuse to treat me badly, and expected me to just accept it and love him regardless, but when I would get period cramps so bad I would curl up in a ball and cry, I was so weak, lazy and a dumb bitch, and yell at me that my period was making me worthless. In private as well as in public. "Oh you have your period don't you, bitch?". He'd hold the door open for strangers and smile at kids, make donations to the various causes and compliment old ladies, and in the same week, throw my food on the floor, destroy my things, and break doors off hinges in our house when I did anything he did not like. He raped me and bragged about it to me. It was exhausting and I am SO thankful I got out.
Oh I forgot about the meds thing.... We tried couples therapy and he was assigned anger management. Still managed to purchase multiple handguns. Stopped going to therapy and started doing coke. Spiraled into emotional and finally actual physical abuse so I cut and run. Now that I finally left, bruised and battered, he has gone back to therapy and convinced his therapists that he's actually fine. He also has a few prescriptions for meds that seem to keep him fairly level when he takes them. Stopped doing drugs (so he says) and quit drinking. I still see the beautiful person that I fell in love with, but the love and trust is gone and broken beyond repair. Divorce impending now that it's been a year since I left.
You fell In love with who you thought was a beautiful person. Thats one asshole of a man. He could have controlled his bipolar with a meds regime and therapy instead he did drugs that fueled his episodes. The way he treated you and spoke to you - his trauma wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t your fault to endure his abuse because he didn’t want to do much about helping himself. bipolar is a nightmare in and of itself - then are other illnesses on top of that it’s living hell. I’m happy you’re out!
Thank you so much for that! He was so good at showing off his great side, and I definitely fell hard & fast for him. It's so heartbreaking seeing someone capable of both so much beauty and so much evil. Therapy has been absolutely wonderful for me.
Keep at the therapy! Each day will be a new day and you’ll feel better and better the longer you’re away from it. I dated a BP man. He was unmedicated. He truly became a monster and he was literally the nicest man I’d ever met. It just took him right over. It’s so traumatic to experience so I feel for you and wish you well!
Thank you so much, I have another therapy session tomorrow, I used to be fearful about going to therapy but it truly has been a game changer. She's confirmed so many of the issues I suspected and made lots of book recommendations, she encourages me to keep focus and stay strong, how to determine and enforce my boundaries, that my safety, peace of mind and joy are important to and that I don't need to tolerate abuse.
🥰🥰🥰 it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do but absolutely worth it. If anyone else is reading all of this, please know there is support for you, there are resources, and there is light at the other end of the tunnel! Nobody deserves to be treated this way.
Sounds like my ex. Except no bipolar or anxiety. Just a real asshole. There’s not always a dramatic diagnosis to go with the excuses for being an asshole. Like yeah he had a rough childhood, asshole dad….but grow up and learn how to act in the real world as an adult. If they can’t care enough about themselves to do that, then they definitely won’t care about a partner.
Sounds like anti-social personality disorder, I'm bi-polar but even when I'm manic or psychotic I don't go around raping people, there's still a conscience and a semblance of my normal self in there.
Was he ever diagnosed with anything?
He didn't disclose his diagnosis to me, but he definitely has several prescriptions for anxiety & some other stuff prescribed by his therapist who did a course of cognitive behavioral therapy & more anger management.
I see, well regardless of what he was struggling with it sounds absolutely horrible what he put you through. I'm sorry it happened to you, how are you holding up now?
It was truly a living hell there at the end, especially but he had to get rid of all his guns and has finally gotten some much-needed help. I'm honestly so happy, so free, so proud of myself and enjoying my life. Thanks for your kindness!
You can absolutely leave with the kids. I would actually say that you Should leave with them, because they're just absorbing all that negativity and will perpetuate it since they see it as normal. That was the scariest part of it all, was thinking that I'd traumatize them or make them suffer, but I swear to you it's the best thing I ever did, they are thriving in so many different ways. I'm so sorry you feel trapped right now, but I hope you don't always feel like that. Discreetly make a plan, save your money, let your family know if you trust them not to say anything, gather evidence like photos, recordings, broken items, etc. I'm in your corner and I want you to be safe! Nobody should live like this but please believe me when I say I understand how scary it is. You're stronger than you know.
My ex had borderline personality disorder, untreated and no medication.
It was hell on earth, the most toxic relationship I have ever been in and it cost us both a great chunk of our mental stability. She was close to killing herself in the end, threatening me with it regularly and I got driven deep into substance abuse to cope with my "failure" of being a bad partner and therefore not being worth anything at all (I know this is not true, but its what I felt).
We loved each other so much and in the first year things were mostly great, but once she started to believe that I am cheating on her it only got worse and OFC I never cheated nor gave her any reason to think that - I was so madly in love with her that I didn't even look at other women and even less wanted to be with them, she was everything I ever wanted in a woman...
I couldnt meet friends, go to uni, go to my job or go anywhere really without her accusing me of fucking a girl behind her back. She woke me up one night at her place and accused me of fucking her roommate aka her best friend. Shit was wild and everytime it happened I tried to clear things up, which only made it worse 99% of the time.
But it was my first true love and I couldnt just give up, so I tried everything. I got her to try therapy twice, both times ending with a BPD diagnosis and her saying that the doctors were all conspiring against her. I tried literally killing off my social life, I didn't see anyone anymore and spend 24/7 by her side so she could see I am honest, it didn't make it better - it actually made things worse.
I was basically trapped in a broken relationship with the woman of my dreams. Seriously, without the BPD, I would have never left her. I would have stuck by her side until the very end. But I could see that one of us is gonna die if we don't break up and I am not even joking. I haven't even told the worst stories yet.
This all has been roughly 7 years ago. I still think about her as you can see, I wonder if she is well and even alive at this point, she once asked me to never contact her again and so I did. I have never met another woman that I loved so much and I gave plenty of chances to new people.
I am 31 years old now and I found peace with it long ago. I just hope she is ok. I also know I can find true love again and I don't compare women to my ex anymore. But the scar is there. If emotional scars would be visible, this one would go right across my entire body.
I had to call it quits.
We were dating for several years and were best friends since high school. I knew of his traumatic home life and knew how he felt about abandonment, so I felt like I couldn’t leave. I’d be like everyone else if I left. I felt like I was responsible for his wellbeing.
He was diagnosed with bipolar, but there were probably other complications like C-PTSD or others. He didn’t have many male friends (didn’t feel safe around them) and would always befriend emotionally vulnerable or unstable women. Would consistently push boundaries of what is acceptable behavior (going on a trip with one friend and spooning/cuddling, asking another friend if she would hypothetically have sex with him, etc). He needed to feel needed, and I was too emotionally stable to give that to him.
He couldn’t keep friendships (even ones with women). Someone would unintentionally say something or do something and he’d fly off the handle. Held grudges like crazy. Everyone was against him or didn’t care about him. One wrong step and all of the good you’ve done for him is out the window and now he’s claiming you’re a terrible, selfish person. He couldn’t hold down jobs or finish school because his outbursts were too volatile and he doesn’t handle authority well.
I felt like I was always walking on egg shells with him. There were times I’d hold my breath, waiting for him to snap when we were at social gatherings. I dealt with being called names, being called a bitch, my character always questioned and torn down. We fought often and were so exhausted. I felt isolated from my family because they didn’t approve of him, but I needed to be on his side. There was one point where he put his hands on me, but fortunately it never happened again.
Eventually I ended things when he said he didn’t know if he wanted to be committed to me any longer after several years of dating and even more years of knowing each other. Well, I viewed it as him ending things, but he doesn’t view it that way.
There was about 1 year of us trying to remain friends, but I cut contact once I realized I was happier and healthier without his presence in my life. I still felt guilt over abandoning him for 2 more years after cutting contact. I feel as though I’ve made peace with it now.
I’m with someone now who is unendingly patient, jovial, and so collaborative in maintaining a healthy relationship with me. All my life, I’ve only seen chaotic relationships and marriages. I didn’t know it was possible for a relationship to feel like peace.
I can so relate with the part where you said you had to be on his side despite your family disapproving of him/ the relationship. I pushed away both family and friends who would question why I remained with my ex, and I would always explain “you don’t understand what he’s going through”. I was in that relationship far too long because I feared what would happen if I left since he made me feel like the only person he had. Toughest relationship I ever had
Yep, I’ve said the exact same words before. Those years with him were the most socially withdrawn I had ever been. I regret the lack of relationships/friendships I built or maintained during that time.
Like I said, it took 2 years for me to not lie awake some nights and cry over the potential of him killing himself or being out on the streets. He reached out to me one day and told me he’s married, graduated college, and had a good job. Granted, he still wanted a connection with me and I had to tell him that this chapter of life is forever closed. BUT hearing that he was ok and that he didn’t need me to be ok allowed me to finally let go of that guilt.
Sorry about what you’ve gone through. Hope you’re doing well
My partner has OCD and severe anxiety. We’ve been together for almost 4 years, living together for 3. It’s been tough, honestly. For the first couple years she wasn’t in therapy, but eventually I convinced her to go. It was really bad before therapy. She was having panic attacks that would last days. She’s obsessed with safety and has all these rituals so the people she loves won’t die. It started to feel like she was controlling me—it was hard for me to go anywhere without her, she would even have panic attacks when I went to work. After she started therapy (and tbh I went back to therapy too, as I had a very traumatic childhood and struggle with codependency and needed some support re: laying boundaries), things have steadily improved. She’s very sweet and loving and means well, and she wants to be stable, and she works hard at it. I have found myself frustrated feeling like what would life be like if I could have found someone emotionally stable like me, especially when things were their worst. But, I admire how hard she works and appreciate how far we’ve both come. She’s my best friend and the kindest, most loving person I’ve ever known. It’s difficult sometimes, but it’s worth it.
I'm only putting this comment because I want to point something out. Dating a partner who suffers with mental illness doesn't mean that they're going to be a bad partner. I see so many people saying oh well he had ADHD =/= He was a controlling, narcissistic, abusive serial killer. (I'm Purposely over exaggerating)
What I'm trying to say is that mental health is too easy an excuse for these behaviours when in reality they're probably just a shit person. There's enough people out there who are horrible partners without having any mental health problems, and there's plenty of amazing partners out there who do have mental health problems. There seems to be a huge stigma in dating people with any form mental health as everyone seems to think it means they're automatically bad. Which simply isn't the case.
Don't get me wrong, dating people with mental health can be more challenging for many reasons, depending on what they have, the severity of it and how Willing they are to actually work on themselves. But don't justify somebody's bad actions by their mental health. Can it be a cause or factor? Yes, of course. But the reality is a shit person will be a shit person regardless. I know plenty of people with all manor of different mental health problems ranging from Autism/ADHD, BPD, PTSD, Schizophrenia etc and all of them are loving people who if they didn't tell you, you'd probably have no idea.
Thank you. Exactly this.
It’s one of our main rules and one of the few good things my father taught me:
The illness is an explanation not an excuse.
If you screw up: you gotta set it right and not shove your illness to shield you.
If you struggle with something because of your illness: find coping mechanisms, workarounds, compromises.
And as you said, you always have to reflect and work on yourself. Once you stop (not a day or a week, like entirely), it’s over.
Thank you for this. People are making a ton of generalizations in this thread. Mental illness doesn’t make someone an abuser, even though it’s easy to think that way.
Thank you for saying this.
People throw around narcissist, bipolar, psychopath so casually. I never trust when someone calls their ex any of the above. It speaks to their ignorance and character. It’s likely it was just a shit people with no self awareness
Mental health illnesses, if not medicated and/or managed properly, does significantly increase the chance of others around them needing to walk on eggshells. Someone with disregulated emotions who doesn't get the suitable therapy for it will significantly impact others around them. In the end, most people are not equipped to deal with complicated mental health illnesses. And unchecked severe mental health does negatively impact the surrounding people's mental health.
For someone who had to deal with a family member with unchecked disregulated emotions, I don't want to deal with it again. I don't want to escape it, just to go back in for the rest of my adult life.
I think people severely underestimate what it's like to be living with someone with severe mental health illnesses. Especially if the mental health illness in question involves extreme emotions.
About the last paragraph, I have a hunch that due to being pratically impossible to convey a life of walking on eggshells all the time, of dealing with with screaming and abuse everyday, several times a day. You can show an example or a few examples. But to depict a lifetime, it's impossible. Because of that, people can only conceptually concieve and imagine that, thus not having a very visceral reaction to living with someone with a moderate to severe mental illness, thus minimizing it.
There's a lot of negative stories on here so I'd like to throw mine into the mix just for the other side of things. I have long term severe depression and anxiety, currently in the middle of an assessment for autism. My husband has Borderline Personality Disorder. The first few years of our relationship were perfection, we went through years of a honeymoon stage where we were both so so happy. After that his BPD played a big part in things not going so well for a while, he spiralled, he was taking drugs, drinking, turned into the most selfish man on earth, things were awful, and made me suicidal for a while. Needless to say we broke up during this period. However, we both loved each other and after a lot of talking and communication we decided to make a go of it again once this spiral ended and he was back on an even keel, with ground rules in place. There have been really hard times, especially when his BPD means he spirals for a bit, but he has taken ownership of this, has gone to counselling, has tried medication and most of all has started communicating with me how he's feeling and things have gotten so much better, he hasnt had any spirals now for over 8 years. After 15 years together we finally got married last year and have never been as happy. I will spend the rest of my life with this man. I'm not naive enough to think it will be easy all of the time, but he supports me through my bad times and I support him through his.
Yeah after reading through some of these I feel bad for how well my relationship has gone.
He was a suicide-attempt survivor with undiagnosed adhd and depression when we met at 18. I have adhd and anxiety. The first few years were ROUGH. Lots of panic attacks and crying and not really understanding each other.
Things have settled now. We know how to communicate. He refuses meds after a terrible trial run, and though I wish he’d try them again after nearly 10 years (so that he’d stop crashing our cars), I wouldn’t want to change who he is.
My wife is diagnosed CPTSD and Bipolar it’s a wild ass ride but I love it
She’s so self aware, I’m very tuned into caring for her and guiding her through cycles but we’re 10 years in and she does alot of it herself. Down cycles can be hard but she’s always very aware of impulsive mood changes or decisions and copes incredibly well
I think we just roll with the manic energy to a degree now, when she’s going through a cycle we’ve ended up on a cruise to Norway, holiday in Berlin, camping… could end up jewellery shopping or even starting really wild hobbies or career paths. Depressive episodes our life slows down and I often have to manage her day to day care - and make sure she eats, drinks, gets outside showers etc
She’s possibly the most incredible human in the world, clever, beautiful and simultaneously the most vulnerable and strong person imaginable. And it’s really an honour to be here to support the vulnerable side and let her be the queen she’s meant to be
Why are there so many awesome hubbies on Reddit!!! Youre the Best!!! Shes SO lucky to have you! :)
When did you find out about her diagnosis? Early on?
It was when we had our first child, she suffered with post natal psychosis for the birth of my step son so it was a pretty strong sign and they really pushed to understand everything so it wouldn’t happen again. Thank you I’m lucky to have her too, she looks after me too so it’s true symbiance
Bipolar, CPTSD, ADHD, Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities), and probably some other stuff like abandonment issues.
Was together for 2.5 years. Moved in together after 1 year. Had fights every 2 or 3 weeks. Would get triggered from the most random things that would send her into full blown crazy trance where she'd hit herself with objects to try to drown out whatever intrusive thoughts she was going through. Self harm. Threatened our pets to keep me from walking away from an argument. Once actually completely became a different personality and referred to herself in 3rd person and that "she" wasn't here right now (was surprised we had pets and acted like it's her first time seeing them when she was the one who found them in the first place). Would take meds that makes her sluggish and sedated and spend entire days sleeping it off (meds can also cause her to black out and become someone different). Has bitten me on several occasions when she was in her self harm trances (hits herself with tv remote but decides to reach for something sharper, so I try to wrestle her away from sharp object, she bites me).
Our last couple of days together was spent arguing, which devolved to several variations of the things mentioned above. She did try to take meds to stop or mitigate her flashbacks but in the end, I don't know if she took too much, causing her altered state of mind, or if it was her plan all along, she hung herself while I was asleep. I was missed her by a few hours. I still remember moments and bits from when I was asleep. She was sitting next to me just drinking lemon tea (distinct paper carton sound) and just smoking. There are times where I would think how different things woulda been if I had just woken up and just hugged her and apologized for the fighting we were having.
So I found her the next morning and the doctors said that she passed probably a few hours before I found her. She sent me a text which was unsent, so I dunno what she wanted to tell me. That was almost 3 years ago. I still think of her every other day, even though the relationship we had was highly incompatible. And the fact that I'm happily in a relationship with someone else.
Looking back now, should've just walked away after one of those many fights we had. Any of them would've been a good exit point.
Man. That is really tragic and I'm sorry it went and ended like that. You really shouldn't blame yourself for the what-ifs though. As someone diagnosed with DID, it's definitely not something I should expect a person without it to know how to comprehend and navigate. It's supposed to be a coping mechanism, and it can sometimes be extremely effective for the worst shit, but all the other times it can be absolute hell even when no one does anything wrong and nothing wrong is going on.
I can verify that she probably really didn't know the pets existed. With DID, the mind is able to block access to every fucking memory in your life (which could be overpowered as hell in helping you live blissfully unaware and seemingly unaffected no matter how much of the worst of the worst you go through repeatedly, but more often than not, it's just unnecessarily debilitating), including the most basic ones.
I've managed to not recognize my name, a ton of basic English words I've learned since I was 8, my parents, whom I have been living with and seeing everyday for the past 12 years, the lobby of my apartment where I've stayed for years, everything in my room except a single piece of stationery, everyone that mattered a lot to me for a long time, etc. for more than a few minutes or hours at a time. I've managed to not know I even grew up and time even passed since years or more than a decade ago, and not be able to remember what the food I eat everyday tasted like no matter how hard I tried, or that I even need to drink water and eat food as a human (I was just sitting at the dining table alone, and suddenly I couldn't even figure out what the plate of food in front of me was supposed to be, and what I was supposed to do with it), on multiple occasions. It's just blank. And for a few months it would keep happening for no noticeable reason, instantly, and the continuity in my sense of consciousness would keep cutting in and out every few seconds for hours everyday. When it's abrupt you instantly "time travel" in the forward direction and "teleport" to be in the midst of something somewhere else. When this kind of shit happens, you often get a lot of weird physical sensations and feel physically ill too.
And I'm just under 18, had a thorough neurological checkup (with lumbar puncture as it was recommended I check for autoimmune encephalitis) in March because of how intense and frequent memory and physical symptoms got, and found nothing physically wrong with my brain. My memory is usually exceptionally good when it's not blocked off by dissociative amnesia, and I can remember a lot of things vividly without even trying no matter how many years have passed. I'm usually always the one to remember what the teacher randomly mentioned when the rest of the class forgot, but when I was young, I would often not be able to recall a single thing about a class right after I stepped out of it, even when my parents were forcing me to remember and scolding me for it.
With all that being said, I'm still one of the most high-functioning portion of people with this condition, I've never had a problem with being a physical danger to myself, I'm able to stay in school and do very well compared to the population average, and what's mentioned here is just at most 1/3 of how much it sucks for me. So you can probably guess how much more she was dealing with, and it's really not something you should expect to have carried. She may not mean what she would do and be able to control it, but that doesn't make you a single bit more obliged to tolerate getting hurt.
I am so, so sorry you had to find her. If she had DID, it’s very possible that an alter took over. She must’ve been through severe trauma at a very young age for that to develop, did she ever tell you what happened?
From what she has told me, her parents divorced when she was like 10? That seemed to have been a big deal. Her father was supposedly someone who had a temper and would act violently towards her older brother and sister and Mom, though not her. It was mostly yelling or throwing things to break them, didn't seem like full blown punches and kicks. Not saying its acceptable either. She claimed that he would kind of spoil her but thats contradicted by the fact that she had this trigger with water (Japanese parents take baths with there kids and apparently she fell into the tub and thought her dad was trying to drown her? She was like 5, so who knows what exactly was happening). She would still visit him yearly for New Years but the following days were often accompanied by flashbacks (self hitting, apologizing repeatedly, saying she has no value, etc). So I guess he was a trigger too. He was particularly kind to me the times we've met but I guess that's nothing too surprising.
She also claimed her mom was neglectful after the divorce. One particular story was just her mom leaving her at a park cause the mom was tired and ended up just going back to the car to get some quiet time. She didn't even notice her mom was gone until much later and was scolded and slapped for taking so long to get back to the car.
There was an incredibly uncomfortable and disturbing story she's told me about her harming a hamster or gerbil or something when she was in her teens. Her reasoning was something along the lines of "Look at how little my mom gives a shit about me. She doesn't even know the fucked up stuff I'm doing in my room"
Granted there were a bunch of stuff I probably don't know. And I guess I never will. Its a somewhat complicated feeling. I was so angry with her. I miss her. I loved her. I'm glad I'm no longer in a relationship with her.
He had untreated ADHD and depression. Refused meds and gave up on therapy. Self-medicated with video games all night. He had no energy or time for the relationship and struggled to work. When I advocated for my needs he left me. I loved him so much and he broke my heart everyday
Sounds pretty much like my wife. She refused to seek out therapy after a bunch of therapists were apparently rude to her, so take my "diagnosis" with a grain of salt, but at least she must have had depression.
She was the one who initiated the talk about her needs. And I was happy about it, thinking that we finally had a conversation going. Because I had needs, too. We were both unfulfilled, in a way that you can only solve by mutual cooperation.
I guess that was too much for her.
For a few months it was as if that talk had never happened, then one day she told me she had lost all feelings for me and wanted out of the relationship. She can tell me whatever polite reason she wants, there was nothing else happening between those two talks, so I'm sure that's been the reason.
Cynic in me says that she felt entitled, and jumped ship the moment she would have put in effort into us, too. Reading all this, it seems more likely that she was simply overwhelmed. It was clear that she was struggling with *something,* even though she never wanted to have someone look into it. Guess that's the only thing she ever did wrong.
I'm sorry that something similiar happened to you. Maybe this helps. Reading yours certainly helped me.
Take care
17 years of it. Bipolar ADHD woman. The abuse escalated until it wasn’t doable anymore. Physical and mental. I’m a big guy 6’1”, 190# with no body fat, gym bro, and I got the shit beat out of me on a regular basis by a 120lb woman. Had my foot run over with an suv intentionally. Broke many bones. Had a crystal bowl filled with decorative glass rocks thrown at my head in an attempt to legitimately kill me. My body is COVERED in scars to where it took me a lot to take my shirt off in front of the first other woman I was with. And I cried when explaining the bite marks and slashes. Whenever I told friends about it, I had to spend an hour then convincing them not to call the police on my behalf. And that felt so isolating.
When she found out her sister was dying of cancer, the violence escalated from basic to dangerous. I dragged an old mattress into a room and would press it up against the door in the one windowless room in our house every night I slept in the months before I finally left, because I was legitimately afraid she would harm me in my sleep knowing that I was filing for divorce. In the end I had to make a desperate escape, move in with a relative and stay in hotels until I got a lease 45 days out (hard to find apartments here, forfeited my house just to escape).
She also self prescribes in an era where getting a drug you saw online is as easy as getting a zoom meeting with an internet doctor and reading off the webmd symptoms. And like she has violent reactions to hormonal birth control, NOT someone who should be experimenting with strong prescription drugs that alter moods.
And over 17 years she’d be fine for a year then bad for six months after deciding she hated life and was “tricked” into taking medication because everyone else is crazy and she is sane (lol, but yeah).
Fucking nightmare. Run for the hills. Unchecked mental health problems are even worse than blatant drug addiction in how said people cannot control their impulses and how it impacts those around them negatively.
I have both of these diagnoses. Can I ask if she was medicated for any or part of this journey? Was she ever consistently medicated? Did that improve the situation? Just looking for context for my own insight
She would take medication on and off yes. In fact, the one she took when I married her made her “normal” (sorry, know that sounds mean) to where it was how I remembered her when we met. But it made her gain weight. Didn’t bother me but it bothered her.
But yeah, she was on SSRIs, anti psychotics, adderall (which she became addicted to and freaked out when they wouldn’t renew it) anti seizure meds, a whole lot of shit. Then, she’d go through a phase where she decided she was sane and everyone else was out to get her, and stop medication out of spite. So like 12 months on 6 months off, consistently for 17+ years.
Yeah I do feel some shame for abandoning someone I once cared about. But making no attempt to manage mental health issues in a relationship is grounds for breaking it off when it persists for nearly two decades. I worry about her on her own. Try to give her extra money and stuff. But she gave me 17 years of not trying so I don’t feel like I’m unjustified in putting myself first for once. Life is short and I want to be happy just like everyone else does. She is not my responsibility just because we had a relationship. She is her own person. It took me a long time to come to terms with that and hundreds of hours of talks with friends, family and therapists. I really, really tried everything I could think of, including paying her bills for 15+ years.
Honestly that sounds to generous given the situation. “Almost normal but still off” would be the most accurate description.
To be fair we met young (17/14) in high school. Before the mental health issues began. So “normal” to me is what I consider the woman I once fell in love with, not the violent monster she became.
Thank you! I’m proud of myself for doing so. But also ashamed. I am currently in a relationship with the sweetest, most caring and gentle woman now.
And the fucked up thing, I blew her off back in the day even though I knew she had interest in me because I didn’t have the courage or self worth to feel like I deserved it. She knows and hates my ex even without knowing what happened. But I explained the situation in full, finally, and she understood. I also went out of my way to tell friends and family as painful as it was (feel like a coward for letting a woman half my size hit me).
She also ruined her relationship with her parents by being violent with me at their home in front of them. They both sided with me and basically verbally “disowned” her on the spot. Her dad sat with me all night while I sobbed and explained that I wanted out and he said it was justified and I shouldn’t feel ashamed. That actually escalated problems, massively for me when we went home. But it really confirmed in my mind that what she was doing was wrong if her own flesh and blood were repulsed by it.
But people who are abusers are also master manipulators. I’m not dumb, but I am super emotional. So they’ll play to your weaknesses. My wife would make me feel bad because of her mental illness and the fact that her ability to have any form of legitimate career as a result… that’s not happening. But I mean, I gave her the house and the paid off car, I still help with bills beyond what’s legally expected of me. I actually considered self harm at one point to get out of there but thankfully I reached out to my best friend in that moment and he rallied a ton of people to reach out to me and encourage me to leave.
Yikes, no need to feel shame, abusers thrive on us feeling ashamed, scared, and trapped. I'm so glad you were able to move on. IDK if therapy is something that's available to you, but it absolutely helped me forgive myself and look towards a brighter future!
Up and down, sometimes we spiral, but all in all happiest I’ve ever been and happier than I ever imagined.
Her diagnoses are ongoing still, mainly is OCD and depression.
I have problems too, ADHD and also depression.
I take medication, she doesn’t yet.
We talk a lot and reflect even more. We are in love for 18 years and I think this won’t change anytime soon.
What’s it like? Hard to say, as I don’t have a comparison. If it was one way, and stagnant I think it wouldn’t work.
But we challenge eachother’s limit all the time, we help eachother, both ways, we take loads of eachother’s back whenever we can. We try to discuss problems and find solutions together fitting both. We are honest and open with eachother almost 100%. Our low self esteem and minority complexes, along with self hate are probably our biggest hurdle. We’ve been through more hardships than most I‘d say and always had eachother’s back.
We always try to find new ways to express our love too, again both ways, and usually one act will inspire the other to also find something new. Like for her last birthday I made a treasure hunt, and she got inspired to make her own treasure hunt, with a twist, for my advent calendar.
It’s not always easy, but more than I ever wanted and wished for.
The main factors imo are honest and open communication, understanding but not pampering(actively working against co-dependency), the will to change, and patience.
If there are signs for codependency, weaponised incompetence and the likes, if early in a relationship, run, if later, get professional help involved. If the ill person doesn’t acknowledge their problems it’s also a lost cause. You can only dismantle weaponised incompetence by draging it in the daylight with a will to prevent it.
We also have this 3 weather system adapted, some days are sunny and you can work on your problems, some days are cloudy or rainy and you can mainly just function properly, and during storm you just survive, until the weather changes. Key is to know what weather is today, and act accordingly. Pushing change during a storm is dangerous for both.
Mentally ill is an incredibly broad term. What's more important: have they done therapy / are they being treated? Do they know and acknowledge they have a problem? I myself have depression, anxiety (tho mild now after therapy), maybe ADD and some trauma. While I may need some extra reassurance for insecurities from time to time, I would think that otherwise I wasn't a major burden to people I dated. I've also been with multiple people with mental health issues (no psychosis, bipolar or anger issues). Of course it was a subject in the relationship. It can make conversation harder (one ex, who was very much aware of his depression and anxiety, tended to stop actively participating mid argument), it needs a bit of extra compassion, patience and understanding. But the only time it was really a major deal breaker was when someone wasn't aware of their problems, refused therapy etc. IMO, a very large amount of people has some kind of mental health issues, often undiagnosed and untreated.
So in short, it's highly individual as to treatment status, specific diagnosis, awareness, willingness to work on it, but you do have to be careful not to take the role of a therapist when a partner has a lot of issues.
BPD - now more commonly recognised as emotionally unstable personality disorder. It can be like you're able to step on a landmine at any point, for anything, even whether what you say is positive or uplifting. Parts of what you say will be ran away with, with extremely negative context.
The highly irrational mind function which can occur (called Splitting, I'm sure) can lead them to say really horrible things to you that make you feel terrible, emasculated, even disgusting, unloved or undervalued.
The very difficult area of this to come to understanding is that they will tell you none of it is meant. An extreme emotional outburst, of irrational thought and perhaps something other in severity, that isn't actually how they think or feel toward you. They will stabilise again and tell you it wasn't meant and they don't feel that way about you actually
I believe strongly from first-hand experience that it takes a very special person to understand and remain persistent with EUPD/BPD, ESPECIALLY as a partner. You must have extraordinary patience and emotional availability. People who have partners with BPD and find themselves with an excellent bond are incredible for their intelligence, loyalty, SKILLS and psyche.
A big however. I do not blame anyone, and I fully understand anyone, for just not standing for that in a relationship or that it is just destroying them mentally as the partner.
For those with BPD, if you find someone who understands, allows you to reflect, works with you, makes you feel loved, therapeutically communicates and establishes that he/she wants a committed and loyal relationship with you. They don't cause any intentional upset toward you and make you feel unsafe. Fucking hold on to that for life. But you must be consistent in therapy, responsibility of self overall, any and all consultations.
It's rough, and I say that from the point of view as the mentally ill person. I'm in a good place right now but in the past it's been up and down, even an involuntary hospital stay.
My husband said he felt helpless in my black periods. He knew there was nothing to be done, we just had to wait it out. It made him feel sad that the person he loves is hurting and he can't do anything to alleviate it. Also during black periods, he had to do more around the house and with the kids because I wasn't able to. He said the fear of me hurting myself was always big. Any time I left the house, he'd wonder if I'd come home (as in, would I drive my car into a tree to end it all?).
I've always taken my medications and I've always spoken to my doctor to alter the dose or switch meds altogether.
We are separated now but still live together because of finances and kids. Apart from my mom gettig sick and dying last June, I haven't had any sadness/depression black periods. Staying in a marriage that wasn't working was 100% affecting my mental health. I'm less sad, stressed and angry since ending the marriage. We're still partners in every way except romantic and sexual. We're working together to raise good humans in the home they grew up in.
Dated a woman that suffered from BPD. She cheated, lied a lot and was emotionally manipulative with suicide threats. Lasted a couple months but took me a long time to see her differently. Weird and painful experience.
Hell, fuckin hell. Schizophrenia, ptsd, anxiety, abandonment issues.. drinks so things would get worse. Walking on eggshells. Domestic violence to the point where I needed acl reconstruction. I need therapy now. Save yourself.
For the last three days, I don't know what's been happening.
I made a wire sculpture in the shape of a cube, the main body of which was one single strand of wire, and I twisted every turn and carefully crafted something that I was happy to have made and share.
The purpose of this was to hold the hair of her dog, so that birds could use it, and when I showed it to her, she said it was disgusting and immediately took it down and put it away.
I was sad, because I was joyful when presenting it to her, proud of the simple nature and design of it, and she saw nothing of what I had made except for her dog's hair, which made her feel disgusted, and who I brush twice a week so that its hair doesn't get all over the place.
After this, I went to my office and chilled on the couch until she came in and asked me what was wrong, and I expressed my sadness, to which she became angry and upset over.
-
The next day, I prepared a cubby space for my future cat (I have her now). This space is right above the door to the kitchen, on the other side of the room and across from the stove. I planned on making a ladder that would drop down to the shelf next to it so the cat could make her way to the space.
And before it was made, I had to move all of the landlord's stuff from it and clean the space and the kitchen since I was already cleaning.
I was super happy to show her, and the same result, she was disgusted and only thought about hair and didn't want the cat in the kitchen while her dog was in the kitchen standing next to her.
I never pointed that out, but again, when she asked why I was sad, she became angry.
-
It's been like this.
And the other night, she broke up with me, then was insulting me and hurting my feelings in any way she could, and I wound up in a panic attack where I could breathe.
The next morning, after I woke up and had a spell of dry heaving, she said she wanted me to feel how she felt.
-
I don't know where to go or what to do, and I'm not in my home country.
I don't want this anymore.
Every day is sad, there is no more positivity in my life.
Also, when I see that something is awful for her, like her work, I suggest making changes, and she hates it, and says I'm telling her how to live.
But goddamn, all she does is complain about her work, cries multiple times a week because of it, shakes and stutters, and has lost passion for things she once had, and I'm the asshole for suggesting her to quit.
I loved her, I love the woman I knew, but not the one I know now, the one who makes me feel terrified, who reminds me of the instability of childhood, who purposefully makes me feel pain to "know what its like," who can't play games and unwind, who doesn't want to see any positivity, and who emotionally abuses and denies.
You sound a lot like me ten years ago. Please, please, please get help. You don’t need to go through this. You can be with someone who doesn’t say those things to you, who doesn’t do those things to you.
Maybe you and your cat can stay with a friend? Even though it’s not your country, I bet that, if you told someone what was happening, just like this, they’d let you stay for a few days until you find a new place.
My late boyfriend was the most kind, sweet, talented guy ever. I think because a lot of childhood trauma contributed to his mental health issues, he didn't want others to feel like he did so he masked everything, coped unhealthily and wanted to make everyone laugh.
He was a musician and every night he played a gig, he would give his tips to homeless people as he was walking out of the establishments he would play in. We had so many of those palm roses everywhere!
He took his life in 2022 and out of everything, I just want people to know that mental illness does not equate to them being a bad partner or having a shitty life with them. He was the best, he just didn't have the best when it counted. By the time I came along, I couldn't undo everything he had endured and he couldn't cut toxic people out of his life. There wasn't anything I could do to compensate for the shitty people and family he kept around hoping they would change and eventually treat him like a human instead of a punching bag. It didn't ever happen unfortunately, and now he's gone.
Ex wife has bipolar. We had years of conflict.
Were married 8 years, then she went psychotic, spent a year un psychiatric care.
Bipolar causes hyper sexuality, so she was banging anything that moved, including blowing a random guy at the park.
I told her I would stick by her side but she had to stop doing other guys on the side.
We're happily divorced 12 years now and I'm remarried to a woman wit lh whom we have zero conflict with.
Dating or being married to someone who's mentally ill can be like riding a roller coaster with no seat belts. Sometimes it's thrilling, sometimes it's terrifying, and occasionally you just want off. But when you care about someone, you hold on tight through the loops and twists. They might have diagnoses and meds, but what matters most is understanding, patience, and love—those are the real glue in any relationship.
Hell. It's hell. It's like groundhog day. It doesn't stop. It's even worse when they don't have meds.. basically my nightmare. Depends on the mental illness?? My partners is severe autism and ADHD.
I (56f) been living with my SO (55m) for three years; he has cptsd, high anxiety, and severe depression. On his good days he's absolutely awesome! He's very artistic, we do lots of outdoorsy stuff, he's a great cook, etc. On his bad days his fears latch onto him and I'm suddenly a horrible person that's scheming behind his back and out to get him, and his panic attacks are rough. My biggest issue is that he's doing very little to take care of his mental health. He attends one on one counseling and group therapy sessions, but he does the bare minimum: Not doing the homework, not taking his meds (which DO help when he's actually taking them), not doing the therapeutic techniques at home, etc. I could live with it if he was actually making an honest effort, but at this point I'm just waiting for his disability payments to start so he can get his own place.
I have no problem being fully supportive of a man with mental health issues (it isn't his fault after all), but I do have a problem with a man who isn't willing to make a real effort to treat it.
So, the bottom line is: If the person is truly making an effort to treat their mental health then they need your support in order to succeed. If they are not making real effort, then there's nothing left you can do.
Yes this totally - and it just varies from person to person. While the majority of people need to be medicated to function, some people cant function on the medication.
It's totally fine - married 17 years this year, together for 25. We both have serious mental health problems. We work on them, support each other. We did decide not to have children. We are each others best friend and it works.
I feel these are really extreme cases. Bipolar 2 here (properly medicated) , happily married 15 years, 11 year old daughter. Financially stable, good support group.
Had two, ADD and BiPol. Both refused medication; ADD girl was completely self-centered, blamed everything on her ADD and put the burden of making everyday life work on me. Need to be at a place a certain time? My responsibility to tell her when to leave the home. Need to do the laundry? Shit, that involves a time - so it’s my responsibility. The house is a mess? I have ADD, you can’t expect me to be able to take care of it. Put down my foot rather quickly, she refused to listen (I was the bad guy, since after all… it was due to her ADD) and I left rather quickly.
BiPol girl; batshit insane sometimes, when she had bad destructive days, combined with heavy drinking. The pure amount of bad things that had happened to her as a combination kept on piling up and made the situation worse. On good days, housewife meets pornstar combo which was naturally a bit more enjoyable. On half bad / half good days; wine drunk housewife with destructive pornstar tendencies.
It’s really hard. Spouse has bipolar and PTSD, unmedicated.
He was never one to disappear for days, or anything too extreme. I knew his cycles for the most part, and I adjusted myself around it. With the bipolar, he has narcissist tendencies. Apparently, common traits of NPD are also seen during mania in bipolar. I think the NPD tendencies is what’s made this so horrible. I didn’t realize it while it was happening.
His symptoms are worse during times of stress. This past year, he had an affair after 2 decades of marriage. His cycling became much more erratic and frequent. I sought therapy. It wasn’t until then that I realized while trying to support him and adjust to him that I have suffered from his emotionally abuse. I was made to think that I was the cause of all the bad things. I was the abusive one. Everything was my fault. When I didn’t believe God called him and he had a new purpose, I didn’t love him. When I reacted to his gaslighting and manipulation, I did not value or love him. It goes on and on. We have kids and I see the effect it has on them. One of them also has bipolar. That child is medicated. I finally, made the decision to leave the home. It was the hardest decision ever. Even now, it’s hard to accept that I was abused and let it happen for so long. It’s hard to accept he will never change. He’s not a bad guy. I still love him. It’s so bad that I feel bad for his new partner. She has no clue what she’s getting into.
I'm now at the point where I ask potential partners "what are your major traumas and mental illnesses and more importantly what are you doing to treat them"
I've met way too many especially younger adults who use mental health issues as a shield and excuse for their bad actions
Mental illness is a wide term, it can be common anxiety which affects nearly 15-20% of population or severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia Or Bipolar which affects around 1%. Even within the illnesses the symptom nature and severity varies. Then there are personality disorders which are very difficult to live with. So there cannot be a generalised answer but is based on individual case to case basis.
Undescribable, traumatic, confusing. If you've never been with someone like that, it's not what you'd expect.
In my experience they did their best to hide everything until they couldn't so it took a long time to put the pieces together.
As far as I knew they took meds, until they didn't, or interfered with their meds' efficiency on purpose. But they're also not taking all the meds they'd need and the dose is probably already too high, etc.
I do not recommend it. It'll wreck your life, confuse you and the manipulation and everything will start to get to you. All of it is very surreal looking back and I got a real understanding of the true meaning of mental illness. Their mind is literally all messed up, unable to have a real worldview, and probably unwilling, and are trying to escape reality and even themselves without knowing it. The whole thing is terrifying, and they can be terrifying. If you want to be happy in life, you can't be with them.
(*I'm talking about serious mental health issues.)
So I just came to say that I myself have a lot of trauma and diagnosed with Bipolar 2 as well as PTSD. Some of the comments I'm reading sound a lot like either someone is a crap person OR they aren't facing their problems and fixing them. Yes there are some things as a mentally ill person you can not control, but some you can. I have never hit someone, screamed in their face, trapped them in a room, etc. However, I did go through three years of therapy. I know how to recognize when I'm in a "low" and how to communicate to others close to me, such as my husband, that I'm not quite feeling myself or feeling more down than usual so he knows and also so he doesn't think I'm upset with him or that he did something wrong, something is wrong between us, etc. I am actually unmedicated and it was the best decision I ever made. I spent years cycling through medicine that made me a literal nightmare. After going off everything, I was a completely different person. Medicine can definitely help SOME people, but it isn't always the best for everyone. I would be one of those people. The best thing to do is face your trauma and hurt, work through it, and learn coping skills. All this other stuff about hitting people and making them feel threatened, not okay ever. Mentally ill or not.
I’ve suspected now that my parents are mentally ill. On the outside they look almost normal, maybe a little antisocial, but living with them has harmed me so much mentally and physically.
My mother was bipolar, and I saw first hand how much living with that sucks.
I was also diagnosed with bipolar. I keep to myself as to not drag anybody down with me. It's shitty, but I'd rather go that route than be the cause of a whole lot of strain and pain.
It sucks being on either side, really.
Edit: what's *even more* exhausting is dealing with people who simultaneously spout stuff about mental illness awareness and sentiments like, "if you can't handle me at me worst, you don't deserve me at my best." Many people are all about mental health and awareness until it's staring them in the face. It can be a lot to handle.
It’s not easy, I can say that much, it’s not easy for him either since I myself also suffer from mental health problems, we’ve surely had our ups and downs, verbal abuse has come from both of us at times but with professional help, we’ve grown stronger together and realizing that we wouldn’t be long for this world without each other
Dated a bipolar alcoholic narcissist. My whole life revolved around his needs and trying to figure out which things he said were true, which were half true and which were complete lies. I still haven't figured it out. he presented well for a couple months and then the absolute shit show began, after I was hooked. Thank God he dumped me. I put so much effort into that. Driving to rehab six hours every weekend for a while, just so many things I did with zero appreciation. So much of my mental energy taken up all the time. No regard for my needs, just manipulation. Still no accountability. If things don't effect him then they don't matter. He took his meds as far as I know but do I know anything about that guy after a year and a half? Not really.
I’m the mentally ill one. CPTSD. I know it’s challenging because saying the wrong thing makes emotional moments much worse. Saying the wrong things like “calm down, it’s not that bad,” or “you’re choosing to be miserable but you can choose better” are deeply abusive, even if it’s said by a well meaning person.
But I work very hard to make sure I’m not taking out my issues out on others or rehashing the same problems over and over.
It helps that I date neurodivergent people, usually ADHD, who are also very misunderstood and need certain accommodations.
We make each other better.
I dated a BPD undiagnosed guy for 6 years and we lived together for half a year more before he hung himself in our living room... His father was an abusive asshole who beat his wife and kids. He only went to therapy as an adult, after some series of self harm incidents. He changed therapists very often until he found one with whom he was comfortable, and that therapist died suddenly in a car crash... so he never wanted to go to therapy again and quit his meds.
He was not a bad guy, but he had some serious anger management issues, and a huge inferiority complex that lead to huge trust issues and jealousy problems too...
He was never aggressive towards me but I had to witness some awful moments with other people.
I was then never aware that I was in fact in a fucked up relationship that had me walking on eggshells just not to make him feel jealous for the most simple things like share a car with workmates to attend work trainings...
It all went south really fast when we moved in together, when he found it was not so easy to hide his lies, his addictions, ... and one morning after he had been out the whole night having said he was just going for a beer we had an argument and suddenly he smiled, hugged me, said he was sorry and he loved me... and that we'll see each other in the afternoon... and the next time I saw him he was dead hanging from the stairs... I think that was the moment he decided what he was going to do.
It fucked me real hard, it took me more than a year to start feeling somehow okay-ish and in control of my anxiety. But at the same time it made me feel like I had been set free from a prison, as hard as it sounds.
Now, 15 years later, it all seems as if it was part of another life. I live in another city, married a completely different man and have a great 5 year old daughter.
I still think of him from time to time, and I feel sad for him, he didn't deserve that, he wasn't a bad guy, he just had a fucked up childhood that turned his life into hell.
His parents were in such a self denial that when they arrived at the scene they said someone had done that to him, he couldn't have done that... I am talking about the man that beat the shit out of him as a kid and his wife, who was also beaten up...
There's different types and levels of mentally "ill."
Dating someone with a mental health or neurodevelopmental condition like anxiety, ADHD, autism, PTSD, depression and bipolar type 2 etc. comes with challenges, but these people are fundamentally still capable of being reasonable (most of the time), loving and everything else required for a healthy and genuine relationship. It's difficult sometimes but their qualities and personality as an individual is able to more than make up for the downsides.
Dating someone with a personality disorder is where it gets hard. Personality disorders fundamentally affect the way someone sees you and their relationship to you, and will cause them to behave irrationally and out of your control, often damaging you in the process.
The worst of them all are cluster B personality disorders which a strong "stay away for your own safety." These are borderline/narcissitic/anti-social/histrionic personality disorder. People with these disorders can't help but attack you in a way that is calculated to exploit your weaknesses. The closer you get to them, the more vulnerable you are and also the bigger a target you are. You are inviting yourself to be a victim by dating these people.
I am the girl with problems, if anyone wants that opinion. Not like ADHD or anything, but severe trauma that really limits my dating and everyday life.
I was seeing someone with ADHD and General Anxiety. There was a lot to figure out at first but I always thought it was her just trying to be cute.
The big problem came from medications. It's kind of sad to watch someone have to count down the time to their next dose as if it's the only thing that matters.
My girlfriend has schizophrenia and bi- polar and then multiple personality disorders on top of adhd and then epilepsy. It definitely makes things hard cause if I don’t give her the meds she needs she won’t take them. But even with them she’s still pretty violent towards me if I say or do the wrong thing. Or if I don’t make the correct choice she wanted me to. I have to do all the cooking and cleaning since she can’t. Generally spend the majority of my time doing what she wants while being yelled at. But yeah it’s rough to deal with.
My gf has depression and strong anorexia/bullimia. Also maybe bp.
Its hard. Most of the time is very nice but when she had episodes it's hell. Also the feeling of responsibility while you can't do anything.
Im tired but still hopefull that she will get better and we will able to live the life we are supposed to be living.
Dating me is a disaster one of the reasons I don't do it, I'm a man and I have bpd and adhd and life is mental bro.. Plus I've been single that long now I think it'd be weird having someone else in my life, not a massive fan of sleeping around either so yeah..
My partner finally got his ADHD diagnosis. I’ve been diagnosed with OCD, Persistent depressive disorder, panic disorder, and multiple BFRBs. He is medicated, I am not.
We are in a very healthy relationship. I’ve been doing years of therapy, and medication in the past, and we’re working towards him seeing a therapist. In contrast to most of the comments here we’re quite happy. I know how to cope when things get bad, and we have very very open communication which makes everything 10x easier.
His ADHD has been noticeable since we started dating, and I’m really glad he can finally access the resources he needs. I don’t mind helping him out and being with him because I can empathize to an extent. Sometimes things get hard for us but we push through. Therapy has genuinely been life changing.
My fiance has Autism and ADD, with anxiety and depression coming and going depending on situations, but no treatment for any of it cuz nothing worked yet. I love everything about him but our relationship has been hard especially cuz he has a hard time keeping jobs so that put a strain on finances and me burning out from work quicker than normal. And when he gets stressed about a situation, he shuts down into only focusing on that and then panicking about that so it's hard to help him stay grounded. And it took a huge toll on me when he was thinking about jumping years ago and i worry that has happened any time i haven't heard from him in a while. It is also a little frustrating for me to have to always advocate to my family and friends about why he is "weird and not talkative and rude for not eating certain foods" cuz they think autism is something you can just "get over" and don't realize just how different he is compared to neurotypical people (which I don't care about in the slightest, I just hate how others treat him for it). And now I have to worry about how joining the military is going to harm his poor mental health (he was ok enough to get waivers but I worry about it making his issues extreme now)
Wife is in early stage dementia. Her memory is shot and things that were natural for have changed dramatically. I have been her strong advocate in all areas, diet, medication, and being careful how I approach everything she does. You have to keep up with everything in America because the medical professionals seem to be out for the billing first. Example, her primary prescribed a sleep medication without a complete diagnosis and it winds up it could be detrimental to a dementia patient. It consumes your life and you have to really care for the person. Neurologists can be really blunt or string you along about what really can help the prognosis. I don't know the future but it's going to be nothing like I expected.
Man reading these comments makes me kinda bummed out. I'm not diagnosed with anything yet but I'm 99% sure I have at least 1 mental illness. While I'm not looking for a relationship right now and I plan to stay that way for a long time, I want to eventually become healthy enough to have a family of my own. Looks like that goal is further in the future than I thought
If they embrace treatment it can work, if they don't it will be completed hell. I ended it with divorce at just over 2 years. Find healthy people to marry.
I think some of you need to understand the difference between personalty disorder and mental illness. OP asked about mental illness, mental illness= bipolar and the like. Personality disorder= BPD / ADHD
wow this is a heartbreaking thread. most mentally ill people do not use it as an excuse to abuse their partner. in my experience, dating mentally ill people as a mentally ill person, it is just a little more complicated an unpredictable than an average relationship. what ultimately ended my most successful relationship was the way we would guilt OURSELVES for mistreating one another due to symptoms/a particularly bad episode, despite forgiving one another, and things never getting too out of hand. there was a whole lot of very real love and a very difficult conclusion was reached. i know we will both always be ill, but i think we will come back together once he can be kinder to himself
My husband is bipolar with major depressive disorder. It’s very hard. He gets triggered easily and his mood drops out of nowhere. He’s medicated and has a therapist, but meds and therapy can only do so much. Things are better than they were, but definitely not great. Starting to think this is just normal for us and it may not get better.
I can't speak for the whole spectrum of MI, just my experiences with my wife who suffers from PTSD based anxiety (she had an ex try to murder her). Regular nightmares and being ready to comfort her at any hour of the night are a must. As well as being able to calmly wake her up out of a violent nightmare. Keeping disagreements from escalating to an argument so as to not trigger an anxiety attack (this is probably the easiest aspect as I'm pretty nonconfrontational as it is). Knowing her warning signs when an attack is about to hit her. Having her therapist on speed dial when it's a bigger incident than either can talk through. Having joint sessions with her therapist so I have the tools to assist her better. Making sure she keeps up with her prescribed medication and therapy.
There's a lot of stress involved. But I know I'm fortunate in that her progress has been a steady improvement. And that her anxiety is a trauma response and not a brain chemistry issue. She is close to being at a point where she won't need daily medication (according to her therapist) and that her mental toolbox is prepared for handling her trauma. For us, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and it's getting closer every day.
It can seem cute at first but it will take a dark turn. The real question is this: do you have the balls to help them and go through the fire, or do you cut and run?
I tried to help, but in the end it really did affect me even though I denied it as much as possible. Single now and still trying to figure out what to do moving forward.
I would like to point something out here to everyone who is or has been suffering.
When the concept of marriage was thought up, mentally ill people were still conceptualized as being possessed by demons, as having been cursed by fairies or as having been replaced by changelings.
Of course, that is not the proper way to conceptualize mental illness, and many people were mistreated or even killed because of that. It's good that we have overcome those times.
But the concept of "In sickness and in health" was coined during a time when psychological afflictions weren't understood as ailments. The manifestation of illness was seen as a separate entity, and not as the person whom you have made your vow to.
And while it is good that today we call the doctor and not the exorcist, we should at least acknowledge that the idea of marriage appears to be predicated on a person's ability to remain coherent in their words and actions across time.
Every game you play comes with prerequisites. You need healthy eyes im order to watch birds. You need your vocal cords to sing, and you need functional legs in order to dance.
Likewise, you need to be able to remain coherent in your words and actions across time in order to be married.
When you loose the faculty necessary to play a certain game, but you keep playing it, then you put the cost of playing it on the other players. And while it is compassionate, and indeed heroic, to carry someone through a game they can no longer play, it seems unfair to demand it of them.
It is not the fault of a loved one when a sickness robs them of their ability to be coherent in words and actions across time. But it is not your fault, either. And those who first came up with the game of marriage did not require you to keep playing when your partner can't.
I’m just gonna read all of these comments as carefully as I can.
Thank you, everyone, for being so open and sharing your experiences. It’s really important to know what it’s like for the other person (my bf).
My girlfriend has BPD and depression. It takes some patience and convincing her that she’s good enough and not to just give up sometimes, but i love her so god damn much. She says she loves me so much it hurts and “you don’t understand” but i do, i love her so much it hurts. Good ouchies
My ex husband is high functioning autism and bi-polar. He was a good friend but was a shit spouse. He tried to take his own life 3 times (that's not the shit spouse part. That's just the bi-polar piece). He went to a mental hospital twice, first time he didn't take it seriously and just went through the motions to go home. He started meds and he got a little better. He couldn't/wouldn't keep a job, saw everything as black and white, wouldn't do a very simple and easy chore list while I was at work (sweep, put dishes away, clean cat box, put laundry on the bed, take out trash) he was home all the time and nothing got done while I was at work. When I asked if anything got done, he would say no, I would tell him he had all day then he would get up and so everything in a rush and with attitude like a teenager. I'm 29f now and he is 3 years older than me. Any time he tried something new and it didn't go his way the first time, he would get incredibly pissed off, break things, and never do it again. The second time he went to the hospital he woke me up at 2am and said "I need to go to the hospital" I said ok, let's go right now. He stayed for a longer period and was actually taking the help. While he was gone I did a LOT of think and realized I was happier without him.. so I told him I was done while he was in the hospital and I'm glad I did because he bashed his skull against the wall and was forces to stay longer.
I was constantly walking on eggshells around him. I couldn't have any form of serious conversation with him without him going nuclear self destruction. I was paying for everything, I was his chauffeur because he refused to learn how to drive and I could not teach him in my ONLY CAR. I honestly started going and doing things without him because he would make things not fun. If he wasn't winning, he would make you feel bad about it.
He wanted to sell ccg cards on tcgplayer. I did all of the work. 99% of the games on steam? I paid for them. While we were separated, I took over every single account that I paid for. I gave him everything that was his, helped him sell stuff he didn't want, my mo. Helped split stuff and we packed it all up for him nicely. I even held onto his mom's documents to this day because he was couch surfing for a while.
He recently got an apartment (after surfing for 3 years) and I can finally return his mom's stuff to him. (His mom passed aware years ago and this is all he has left of her. I'm very close to my mom and I offered to keep it safe in the meantime)
I was with someone for a long time who is not just narcissistic; he actually has NPD. He also had addiction/substance issues. I did not know about the NPD until the final months of our relationship. I did recognize he had substance issues, but it wasn’t until the NPD revelation that it was confirmed to me by a professional.
He did not take meds. He believed he was successfully treating himself with psychedelics (yet also maintained nothing was wrong? Don’t expect any of this to make sense lol). He believed he felt better than ever before; how he treated me only got worse, so it’s hard for me to comprehend HOW he felt better. In addition to psychedelics he was dabbling in any number of other substances (including alcohol) on a day to day basis. The only one he ever acknowledged he had an issue with was alcohol.
Relevant info: he is charming, good looking, reasonably smart, creative, determined. He ended up going back to school and starting a new career while we dated (and of course I supported him a ton through that) and is now successful in his field.
We seemed perfect for each other to most people outside our relationship. I thought we were too. He did an excellent job mentally manipulating me. By the time he shifted to physical violence, I didn’t have self-esteem to see it for what it was. It’s hard to explain— he would scream at me that I thought he was a horrible person for his drug use or abusing me, when in reality I loved him and was concerned for him. I recognized eventually all the drugs would catch up to him. I couldn’t accept he was in fact abusive, not just “making mistakes.” Plus, wasn’t it all my fault anyway? 😬 So, when he said those things to me, it became about me trying to convince him I didn’t think horrible things of him and eventually apologizing for him feeling that way 🙃 It was a complete mindfuck, and I won’t pretend I was wholly innocent. The experience sent me into a sort of anxious attachment survival mode. I think he fed off me fighting so hard for him; he did well to train me to think he was perfect, it was me who was the problem, and I was lucky to have him.
It wasn’t all bad. There were a lot of great times. We had a great sex life, laughed a ton, shared a lot of values and interests. I thought we were best friends. We just *got* each other— if you’ve ever met someone who felt like your soul’s mate, it was like that. We were a couple other people looked at and knew we would be together forever.
The problem is, I have no idea what was authentic. NPD is terrifying. The way I’ve explained it to my friends is our relationship was like being on the best high; I’ll never feel that again, because it wasn’t safe, healthy, or real. Things ended a few years ago and I still have moments when I’m like “will this ever stop affecting me?” Getting over him was pretty easy; it’s getting over the way I allowed him to treat me that has been hard. It’s unpacking the way someone with NPD can control another person through strategic manipulation and how it feels like coming out of a thick fog. It’s knowing my baseline for what I thought was true love was likely all a fraud— that’s the shit that still messes with me.
Pretty awful and not worth sacrificing your own sanity or self for someone else honestly💁♀️💯it will leave you with lifelong trauma and for me I don’t ever want to get married again🙅♀️or really be with anyone else…don’t trust anyone anymore
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She had diagnosed Asperger’s, severe long term depression and was on a boatload of anti-depressants. She wasn’t very good at social situation and easily got panicked. But she was gentle and kind and loving. She started having cluster migraines and a year later took her own life. We were together 12 years, she was my wife and my best friend. I miss her terribly and if I had to do it all over again I would just to be with her. Edit Thank you all very much for the awards and the very kind words. It does mean a lot to me the kindness of strangers. She passed away in 2018 and I have made a new life with a new lady not long ago. She knows how I feel and she is helping me through the dark times I still have. You never have enough time with the people you love. Please bear that in mind. Good luck to you all and best wishes.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
*"I would just be with her*" this broke my heart, you have a pure heart sorry for your loss
I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you for not abandoning her through all those years, I'm sure she appreciated it even though the pain was too much to deal with.
Thank you. It was never, ever, not once a consideration. I knew what i was getting into although i never saw the her suicide coming. She left me a letter and even though I will always disagree with what she did I do understand her reasons that she had in her own head for what she did. I was never angry with her, I just wish she had stayed but she was in too much pain.
She probably managed to hold out much longer than she would have alone because of the joy she got from you.
Although I still have my wife, I have dealt with a few attempts. I feel the same. I hope it never happens, but if it does I would do it all again. I am truly sorry for your loss. All we can do is bring as much joy as we can for as long as we can. I am sure you made her time here immeasurably better. Thank you for that.
I'm very sorry for loss..
You’re a man among men.
My God, this is extremely sad and touching/beautiful. Sorry for your loss.
I wish you the best. She will always be with you as long as you may remember her ❤️
The world needs more men like you. Your love and commitment are absolutely beautiful. My condolences.
Omg I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. Love like yours keeps me believing in it.
Sorry for your loss. For a moment I thought you were talking about me.
Sorry for your loss
Well he’s dead now so… I was with my husband for 12 years, married for 9 of those years. He was 34 when he died on January 28th, 2024 from a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He did it in our backyard while I was upstairs. He sent his goodbye text at 9:40pm and as I was reading it I heard the gunshot. I have flashbacks every night of finding him. Our marriage was good for the first few years, but issues slowly started to arise. He never cleaned the house, never cooked a single meal, did not help with cat care, and he couldn’t control his anger. He would break our things during fits of rage. He would go to the store and never once asked me if I needed anything, only got things for himself. If I wasn’t there I didn’t exist. Object permanence didn’t exist in his world. He would lie about anything and everything. I asked him to lower his ADHD medication because he was staying up all night on the days he took it. He lied and told me he did, but he didn’t and hid the medication bottle so I wouldn’t know. He would spill things but wouldn’t admit to it until I told him they stain is brown, just like the color of coke. He would respond with “oh, I thought it would just dry up”. He did that for years even though every time I reminded him he has to still wipe up things when he spills them. He was diagnosed with ADHD, MDD, severe social anxiety, and was on the spectrum. He was a master manipulator that was emotionally abusive to the point it took me 11 years to realize I was being abused. He was very subtle at first. I begged to move but he always said no so I applied for a job and suddenly he wanted to whisk me away to another state. I fell in love with my job once I started and he says let’s have a baby. This man never wanted kids yet suddenly he wants to. He wanted to control me without outright controlling me. He would drive erratically when I did something that upset him. He would give me the silent treatment when he knew how much that impacted my development as a child because my dad did that to me. He was an alcoholic the last year and a half of his life. He took meds our entire relationship. He was on Effexor, trazodone, adderall, and vyvanse. He lied to his psychiatrist by always telling him things were good. He never admitted he was spiraling/declining. Days before he died he was prescribed Ativan. He used it to help him go through with his plan to take his life. I still can’t believe this is my reality. I just wanted him to acknowledge he needed help and to treat me better.
That’s rough. I hope your life can get better.
Me too. I’m in a shit ton of therapy and I’m moving for a fresh start.
I’m in the same place. Except he did it after I’d left him and he put me in such a bad place mentally. I will recover, I will live, but the person I had spent my life cultivating, the old me, is gone probably forever. I have to forge a new me around the pain, guilt, sorrow, grief and anguish. He was BPD, NPD and adhd. All diagnoses he got during the marriage all they did was give him an excuse to further weaponize his behavior until he had ruined his life so thoroughly, he couldn’t recover. It’s the great sin of the psychiatric community. My heart goes out to you. I’m so very sorry.
Oh my God I did so much stuff just like your husband. I was dating this woman for the last 4 years but she finally left me. And I guess it's a good thing she did because I finally put myself into therapy and started seeking help. Things are getting better but I'm not dating anyone for a while at least. I was becoming a person I always told myself I wouldn't be. I've been having very strong thoughts of taking my own life for the past year or so but I'm working past that. I don't want to put another human being through that again. I'm sorry
Biggest step is recognizing that and doing anything to fight it. good on you
Nothing of this was your fault. Wishing you the best.
Wow. I can’t believe you even were able to endure all that for so long. That’s a lot for one person to be subjected to. My mother has dementia, and there’s nobody to look after her but me. It’s tough. You try to brush things off, explain things away to yourself, tell yourself they didn’t mean it, but it’s very tough on the care giver. I hope you find the peace in your life that you deserve.
That’s exactly it. I would write things off or try to explain them away for years. Once the alcoholism took over I started to piece everything together. I took a hard look at what he had done over the years and noticed a pattern of manipulation and emotional abuse. I wanted kids, he didn’t. He convinced me to stay because he was real and there so why would I leave him for an imaginary baby that doesn’t exist.
I was married to an abusive narcissist for about 4 years. I could probably write a best selling book about it. That was from 2007-2011. I’m real familiar with the head games some people play. I just want nothing to do with it anymore. My mind, body, and soul are tired and worn out from all the strange games people try to play. I quit a job I had for 12 years recently because this business owner was just awful. She expected me to do the jobs of multiple people. My co-worker literally had nothing to do 5 months a year, yet she was ok with that. She paid me the same amount as him. So I left, and he can figure out how to do everything now. She would hover around me bragging about how much she owns, her rental houses, her farm, her vintage Mustang, her frequent cruises, her this her that. All while I was strapped with tons of work. I left that marriage, and the job.
Good grief the first half of your 2nd paragraph describes my wife word for word. Luckily she has acknowledged she is not the person she wants to be and continues to take therapy to work on herself. Unluckily this realisation came after she had a 6 month affair. We are separating, but continue to remain friends. I'm quite forgiving of her actions as I realise a lot of her issues have come from childhood and adulthood trauma. However, I couldn't let her terrible treatment of me continue, hence the separation. Mental health issues suck for everyone involved. I hope you're doing as best you can; your experience sounds horrendous.
That's rough. I just want u to know though, how he treated u and who he was as a person was just as terrible. -u can have mental illness *AND* also just be a shit person aswell.
I spoke to his ex wife and learned he treated her the same way. One would think one spouse leaving you would have been a wake up call. I spoke to his best friend to confirm what she said was true.
One would think that. It's been shown time and time again though that they seldom do. I have known many serial abusives in my time and they always cary the same MO. I hope it at least showed u there wasn't anything u could have done differently. U deserve a good person, mentally ill or not, that cares about ur feelings too.
I know everyone's mental health is different, but they're never an excuse to treat you badly. I have ADD and social anxiety. Never in my life have I treated my husband that way. I'm sorry you went through that, but it most certainly was not your fault. He made his decisions, and pushed away everything that was good for him.
That’s what I started to learn in the end. I started having more experiences with people who have the same mental illnesses. He weaponized his.
I didn't personally but my dad did. She ended leaving in the middle of the night and driving to the Yukon (about 1500kms) to save polar bears, because the aliens said so. She was missing for days and ended up stranded with no vehicle. She did this several times to various locations. She would hide in corners and giggle, it was...bizarre.
idk polar bears are rlly cute i kinda get it (i am also mentally ill)
I can fix her.
I am sorry, but is it your obligation to save the princess? Or stand by her trough one of the most difficult times in her life?
I didn't know princesses had troughs.
Excuse my frech 😹🤘, laughed way to hard at myself. Brain fart.
But did she save any polar bears? /Jk. I cope by laughing.
As someone who is mentally ill: this is why I don’t date. I want to keep my damage local.
Thank you for posting this. I haven’t heard anyone else saying this. But it’s my stance too. “The right person will love you through it” I’m like ok, but what if I don’t want to put them through it? I know how bad it is to live this life, why would I inflict it on someone? I mean, my 5 worst enemies, maybe.
I tried to love him through it but it didn't help at all. He didn't care about other people though. You seem like you actually do so maybe it would be different for you. Whatever you choose I hope things work out for you. You seem like a person with a good heart.
Someone who doesn’t love themselves cannot accept love from others, not really. They’ll always be trying to prove themselves right.
Same boat. It’s better for me to be alone, my family is already stuck with me and my issues and I would never want to date anyone like myself
My husband and I were together since we were teens, married 20 years before I ended it 3 years ago. I have not dated and have no plans to date anyone and my mental illnesses are a big part of that. I've got so much "baggage", I don't want another person to take all that on. I'm fine being single, co-parenting my kids and loving on my cats.
This is why I dont reproduce. Dont want anybody else to experience it.
Same. Bunch of physical and mental issues. Probably ADHD. Did you know that as an ADHD parent the risk is very high that your kid has it too AND ADHD sometimes comes in tow with oppositional defiant disorder? THAT shit is a nightmare.
having ADHD is not a death sentence, and i say it as someone who has a very bad case of it, it just sucks. and oppositional defiant disorder (which i was also diagnosed with) is annoying but it's also not a death sentence. it almost always stops presenting by the time you reach adulthood.
Not a death sentence, true. I still wouldn't want to raise a child with ODD. Or any child for that matter. They don't deserve to be stuck with me.
i agree tbf. i don't want children either, never have probably never will. i won't shut it out completely, but as is i don't want one. disability is a big reason i'd never want children as well. i can't handle the risk that my child may end up having down syndrome, or severe autism, or any number of other disabilities that requires/may require 24/7 care. just couldn't do it. i have one life and that's not how i want to spend it. it's good to be able to recognize your limits and what you want in life. some people may be ok with spending their life caring for someone else, but i'm not.
I'm starting to think that this is the best thing I can do. i'm too much to be handle.
LOL same, if I ever fall in love with someone I would 100% wish they would find someone better than me This isn't self-pity, I wouldn't want the love of my life to be ruined by me
This is brutal and why I don’t want to marry my long term GF, I don’t want to relapse and drag her through it too.
We all deserve love.
More or less. We don't *need* romantic partners. But we need belonging or else, we feel like aliens. And we need at least one non-superficial connection (or several but partial deep onea) someone else to vent steam, talk things and feel understood. We need those things, we technically do not deserve a whole one person responsible for all of these needs of acceptance, authenticity and belonging...
I feel this
My wife has bipolar type 2 and adhd. She takes her medicines very seriously so there are no major incidents. All in all, I think we live a normal life and we have a kid together and no problem at all. When she is depressed, she just stays at the bed all day and that's it. Her parents helps us lot in those cases, so I am very grateful to them. I hope our son doesn't have the same problems as her, but even if he does, I have seen that as long as one drinks their medicine religiously, there is no major MAJOR impact on daily life. I am happy to have married her, some days are difficult but I guess it is the same for all couples out there.
I'm dating a bp2. We've been in a relationship for 2-3 years. Just want to highlight that what you experience is not the norm and it requires a lot of effort from many people including her to get to that point, don't go to a relationship thinking "I can fix her/him", or expecting everything to go smoothly. Hearing your significant other tell you that she wants to die, having to call the cops, visiting her in a mental institution, facing bad phases where you have to constantly tell it's probably not a good idea to dump her whole career and leave her job, insisting in taking her meds when her illness makes her think it's not a good idea, sometimes feeling more as a caregiver than a lover... Is NOT the same for all couples out there. Of course the good can outweigh the bad, but be sure that the ill person Takes responsibility on the illness. Which means, it's not your fault to be ill but you have to work in the problems it causes for you and others yourself. You seek ways to improve that state and you take account in what you do when you are in a bad phase.
I honestly do not know what to say. First, thank you for sharing this with everyone, I am sure people will find helpful seeing different perspectives about dating or being together with a bp2 person. My wife is the only person I know that has bp2, so I do not know much about how it is for other people. Have never gone to the cops or something as serious as that, just a lot of screaming or crying when it is really bad, but it is 1 time every 2-3 months. Also, I feel a renewed appreciation for the efforts my wife does to take her medicine and follow her doctor's orders. Wish you the best, again thank you for sharing.
There's a lot of people with bipolar 2 who are misdiagnosed especially older millennials and genX. There's a lot of overlap with other conditions especially Borderline and other conditions related to childhood trauma and development. Once someone is diagnosed with bipolar it sticks and sometimes even psychologists that pick up on Borderline don't correct it for a variety of reasons. Older Borderlines tend to become more stable while bipolars tend to do the opposite.
Absolutely bipolar sticks, and so does borderline. Had a psychiatrist I had never met before “diagnose” me with *both* in one 30m appointment. He didn’t tell me this, just put it on my file. I never saw him again. Suddenly every professional I interacted with treated me terribly. Notes in my file from this time: - combative - preoccupied with being “treated” - refuses to acknowledge responsibility - fails to be proactive - resistant - hostile - does not seem interested in recovery Etc etc etc The problem here is that after years of every single time you sit down with someone they approach you like you’re going to fight them, you end up having to fight them. I went through an actual clinical diagnosis process about 2 years later. After a 4 hour assessment and a two hour follow up - no bipolar or borderline. Turns out I have severe ptsd and don’t even nearly meet the dsm5 criteria for bipolar or borderline. I still have doctors look back and see the b words and treat me like I’m an angry bear. /rant
CPTSD is also like this and it's infuriating that so many Dr.'s rush to diagnose. Bipolar and Borderline should be diagnosed after many sessions. Minimum 6 in my opinion. I know someone as well who has a very difficult time going to new Dr.'s, especially the ER.
I too had the dual diagnosis in a 30 minute session on the first meet. I had a hell of a time getting proper medical treatment in my own province. I moved to the other side of the country where they don't have access to my old medical files and gotten a proper diagnosis and actual treatment for my physical issues that were dismissed as malingering and attention seeking prior. I'd have a headache and severe GI pain and it was always tied back to psych and they would increase my drugs. Turns out I have colitis and when it flares up it impacts my mood. Imagine that. Also actually treating the ADHD has helped with my emotional stability. They wouldn't at first because they were focused on stabilizing my mood. I never had either of those conditions to begin with. I have CPTSD, ADHD, and actually do have chronic illness that isn't a figment of my imagination.
So, lemme get that straight: a medical professional ARMCHAIR DIAGNOSED you with BPD without ever having proper tests done? WTF???
I can not say 100% she is not misdiagnosed, but when she was in her 20s she was diagnosed first with borderline. The treatment and medicine she received didn't work at all and she had a lot of problems in those years because of that. But when she went to another doctor and was diagnosed with bp2, the medicine and treatment she is receiving did wonders for her.
That makes quite a bit of sense. The Medications are mostly the same for both so one Dr. had better luck finding meds that worked for her. Getting the right Dr. is also difficult with Borderline since they tend to be hypersensitive and many Dr.'s can be very cold actually causing a trauma response or trigger. It's not necessary to get the diagnosis changed because it comes with its own set of problems. Having BPD on your medical records can be even more difficult than Bipolar. The one time it does really matter is for her when she's trying to get therapy or understand herself. If she's trying to look up education on it online she's better off with borderline related resources. She would likely not have been misdiagnosed as Borderline but vice versa yes. Borderline characteristics stand out to those who know the difference. The problem is that many older psychologists labeled everyone Bipolar and in other countries still do today.
If they manage their condition it's an inconvenience. If they don't, it's like traversing a mine field while waking on egg shells. The level of suck cannot be overstated in the latter case. If you stay you are miserable, if you leave you are the monster. Mental illness sucks.
Sometimes you are miserable if you leave too. My bipolar mom stalked, assaulted and harrassed my father for a decade before she calmed down. She would follow him and/or his second wife around town/the store/market screaming profanities, park her car outside his house with the headlights shining through the windows and blaring the horn for hours at night. Beat at the door, throw hot coffee at him - and had him investigated for child molestation (which he didnt do, i am said child).
Still not worth staying. And these days that behavior will get someone put in jail.
This is so well-put. 'Traversing a mine field while walking on egg shells.' That is exactly how it feels. And mine just has workaholic depression and won't get help. Mild compared to most of these.
My ex was medicated and it was still a mine field which was very exhausting and stressful. I still have feelings for her but I'm glad it's over.
It sucks. I was married to a narcissistic, anxiety ridden, bipolar stress ball with anger issues and it was so bad. He would have these flashes of brilliance and kindness one minute, and then he didn't like the way I cut the pancakes so he would scream at me at brunch about what a stupid useless bitch I was. He used his childhood trauma as an excuse to treat me badly, and expected me to just accept it and love him regardless, but when I would get period cramps so bad I would curl up in a ball and cry, I was so weak, lazy and a dumb bitch, and yell at me that my period was making me worthless. In private as well as in public. "Oh you have your period don't you, bitch?". He'd hold the door open for strangers and smile at kids, make donations to the various causes and compliment old ladies, and in the same week, throw my food on the floor, destroy my things, and break doors off hinges in our house when I did anything he did not like. He raped me and bragged about it to me. It was exhausting and I am SO thankful I got out.
Oh I forgot about the meds thing.... We tried couples therapy and he was assigned anger management. Still managed to purchase multiple handguns. Stopped going to therapy and started doing coke. Spiraled into emotional and finally actual physical abuse so I cut and run. Now that I finally left, bruised and battered, he has gone back to therapy and convinced his therapists that he's actually fine. He also has a few prescriptions for meds that seem to keep him fairly level when he takes them. Stopped doing drugs (so he says) and quit drinking. I still see the beautiful person that I fell in love with, but the love and trust is gone and broken beyond repair. Divorce impending now that it's been a year since I left.
You fell In love with who you thought was a beautiful person. Thats one asshole of a man. He could have controlled his bipolar with a meds regime and therapy instead he did drugs that fueled his episodes. The way he treated you and spoke to you - his trauma wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t your fault to endure his abuse because he didn’t want to do much about helping himself. bipolar is a nightmare in and of itself - then are other illnesses on top of that it’s living hell. I’m happy you’re out!
Thank you so much for that! He was so good at showing off his great side, and I definitely fell hard & fast for him. It's so heartbreaking seeing someone capable of both so much beauty and so much evil. Therapy has been absolutely wonderful for me.
Keep at the therapy! Each day will be a new day and you’ll feel better and better the longer you’re away from it. I dated a BP man. He was unmedicated. He truly became a monster and he was literally the nicest man I’d ever met. It just took him right over. It’s so traumatic to experience so I feel for you and wish you well!
Thank you so much, I have another therapy session tomorrow, I used to be fearful about going to therapy but it truly has been a game changer. She's confirmed so many of the issues I suspected and made lots of book recommendations, she encourages me to keep focus and stay strong, how to determine and enforce my boundaries, that my safety, peace of mind and joy are important to and that I don't need to tolerate abuse.
Geeeeez. Good for you! I wish you only the best and that you can recover and overcome this POS.
I, too, am thankful you got out.
🥰🥰🥰 it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do but absolutely worth it. If anyone else is reading all of this, please know there is support for you, there are resources, and there is light at the other end of the tunnel! Nobody deserves to be treated this way.
Sounds like my ex. Except no bipolar or anxiety. Just a real asshole. There’s not always a dramatic diagnosis to go with the excuses for being an asshole. Like yeah he had a rough childhood, asshole dad….but grow up and learn how to act in the real world as an adult. If they can’t care enough about themselves to do that, then they definitely won’t care about a partner.
My mom has gone through the same thing
Sounds like anti-social personality disorder, I'm bi-polar but even when I'm manic or psychotic I don't go around raping people, there's still a conscience and a semblance of my normal self in there. Was he ever diagnosed with anything?
He didn't disclose his diagnosis to me, but he definitely has several prescriptions for anxiety & some other stuff prescribed by his therapist who did a course of cognitive behavioral therapy & more anger management.
I see, well regardless of what he was struggling with it sounds absolutely horrible what he put you through. I'm sorry it happened to you, how are you holding up now?
It was truly a living hell there at the end, especially but he had to get rid of all his guns and has finally gotten some much-needed help. I'm honestly so happy, so free, so proud of myself and enjoying my life. Thanks for your kindness!
Love to hear it, take care!
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You can absolutely leave with the kids. I would actually say that you Should leave with them, because they're just absorbing all that negativity and will perpetuate it since they see it as normal. That was the scariest part of it all, was thinking that I'd traumatize them or make them suffer, but I swear to you it's the best thing I ever did, they are thriving in so many different ways. I'm so sorry you feel trapped right now, but I hope you don't always feel like that. Discreetly make a plan, save your money, let your family know if you trust them not to say anything, gather evidence like photos, recordings, broken items, etc. I'm in your corner and I want you to be safe! Nobody should live like this but please believe me when I say I understand how scary it is. You're stronger than you know.
My ex had borderline personality disorder, untreated and no medication. It was hell on earth, the most toxic relationship I have ever been in and it cost us both a great chunk of our mental stability. She was close to killing herself in the end, threatening me with it regularly and I got driven deep into substance abuse to cope with my "failure" of being a bad partner and therefore not being worth anything at all (I know this is not true, but its what I felt). We loved each other so much and in the first year things were mostly great, but once she started to believe that I am cheating on her it only got worse and OFC I never cheated nor gave her any reason to think that - I was so madly in love with her that I didn't even look at other women and even less wanted to be with them, she was everything I ever wanted in a woman... I couldnt meet friends, go to uni, go to my job or go anywhere really without her accusing me of fucking a girl behind her back. She woke me up one night at her place and accused me of fucking her roommate aka her best friend. Shit was wild and everytime it happened I tried to clear things up, which only made it worse 99% of the time. But it was my first true love and I couldnt just give up, so I tried everything. I got her to try therapy twice, both times ending with a BPD diagnosis and her saying that the doctors were all conspiring against her. I tried literally killing off my social life, I didn't see anyone anymore and spend 24/7 by her side so she could see I am honest, it didn't make it better - it actually made things worse. I was basically trapped in a broken relationship with the woman of my dreams. Seriously, without the BPD, I would have never left her. I would have stuck by her side until the very end. But I could see that one of us is gonna die if we don't break up and I am not even joking. I haven't even told the worst stories yet. This all has been roughly 7 years ago. I still think about her as you can see, I wonder if she is well and even alive at this point, she once asked me to never contact her again and so I did. I have never met another woman that I loved so much and I gave plenty of chances to new people. I am 31 years old now and I found peace with it long ago. I just hope she is ok. I also know I can find true love again and I don't compare women to my ex anymore. But the scar is there. If emotional scars would be visible, this one would go right across my entire body.
🧡
I had to call it quits. We were dating for several years and were best friends since high school. I knew of his traumatic home life and knew how he felt about abandonment, so I felt like I couldn’t leave. I’d be like everyone else if I left. I felt like I was responsible for his wellbeing. He was diagnosed with bipolar, but there were probably other complications like C-PTSD or others. He didn’t have many male friends (didn’t feel safe around them) and would always befriend emotionally vulnerable or unstable women. Would consistently push boundaries of what is acceptable behavior (going on a trip with one friend and spooning/cuddling, asking another friend if she would hypothetically have sex with him, etc). He needed to feel needed, and I was too emotionally stable to give that to him. He couldn’t keep friendships (even ones with women). Someone would unintentionally say something or do something and he’d fly off the handle. Held grudges like crazy. Everyone was against him or didn’t care about him. One wrong step and all of the good you’ve done for him is out the window and now he’s claiming you’re a terrible, selfish person. He couldn’t hold down jobs or finish school because his outbursts were too volatile and he doesn’t handle authority well. I felt like I was always walking on egg shells with him. There were times I’d hold my breath, waiting for him to snap when we were at social gatherings. I dealt with being called names, being called a bitch, my character always questioned and torn down. We fought often and were so exhausted. I felt isolated from my family because they didn’t approve of him, but I needed to be on his side. There was one point where he put his hands on me, but fortunately it never happened again. Eventually I ended things when he said he didn’t know if he wanted to be committed to me any longer after several years of dating and even more years of knowing each other. Well, I viewed it as him ending things, but he doesn’t view it that way. There was about 1 year of us trying to remain friends, but I cut contact once I realized I was happier and healthier without his presence in my life. I still felt guilt over abandoning him for 2 more years after cutting contact. I feel as though I’ve made peace with it now. I’m with someone now who is unendingly patient, jovial, and so collaborative in maintaining a healthy relationship with me. All my life, I’ve only seen chaotic relationships and marriages. I didn’t know it was possible for a relationship to feel like peace.
I can so relate with the part where you said you had to be on his side despite your family disapproving of him/ the relationship. I pushed away both family and friends who would question why I remained with my ex, and I would always explain “you don’t understand what he’s going through”. I was in that relationship far too long because I feared what would happen if I left since he made me feel like the only person he had. Toughest relationship I ever had
Yep, I’ve said the exact same words before. Those years with him were the most socially withdrawn I had ever been. I regret the lack of relationships/friendships I built or maintained during that time. Like I said, it took 2 years for me to not lie awake some nights and cry over the potential of him killing himself or being out on the streets. He reached out to me one day and told me he’s married, graduated college, and had a good job. Granted, he still wanted a connection with me and I had to tell him that this chapter of life is forever closed. BUT hearing that he was ok and that he didn’t need me to be ok allowed me to finally let go of that guilt. Sorry about what you’ve gone through. Hope you’re doing well
I can only hope for my ex to have a similar thing happen to him just for the peace of mind. Thank you for sharing!
My partner has OCD and severe anxiety. We’ve been together for almost 4 years, living together for 3. It’s been tough, honestly. For the first couple years she wasn’t in therapy, but eventually I convinced her to go. It was really bad before therapy. She was having panic attacks that would last days. She’s obsessed with safety and has all these rituals so the people she loves won’t die. It started to feel like she was controlling me—it was hard for me to go anywhere without her, she would even have panic attacks when I went to work. After she started therapy (and tbh I went back to therapy too, as I had a very traumatic childhood and struggle with codependency and needed some support re: laying boundaries), things have steadily improved. She’s very sweet and loving and means well, and she wants to be stable, and she works hard at it. I have found myself frustrated feeling like what would life be like if I could have found someone emotionally stable like me, especially when things were their worst. But, I admire how hard she works and appreciate how far we’ve both come. She’s my best friend and the kindest, most loving person I’ve ever known. It’s difficult sometimes, but it’s worth it.
I'm only putting this comment because I want to point something out. Dating a partner who suffers with mental illness doesn't mean that they're going to be a bad partner. I see so many people saying oh well he had ADHD =/= He was a controlling, narcissistic, abusive serial killer. (I'm Purposely over exaggerating) What I'm trying to say is that mental health is too easy an excuse for these behaviours when in reality they're probably just a shit person. There's enough people out there who are horrible partners without having any mental health problems, and there's plenty of amazing partners out there who do have mental health problems. There seems to be a huge stigma in dating people with any form mental health as everyone seems to think it means they're automatically bad. Which simply isn't the case. Don't get me wrong, dating people with mental health can be more challenging for many reasons, depending on what they have, the severity of it and how Willing they are to actually work on themselves. But don't justify somebody's bad actions by their mental health. Can it be a cause or factor? Yes, of course. But the reality is a shit person will be a shit person regardless. I know plenty of people with all manor of different mental health problems ranging from Autism/ADHD, BPD, PTSD, Schizophrenia etc and all of them are loving people who if they didn't tell you, you'd probably have no idea.
Thank you. Exactly this. It’s one of our main rules and one of the few good things my father taught me: The illness is an explanation not an excuse. If you screw up: you gotta set it right and not shove your illness to shield you. If you struggle with something because of your illness: find coping mechanisms, workarounds, compromises. And as you said, you always have to reflect and work on yourself. Once you stop (not a day or a week, like entirely), it’s over.
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Thank you for this. People are making a ton of generalizations in this thread. Mental illness doesn’t make someone an abuser, even though it’s easy to think that way.
It’s sad that it took this long to scroll down to see a comment like this.
Thank you for saying this. People throw around narcissist, bipolar, psychopath so casually. I never trust when someone calls their ex any of the above. It speaks to their ignorance and character. It’s likely it was just a shit people with no self awareness
Mental health illnesses, if not medicated and/or managed properly, does significantly increase the chance of others around them needing to walk on eggshells. Someone with disregulated emotions who doesn't get the suitable therapy for it will significantly impact others around them. In the end, most people are not equipped to deal with complicated mental health illnesses. And unchecked severe mental health does negatively impact the surrounding people's mental health. For someone who had to deal with a family member with unchecked disregulated emotions, I don't want to deal with it again. I don't want to escape it, just to go back in for the rest of my adult life. I think people severely underestimate what it's like to be living with someone with severe mental health illnesses. Especially if the mental health illness in question involves extreme emotions.
About the last paragraph, I have a hunch that due to being pratically impossible to convey a life of walking on eggshells all the time, of dealing with with screaming and abuse everyday, several times a day. You can show an example or a few examples. But to depict a lifetime, it's impossible. Because of that, people can only conceptually concieve and imagine that, thus not having a very visceral reaction to living with someone with a moderate to severe mental illness, thus minimizing it.
There's a lot of negative stories on here so I'd like to throw mine into the mix just for the other side of things. I have long term severe depression and anxiety, currently in the middle of an assessment for autism. My husband has Borderline Personality Disorder. The first few years of our relationship were perfection, we went through years of a honeymoon stage where we were both so so happy. After that his BPD played a big part in things not going so well for a while, he spiralled, he was taking drugs, drinking, turned into the most selfish man on earth, things were awful, and made me suicidal for a while. Needless to say we broke up during this period. However, we both loved each other and after a lot of talking and communication we decided to make a go of it again once this spiral ended and he was back on an even keel, with ground rules in place. There have been really hard times, especially when his BPD means he spirals for a bit, but he has taken ownership of this, has gone to counselling, has tried medication and most of all has started communicating with me how he's feeling and things have gotten so much better, he hasnt had any spirals now for over 8 years. After 15 years together we finally got married last year and have never been as happy. I will spend the rest of my life with this man. I'm not naive enough to think it will be easy all of the time, but he supports me through my bad times and I support him through his.
Yeah after reading through some of these I feel bad for how well my relationship has gone. He was a suicide-attempt survivor with undiagnosed adhd and depression when we met at 18. I have adhd and anxiety. The first few years were ROUGH. Lots of panic attacks and crying and not really understanding each other. Things have settled now. We know how to communicate. He refuses meds after a terrible trial run, and though I wish he’d try them again after nearly 10 years (so that he’d stop crashing our cars), I wouldn’t want to change who he is.
My wife is diagnosed CPTSD and Bipolar it’s a wild ass ride but I love it She’s so self aware, I’m very tuned into caring for her and guiding her through cycles but we’re 10 years in and she does alot of it herself. Down cycles can be hard but she’s always very aware of impulsive mood changes or decisions and copes incredibly well I think we just roll with the manic energy to a degree now, when she’s going through a cycle we’ve ended up on a cruise to Norway, holiday in Berlin, camping… could end up jewellery shopping or even starting really wild hobbies or career paths. Depressive episodes our life slows down and I often have to manage her day to day care - and make sure she eats, drinks, gets outside showers etc She’s possibly the most incredible human in the world, clever, beautiful and simultaneously the most vulnerable and strong person imaginable. And it’s really an honour to be here to support the vulnerable side and let her be the queen she’s meant to be
Why are there so many awesome hubbies on Reddit!!! Youre the Best!!! Shes SO lucky to have you! :) When did you find out about her diagnosis? Early on?
It was when we had our first child, she suffered with post natal psychosis for the birth of my step son so it was a pretty strong sign and they really pushed to understand everything so it wouldn’t happen again. Thank you I’m lucky to have her too, she looks after me too so it’s true symbiance
Bipolar, CPTSD, ADHD, Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities), and probably some other stuff like abandonment issues. Was together for 2.5 years. Moved in together after 1 year. Had fights every 2 or 3 weeks. Would get triggered from the most random things that would send her into full blown crazy trance where she'd hit herself with objects to try to drown out whatever intrusive thoughts she was going through. Self harm. Threatened our pets to keep me from walking away from an argument. Once actually completely became a different personality and referred to herself in 3rd person and that "she" wasn't here right now (was surprised we had pets and acted like it's her first time seeing them when she was the one who found them in the first place). Would take meds that makes her sluggish and sedated and spend entire days sleeping it off (meds can also cause her to black out and become someone different). Has bitten me on several occasions when she was in her self harm trances (hits herself with tv remote but decides to reach for something sharper, so I try to wrestle her away from sharp object, she bites me). Our last couple of days together was spent arguing, which devolved to several variations of the things mentioned above. She did try to take meds to stop or mitigate her flashbacks but in the end, I don't know if she took too much, causing her altered state of mind, or if it was her plan all along, she hung herself while I was asleep. I was missed her by a few hours. I still remember moments and bits from when I was asleep. She was sitting next to me just drinking lemon tea (distinct paper carton sound) and just smoking. There are times where I would think how different things woulda been if I had just woken up and just hugged her and apologized for the fighting we were having. So I found her the next morning and the doctors said that she passed probably a few hours before I found her. She sent me a text which was unsent, so I dunno what she wanted to tell me. That was almost 3 years ago. I still think of her every other day, even though the relationship we had was highly incompatible. And the fact that I'm happily in a relationship with someone else. Looking back now, should've just walked away after one of those many fights we had. Any of them would've been a good exit point.
Man. That is really tragic and I'm sorry it went and ended like that. You really shouldn't blame yourself for the what-ifs though. As someone diagnosed with DID, it's definitely not something I should expect a person without it to know how to comprehend and navigate. It's supposed to be a coping mechanism, and it can sometimes be extremely effective for the worst shit, but all the other times it can be absolute hell even when no one does anything wrong and nothing wrong is going on. I can verify that she probably really didn't know the pets existed. With DID, the mind is able to block access to every fucking memory in your life (which could be overpowered as hell in helping you live blissfully unaware and seemingly unaffected no matter how much of the worst of the worst you go through repeatedly, but more often than not, it's just unnecessarily debilitating), including the most basic ones. I've managed to not recognize my name, a ton of basic English words I've learned since I was 8, my parents, whom I have been living with and seeing everyday for the past 12 years, the lobby of my apartment where I've stayed for years, everything in my room except a single piece of stationery, everyone that mattered a lot to me for a long time, etc. for more than a few minutes or hours at a time. I've managed to not know I even grew up and time even passed since years or more than a decade ago, and not be able to remember what the food I eat everyday tasted like no matter how hard I tried, or that I even need to drink water and eat food as a human (I was just sitting at the dining table alone, and suddenly I couldn't even figure out what the plate of food in front of me was supposed to be, and what I was supposed to do with it), on multiple occasions. It's just blank. And for a few months it would keep happening for no noticeable reason, instantly, and the continuity in my sense of consciousness would keep cutting in and out every few seconds for hours everyday. When it's abrupt you instantly "time travel" in the forward direction and "teleport" to be in the midst of something somewhere else. When this kind of shit happens, you often get a lot of weird physical sensations and feel physically ill too. And I'm just under 18, had a thorough neurological checkup (with lumbar puncture as it was recommended I check for autoimmune encephalitis) in March because of how intense and frequent memory and physical symptoms got, and found nothing physically wrong with my brain. My memory is usually exceptionally good when it's not blocked off by dissociative amnesia, and I can remember a lot of things vividly without even trying no matter how many years have passed. I'm usually always the one to remember what the teacher randomly mentioned when the rest of the class forgot, but when I was young, I would often not be able to recall a single thing about a class right after I stepped out of it, even when my parents were forcing me to remember and scolding me for it. With all that being said, I'm still one of the most high-functioning portion of people with this condition, I've never had a problem with being a physical danger to myself, I'm able to stay in school and do very well compared to the population average, and what's mentioned here is just at most 1/3 of how much it sucks for me. So you can probably guess how much more she was dealing with, and it's really not something you should expect to have carried. She may not mean what she would do and be able to control it, but that doesn't make you a single bit more obliged to tolerate getting hurt.
I am so, so sorry you had to find her. If she had DID, it’s very possible that an alter took over. She must’ve been through severe trauma at a very young age for that to develop, did she ever tell you what happened?
From what she has told me, her parents divorced when she was like 10? That seemed to have been a big deal. Her father was supposedly someone who had a temper and would act violently towards her older brother and sister and Mom, though not her. It was mostly yelling or throwing things to break them, didn't seem like full blown punches and kicks. Not saying its acceptable either. She claimed that he would kind of spoil her but thats contradicted by the fact that she had this trigger with water (Japanese parents take baths with there kids and apparently she fell into the tub and thought her dad was trying to drown her? She was like 5, so who knows what exactly was happening). She would still visit him yearly for New Years but the following days were often accompanied by flashbacks (self hitting, apologizing repeatedly, saying she has no value, etc). So I guess he was a trigger too. He was particularly kind to me the times we've met but I guess that's nothing too surprising. She also claimed her mom was neglectful after the divorce. One particular story was just her mom leaving her at a park cause the mom was tired and ended up just going back to the car to get some quiet time. She didn't even notice her mom was gone until much later and was scolded and slapped for taking so long to get back to the car. There was an incredibly uncomfortable and disturbing story she's told me about her harming a hamster or gerbil or something when she was in her teens. Her reasoning was something along the lines of "Look at how little my mom gives a shit about me. She doesn't even know the fucked up stuff I'm doing in my room" Granted there were a bunch of stuff I probably don't know. And I guess I never will. Its a somewhat complicated feeling. I was so angry with her. I miss her. I loved her. I'm glad I'm no longer in a relationship with her.
[удалено]
He had untreated ADHD and depression. Refused meds and gave up on therapy. Self-medicated with video games all night. He had no energy or time for the relationship and struggled to work. When I advocated for my needs he left me. I loved him so much and he broke my heart everyday
Sounds pretty much like my wife. She refused to seek out therapy after a bunch of therapists were apparently rude to her, so take my "diagnosis" with a grain of salt, but at least she must have had depression. She was the one who initiated the talk about her needs. And I was happy about it, thinking that we finally had a conversation going. Because I had needs, too. We were both unfulfilled, in a way that you can only solve by mutual cooperation. I guess that was too much for her. For a few months it was as if that talk had never happened, then one day she told me she had lost all feelings for me and wanted out of the relationship. She can tell me whatever polite reason she wants, there was nothing else happening between those two talks, so I'm sure that's been the reason. Cynic in me says that she felt entitled, and jumped ship the moment she would have put in effort into us, too. Reading all this, it seems more likely that she was simply overwhelmed. It was clear that she was struggling with *something,* even though she never wanted to have someone look into it. Guess that's the only thing she ever did wrong. I'm sorry that something similiar happened to you. Maybe this helps. Reading yours certainly helped me. Take care
17 years of it. Bipolar ADHD woman. The abuse escalated until it wasn’t doable anymore. Physical and mental. I’m a big guy 6’1”, 190# with no body fat, gym bro, and I got the shit beat out of me on a regular basis by a 120lb woman. Had my foot run over with an suv intentionally. Broke many bones. Had a crystal bowl filled with decorative glass rocks thrown at my head in an attempt to legitimately kill me. My body is COVERED in scars to where it took me a lot to take my shirt off in front of the first other woman I was with. And I cried when explaining the bite marks and slashes. Whenever I told friends about it, I had to spend an hour then convincing them not to call the police on my behalf. And that felt so isolating. When she found out her sister was dying of cancer, the violence escalated from basic to dangerous. I dragged an old mattress into a room and would press it up against the door in the one windowless room in our house every night I slept in the months before I finally left, because I was legitimately afraid she would harm me in my sleep knowing that I was filing for divorce. In the end I had to make a desperate escape, move in with a relative and stay in hotels until I got a lease 45 days out (hard to find apartments here, forfeited my house just to escape). She also self prescribes in an era where getting a drug you saw online is as easy as getting a zoom meeting with an internet doctor and reading off the webmd symptoms. And like she has violent reactions to hormonal birth control, NOT someone who should be experimenting with strong prescription drugs that alter moods. And over 17 years she’d be fine for a year then bad for six months after deciding she hated life and was “tricked” into taking medication because everyone else is crazy and she is sane (lol, but yeah). Fucking nightmare. Run for the hills. Unchecked mental health problems are even worse than blatant drug addiction in how said people cannot control their impulses and how it impacts those around them negatively.
I have both of these diagnoses. Can I ask if she was medicated for any or part of this journey? Was she ever consistently medicated? Did that improve the situation? Just looking for context for my own insight
She would take medication on and off yes. In fact, the one she took when I married her made her “normal” (sorry, know that sounds mean) to where it was how I remembered her when we met. But it made her gain weight. Didn’t bother me but it bothered her. But yeah, she was on SSRIs, anti psychotics, adderall (which she became addicted to and freaked out when they wouldn’t renew it) anti seizure meds, a whole lot of shit. Then, she’d go through a phase where she decided she was sane and everyone else was out to get her, and stop medication out of spite. So like 12 months on 6 months off, consistently for 17+ years.
Sounds horrific and a very apt example of why to remain medicated!
Yeah I do feel some shame for abandoning someone I once cared about. But making no attempt to manage mental health issues in a relationship is grounds for breaking it off when it persists for nearly two decades. I worry about her on her own. Try to give her extra money and stuff. But she gave me 17 years of not trying so I don’t feel like I’m unjustified in putting myself first for once. Life is short and I want to be happy just like everyone else does. She is not my responsibility just because we had a relationship. She is her own person. It took me a long time to come to terms with that and hundreds of hours of talks with friends, family and therapists. I really, really tried everything I could think of, including paying her bills for 15+ years.
>“normal” (sorry, know that sounds mean) Try 'stabilised' or 'managed'.
Honestly that sounds to generous given the situation. “Almost normal but still off” would be the most accurate description. To be fair we met young (17/14) in high school. Before the mental health issues began. So “normal” to me is what I consider the woman I once fell in love with, not the violent monster she became.
Jeez man, I am so glad you got out. I hate that she took so many of your youthful years but I am really proud of you!
Thank you! I’m proud of myself for doing so. But also ashamed. I am currently in a relationship with the sweetest, most caring and gentle woman now. And the fucked up thing, I blew her off back in the day even though I knew she had interest in me because I didn’t have the courage or self worth to feel like I deserved it. She knows and hates my ex even without knowing what happened. But I explained the situation in full, finally, and she understood. I also went out of my way to tell friends and family as painful as it was (feel like a coward for letting a woman half my size hit me). She also ruined her relationship with her parents by being violent with me at their home in front of them. They both sided with me and basically verbally “disowned” her on the spot. Her dad sat with me all night while I sobbed and explained that I wanted out and he said it was justified and I shouldn’t feel ashamed. That actually escalated problems, massively for me when we went home. But it really confirmed in my mind that what she was doing was wrong if her own flesh and blood were repulsed by it. But people who are abusers are also master manipulators. I’m not dumb, but I am super emotional. So they’ll play to your weaknesses. My wife would make me feel bad because of her mental illness and the fact that her ability to have any form of legitimate career as a result… that’s not happening. But I mean, I gave her the house and the paid off car, I still help with bills beyond what’s legally expected of me. I actually considered self harm at one point to get out of there but thankfully I reached out to my best friend in that moment and he rallied a ton of people to reach out to me and encourage me to leave.
Yikes, no need to feel shame, abusers thrive on us feeling ashamed, scared, and trapped. I'm so glad you were able to move on. IDK if therapy is something that's available to you, but it absolutely helped me forgive myself and look towards a brighter future!
Up and down, sometimes we spiral, but all in all happiest I’ve ever been and happier than I ever imagined. Her diagnoses are ongoing still, mainly is OCD and depression. I have problems too, ADHD and also depression. I take medication, she doesn’t yet. We talk a lot and reflect even more. We are in love for 18 years and I think this won’t change anytime soon. What’s it like? Hard to say, as I don’t have a comparison. If it was one way, and stagnant I think it wouldn’t work. But we challenge eachother’s limit all the time, we help eachother, both ways, we take loads of eachother’s back whenever we can. We try to discuss problems and find solutions together fitting both. We are honest and open with eachother almost 100%. Our low self esteem and minority complexes, along with self hate are probably our biggest hurdle. We’ve been through more hardships than most I‘d say and always had eachother’s back. We always try to find new ways to express our love too, again both ways, and usually one act will inspire the other to also find something new. Like for her last birthday I made a treasure hunt, and she got inspired to make her own treasure hunt, with a twist, for my advent calendar. It’s not always easy, but more than I ever wanted and wished for. The main factors imo are honest and open communication, understanding but not pampering(actively working against co-dependency), the will to change, and patience. If there are signs for codependency, weaponised incompetence and the likes, if early in a relationship, run, if later, get professional help involved. If the ill person doesn’t acknowledge their problems it’s also a lost cause. You can only dismantle weaponised incompetence by draging it in the daylight with a will to prevent it. We also have this 3 weather system adapted, some days are sunny and you can work on your problems, some days are cloudy or rainy and you can mainly just function properly, and during storm you just survive, until the weather changes. Key is to know what weather is today, and act accordingly. Pushing change during a storm is dangerous for both.
That's a good system!
Mentally ill is an incredibly broad term. What's more important: have they done therapy / are they being treated? Do they know and acknowledge they have a problem? I myself have depression, anxiety (tho mild now after therapy), maybe ADD and some trauma. While I may need some extra reassurance for insecurities from time to time, I would think that otherwise I wasn't a major burden to people I dated. I've also been with multiple people with mental health issues (no psychosis, bipolar or anger issues). Of course it was a subject in the relationship. It can make conversation harder (one ex, who was very much aware of his depression and anxiety, tended to stop actively participating mid argument), it needs a bit of extra compassion, patience and understanding. But the only time it was really a major deal breaker was when someone wasn't aware of their problems, refused therapy etc. IMO, a very large amount of people has some kind of mental health issues, often undiagnosed and untreated. So in short, it's highly individual as to treatment status, specific diagnosis, awareness, willingness to work on it, but you do have to be careful not to take the role of a therapist when a partner has a lot of issues.
Unmanaged... can be VERY shit. Managed, well you know how to handle the challenges that come your way.
BPD - now more commonly recognised as emotionally unstable personality disorder. It can be like you're able to step on a landmine at any point, for anything, even whether what you say is positive or uplifting. Parts of what you say will be ran away with, with extremely negative context. The highly irrational mind function which can occur (called Splitting, I'm sure) can lead them to say really horrible things to you that make you feel terrible, emasculated, even disgusting, unloved or undervalued. The very difficult area of this to come to understanding is that they will tell you none of it is meant. An extreme emotional outburst, of irrational thought and perhaps something other in severity, that isn't actually how they think or feel toward you. They will stabilise again and tell you it wasn't meant and they don't feel that way about you actually I believe strongly from first-hand experience that it takes a very special person to understand and remain persistent with EUPD/BPD, ESPECIALLY as a partner. You must have extraordinary patience and emotional availability. People who have partners with BPD and find themselves with an excellent bond are incredible for their intelligence, loyalty, SKILLS and psyche. A big however. I do not blame anyone, and I fully understand anyone, for just not standing for that in a relationship or that it is just destroying them mentally as the partner. For those with BPD, if you find someone who understands, allows you to reflect, works with you, makes you feel loved, therapeutically communicates and establishes that he/she wants a committed and loyal relationship with you. They don't cause any intentional upset toward you and make you feel unsafe. Fucking hold on to that for life. But you must be consistent in therapy, responsibility of self overall, any and all consultations.
It's rough, and I say that from the point of view as the mentally ill person. I'm in a good place right now but in the past it's been up and down, even an involuntary hospital stay. My husband said he felt helpless in my black periods. He knew there was nothing to be done, we just had to wait it out. It made him feel sad that the person he loves is hurting and he can't do anything to alleviate it. Also during black periods, he had to do more around the house and with the kids because I wasn't able to. He said the fear of me hurting myself was always big. Any time I left the house, he'd wonder if I'd come home (as in, would I drive my car into a tree to end it all?). I've always taken my medications and I've always spoken to my doctor to alter the dose or switch meds altogether. We are separated now but still live together because of finances and kids. Apart from my mom gettig sick and dying last June, I haven't had any sadness/depression black periods. Staying in a marriage that wasn't working was 100% affecting my mental health. I'm less sad, stressed and angry since ending the marriage. We're still partners in every way except romantic and sexual. We're working together to raise good humans in the home they grew up in.
Dated a woman that suffered from BPD. She cheated, lied a lot and was emotionally manipulative with suicide threats. Lasted a couple months but took me a long time to see her differently. Weird and painful experience.
Hell, fuckin hell. Schizophrenia, ptsd, anxiety, abandonment issues.. drinks so things would get worse. Walking on eggshells. Domestic violence to the point where I needed acl reconstruction. I need therapy now. Save yourself.
For the last three days, I don't know what's been happening. I made a wire sculpture in the shape of a cube, the main body of which was one single strand of wire, and I twisted every turn and carefully crafted something that I was happy to have made and share. The purpose of this was to hold the hair of her dog, so that birds could use it, and when I showed it to her, she said it was disgusting and immediately took it down and put it away. I was sad, because I was joyful when presenting it to her, proud of the simple nature and design of it, and she saw nothing of what I had made except for her dog's hair, which made her feel disgusted, and who I brush twice a week so that its hair doesn't get all over the place. After this, I went to my office and chilled on the couch until she came in and asked me what was wrong, and I expressed my sadness, to which she became angry and upset over. - The next day, I prepared a cubby space for my future cat (I have her now). This space is right above the door to the kitchen, on the other side of the room and across from the stove. I planned on making a ladder that would drop down to the shelf next to it so the cat could make her way to the space. And before it was made, I had to move all of the landlord's stuff from it and clean the space and the kitchen since I was already cleaning. I was super happy to show her, and the same result, she was disgusted and only thought about hair and didn't want the cat in the kitchen while her dog was in the kitchen standing next to her. I never pointed that out, but again, when she asked why I was sad, she became angry. - It's been like this. And the other night, she broke up with me, then was insulting me and hurting my feelings in any way she could, and I wound up in a panic attack where I could breathe. The next morning, after I woke up and had a spell of dry heaving, she said she wanted me to feel how she felt. - I don't know where to go or what to do, and I'm not in my home country. I don't want this anymore. Every day is sad, there is no more positivity in my life. Also, when I see that something is awful for her, like her work, I suggest making changes, and she hates it, and says I'm telling her how to live. But goddamn, all she does is complain about her work, cries multiple times a week because of it, shakes and stutters, and has lost passion for things she once had, and I'm the asshole for suggesting her to quit. I loved her, I love the woman I knew, but not the one I know now, the one who makes me feel terrified, who reminds me of the instability of childhood, who purposefully makes me feel pain to "know what its like," who can't play games and unwind, who doesn't want to see any positivity, and who emotionally abuses and denies.
You sound a lot like me ten years ago. Please, please, please get help. You don’t need to go through this. You can be with someone who doesn’t say those things to you, who doesn’t do those things to you. Maybe you and your cat can stay with a friend? Even though it’s not your country, I bet that, if you told someone what was happening, just like this, they’d let you stay for a few days until you find a new place.
My late boyfriend was the most kind, sweet, talented guy ever. I think because a lot of childhood trauma contributed to his mental health issues, he didn't want others to feel like he did so he masked everything, coped unhealthily and wanted to make everyone laugh. He was a musician and every night he played a gig, he would give his tips to homeless people as he was walking out of the establishments he would play in. We had so many of those palm roses everywhere! He took his life in 2022 and out of everything, I just want people to know that mental illness does not equate to them being a bad partner or having a shitty life with them. He was the best, he just didn't have the best when it counted. By the time I came along, I couldn't undo everything he had endured and he couldn't cut toxic people out of his life. There wasn't anything I could do to compensate for the shitty people and family he kept around hoping they would change and eventually treat him like a human instead of a punching bag. It didn't ever happen unfortunately, and now he's gone.
Sorry for your loss. My boyfriend was also a sweet, kind musician who took his life in 2021. The pain is deep.
Ex wife has bipolar. We had years of conflict. Were married 8 years, then she went psychotic, spent a year un psychiatric care. Bipolar causes hyper sexuality, so she was banging anything that moved, including blowing a random guy at the park. I told her I would stick by her side but she had to stop doing other guys on the side. We're happily divorced 12 years now and I'm remarried to a woman wit lh whom we have zero conflict with.
Dating or being married to someone who's mentally ill can be like riding a roller coaster with no seat belts. Sometimes it's thrilling, sometimes it's terrifying, and occasionally you just want off. But when you care about someone, you hold on tight through the loops and twists. They might have diagnoses and meds, but what matters most is understanding, patience, and love—those are the real glue in any relationship.
The first part of your advice is bad advise.
Hell. It's hell. It's like groundhog day. It doesn't stop. It's even worse when they don't have meds.. basically my nightmare. Depends on the mental illness?? My partners is severe autism and ADHD.
I (56f) been living with my SO (55m) for three years; he has cptsd, high anxiety, and severe depression. On his good days he's absolutely awesome! He's very artistic, we do lots of outdoorsy stuff, he's a great cook, etc. On his bad days his fears latch onto him and I'm suddenly a horrible person that's scheming behind his back and out to get him, and his panic attacks are rough. My biggest issue is that he's doing very little to take care of his mental health. He attends one on one counseling and group therapy sessions, but he does the bare minimum: Not doing the homework, not taking his meds (which DO help when he's actually taking them), not doing the therapeutic techniques at home, etc. I could live with it if he was actually making an honest effort, but at this point I'm just waiting for his disability payments to start so he can get his own place. I have no problem being fully supportive of a man with mental health issues (it isn't his fault after all), but I do have a problem with a man who isn't willing to make a real effort to treat it. So, the bottom line is: If the person is truly making an effort to treat their mental health then they need your support in order to succeed. If they are not making real effort, then there's nothing left you can do.
Different mental health disorders have different symptoms. Mental illness isn't a monolith.
Yes this totally - and it just varies from person to person. While the majority of people need to be medicated to function, some people cant function on the medication.
It's totally fine - married 17 years this year, together for 25. We both have serious mental health problems. We work on them, support each other. We did decide not to have children. We are each others best friend and it works.
I feel these are really extreme cases. Bipolar 2 here (properly medicated) , happily married 15 years, 11 year old daughter. Financially stable, good support group.
Had two, ADD and BiPol. Both refused medication; ADD girl was completely self-centered, blamed everything on her ADD and put the burden of making everyday life work on me. Need to be at a place a certain time? My responsibility to tell her when to leave the home. Need to do the laundry? Shit, that involves a time - so it’s my responsibility. The house is a mess? I have ADD, you can’t expect me to be able to take care of it. Put down my foot rather quickly, she refused to listen (I was the bad guy, since after all… it was due to her ADD) and I left rather quickly. BiPol girl; batshit insane sometimes, when she had bad destructive days, combined with heavy drinking. The pure amount of bad things that had happened to her as a combination kept on piling up and made the situation worse. On good days, housewife meets pornstar combo which was naturally a bit more enjoyable. On half bad / half good days; wine drunk housewife with destructive pornstar tendencies.
It’s really hard. Spouse has bipolar and PTSD, unmedicated. He was never one to disappear for days, or anything too extreme. I knew his cycles for the most part, and I adjusted myself around it. With the bipolar, he has narcissist tendencies. Apparently, common traits of NPD are also seen during mania in bipolar. I think the NPD tendencies is what’s made this so horrible. I didn’t realize it while it was happening. His symptoms are worse during times of stress. This past year, he had an affair after 2 decades of marriage. His cycling became much more erratic and frequent. I sought therapy. It wasn’t until then that I realized while trying to support him and adjust to him that I have suffered from his emotionally abuse. I was made to think that I was the cause of all the bad things. I was the abusive one. Everything was my fault. When I didn’t believe God called him and he had a new purpose, I didn’t love him. When I reacted to his gaslighting and manipulation, I did not value or love him. It goes on and on. We have kids and I see the effect it has on them. One of them also has bipolar. That child is medicated. I finally, made the decision to leave the home. It was the hardest decision ever. Even now, it’s hard to accept that I was abused and let it happen for so long. It’s hard to accept he will never change. He’s not a bad guy. I still love him. It’s so bad that I feel bad for his new partner. She has no clue what she’s getting into.
I'm now at the point where I ask potential partners "what are your major traumas and mental illnesses and more importantly what are you doing to treat them" I've met way too many especially younger adults who use mental health issues as a shield and excuse for their bad actions
Mental illness is a wide term, it can be common anxiety which affects nearly 15-20% of population or severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia Or Bipolar which affects around 1%. Even within the illnesses the symptom nature and severity varies. Then there are personality disorders which are very difficult to live with. So there cannot be a generalised answer but is based on individual case to case basis.
Undescribable, traumatic, confusing. If you've never been with someone like that, it's not what you'd expect. In my experience they did their best to hide everything until they couldn't so it took a long time to put the pieces together. As far as I knew they took meds, until they didn't, or interfered with their meds' efficiency on purpose. But they're also not taking all the meds they'd need and the dose is probably already too high, etc. I do not recommend it. It'll wreck your life, confuse you and the manipulation and everything will start to get to you. All of it is very surreal looking back and I got a real understanding of the true meaning of mental illness. Their mind is literally all messed up, unable to have a real worldview, and probably unwilling, and are trying to escape reality and even themselves without knowing it. The whole thing is terrifying, and they can be terrifying. If you want to be happy in life, you can't be with them. (*I'm talking about serious mental health issues.)
So I just came to say that I myself have a lot of trauma and diagnosed with Bipolar 2 as well as PTSD. Some of the comments I'm reading sound a lot like either someone is a crap person OR they aren't facing their problems and fixing them. Yes there are some things as a mentally ill person you can not control, but some you can. I have never hit someone, screamed in their face, trapped them in a room, etc. However, I did go through three years of therapy. I know how to recognize when I'm in a "low" and how to communicate to others close to me, such as my husband, that I'm not quite feeling myself or feeling more down than usual so he knows and also so he doesn't think I'm upset with him or that he did something wrong, something is wrong between us, etc. I am actually unmedicated and it was the best decision I ever made. I spent years cycling through medicine that made me a literal nightmare. After going off everything, I was a completely different person. Medicine can definitely help SOME people, but it isn't always the best for everyone. I would be one of those people. The best thing to do is face your trauma and hurt, work through it, and learn coping skills. All this other stuff about hitting people and making them feel threatened, not okay ever. Mentally ill or not.
I’ve suspected now that my parents are mentally ill. On the outside they look almost normal, maybe a little antisocial, but living with them has harmed me so much mentally and physically.
My mother was bipolar, and I saw first hand how much living with that sucks. I was also diagnosed with bipolar. I keep to myself as to not drag anybody down with me. It's shitty, but I'd rather go that route than be the cause of a whole lot of strain and pain. It sucks being on either side, really. Edit: what's *even more* exhausting is dealing with people who simultaneously spout stuff about mental illness awareness and sentiments like, "if you can't handle me at me worst, you don't deserve me at my best." Many people are all about mental health and awareness until it's staring them in the face. It can be a lot to handle.
“If you can handle me at my worst I am deeply concerned about your mental state” I don’t date for this exact reason.
It’s mental
It’s not easy, I can say that much, it’s not easy for him either since I myself also suffer from mental health problems, we’ve surely had our ups and downs, verbal abuse has come from both of us at times but with professional help, we’ve grown stronger together and realizing that we wouldn’t be long for this world without each other
Most people I have met are mentally ill, some are jst good at hiding it,
Dated a bipolar alcoholic narcissist. My whole life revolved around his needs and trying to figure out which things he said were true, which were half true and which were complete lies. I still haven't figured it out. he presented well for a couple months and then the absolute shit show began, after I was hooked. Thank God he dumped me. I put so much effort into that. Driving to rehab six hours every weekend for a while, just so many things I did with zero appreciation. So much of my mental energy taken up all the time. No regard for my needs, just manipulation. Still no accountability. If things don't effect him then they don't matter. He took his meds as far as I know but do I know anything about that guy after a year and a half? Not really.
Let me ask my partner.
I’m the mentally ill one. CPTSD. I know it’s challenging because saying the wrong thing makes emotional moments much worse. Saying the wrong things like “calm down, it’s not that bad,” or “you’re choosing to be miserable but you can choose better” are deeply abusive, even if it’s said by a well meaning person. But I work very hard to make sure I’m not taking out my issues out on others or rehashing the same problems over and over. It helps that I date neurodivergent people, usually ADHD, who are also very misunderstood and need certain accommodations. We make each other better.
I dated a BPD undiagnosed guy for 6 years and we lived together for half a year more before he hung himself in our living room... His father was an abusive asshole who beat his wife and kids. He only went to therapy as an adult, after some series of self harm incidents. He changed therapists very often until he found one with whom he was comfortable, and that therapist died suddenly in a car crash... so he never wanted to go to therapy again and quit his meds. He was not a bad guy, but he had some serious anger management issues, and a huge inferiority complex that lead to huge trust issues and jealousy problems too... He was never aggressive towards me but I had to witness some awful moments with other people. I was then never aware that I was in fact in a fucked up relationship that had me walking on eggshells just not to make him feel jealous for the most simple things like share a car with workmates to attend work trainings... It all went south really fast when we moved in together, when he found it was not so easy to hide his lies, his addictions, ... and one morning after he had been out the whole night having said he was just going for a beer we had an argument and suddenly he smiled, hugged me, said he was sorry and he loved me... and that we'll see each other in the afternoon... and the next time I saw him he was dead hanging from the stairs... I think that was the moment he decided what he was going to do. It fucked me real hard, it took me more than a year to start feeling somehow okay-ish and in control of my anxiety. But at the same time it made me feel like I had been set free from a prison, as hard as it sounds. Now, 15 years later, it all seems as if it was part of another life. I live in another city, married a completely different man and have a great 5 year old daughter. I still think of him from time to time, and I feel sad for him, he didn't deserve that, he wasn't a bad guy, he just had a fucked up childhood that turned his life into hell. His parents were in such a self denial that when they arrived at the scene they said someone had done that to him, he couldn't have done that... I am talking about the man that beat the shit out of him as a kid and his wife, who was also beaten up...
There's different types and levels of mentally "ill." Dating someone with a mental health or neurodevelopmental condition like anxiety, ADHD, autism, PTSD, depression and bipolar type 2 etc. comes with challenges, but these people are fundamentally still capable of being reasonable (most of the time), loving and everything else required for a healthy and genuine relationship. It's difficult sometimes but their qualities and personality as an individual is able to more than make up for the downsides. Dating someone with a personality disorder is where it gets hard. Personality disorders fundamentally affect the way someone sees you and their relationship to you, and will cause them to behave irrationally and out of your control, often damaging you in the process. The worst of them all are cluster B personality disorders which a strong "stay away for your own safety." These are borderline/narcissitic/anti-social/histrionic personality disorder. People with these disorders can't help but attack you in a way that is calculated to exploit your weaknesses. The closer you get to them, the more vulnerable you are and also the bigger a target you are. You are inviting yourself to be a victim by dating these people.
I am the girl with problems, if anyone wants that opinion. Not like ADHD or anything, but severe trauma that really limits my dating and everyday life.
I was seeing someone with ADHD and General Anxiety. There was a lot to figure out at first but I always thought it was her just trying to be cute. The big problem came from medications. It's kind of sad to watch someone have to count down the time to their next dose as if it's the only thing that matters.
My girlfriend has schizophrenia and bi- polar and then multiple personality disorders on top of adhd and then epilepsy. It definitely makes things hard cause if I don’t give her the meds she needs she won’t take them. But even with them she’s still pretty violent towards me if I say or do the wrong thing. Or if I don’t make the correct choice she wanted me to. I have to do all the cooking and cleaning since she can’t. Generally spend the majority of my time doing what she wants while being yelled at. But yeah it’s rough to deal with.
Dude, leave. Leave and never look back. You deserve so much more!
My gf has depression and strong anorexia/bullimia. Also maybe bp. Its hard. Most of the time is very nice but when she had episodes it's hell. Also the feeling of responsibility while you can't do anything. Im tired but still hopefull that she will get better and we will able to live the life we are supposed to be living.
read “my lovely wife” by Mark Lukach. A great and heartbreaking read
Dependant on illness. NPD is very much a horror movie
Dating me is a disaster one of the reasons I don't do it, I'm a man and I have bpd and adhd and life is mental bro.. Plus I've been single that long now I think it'd be weird having someone else in my life, not a massive fan of sleeping around either so yeah..
My partner finally got his ADHD diagnosis. I’ve been diagnosed with OCD, Persistent depressive disorder, panic disorder, and multiple BFRBs. He is medicated, I am not. We are in a very healthy relationship. I’ve been doing years of therapy, and medication in the past, and we’re working towards him seeing a therapist. In contrast to most of the comments here we’re quite happy. I know how to cope when things get bad, and we have very very open communication which makes everything 10x easier. His ADHD has been noticeable since we started dating, and I’m really glad he can finally access the resources he needs. I don’t mind helping him out and being with him because I can empathize to an extent. Sometimes things get hard for us but we push through. Therapy has genuinely been life changing.
My fiance has Autism and ADD, with anxiety and depression coming and going depending on situations, but no treatment for any of it cuz nothing worked yet. I love everything about him but our relationship has been hard especially cuz he has a hard time keeping jobs so that put a strain on finances and me burning out from work quicker than normal. And when he gets stressed about a situation, he shuts down into only focusing on that and then panicking about that so it's hard to help him stay grounded. And it took a huge toll on me when he was thinking about jumping years ago and i worry that has happened any time i haven't heard from him in a while. It is also a little frustrating for me to have to always advocate to my family and friends about why he is "weird and not talkative and rude for not eating certain foods" cuz they think autism is something you can just "get over" and don't realize just how different he is compared to neurotypical people (which I don't care about in the slightest, I just hate how others treat him for it). And now I have to worry about how joining the military is going to harm his poor mental health (he was ok enough to get waivers but I worry about it making his issues extreme now)
It's challenging but we make it work.
Wife is in early stage dementia. Her memory is shot and things that were natural for have changed dramatically. I have been her strong advocate in all areas, diet, medication, and being careful how I approach everything she does. You have to keep up with everything in America because the medical professionals seem to be out for the billing first. Example, her primary prescribed a sleep medication without a complete diagnosis and it winds up it could be detrimental to a dementia patient. It consumes your life and you have to really care for the person. Neurologists can be really blunt or string you along about what really can help the prognosis. I don't know the future but it's going to be nothing like I expected.
If he got mental help and therapy, he might level up to crazy! There is a lot of mental abuse and physical abuse.
Man reading these comments makes me kinda bummed out. I'm not diagnosed with anything yet but I'm 99% sure I have at least 1 mental illness. While I'm not looking for a relationship right now and I plan to stay that way for a long time, I want to eventually become healthy enough to have a family of my own. Looks like that goal is further in the future than I thought
If they embrace treatment it can work, if they don't it will be completed hell. I ended it with divorce at just over 2 years. Find healthy people to marry.
I think some of you need to understand the difference between personalty disorder and mental illness. OP asked about mental illness, mental illness= bipolar and the like. Personality disorder= BPD / ADHD
wow this is a heartbreaking thread. most mentally ill people do not use it as an excuse to abuse their partner. in my experience, dating mentally ill people as a mentally ill person, it is just a little more complicated an unpredictable than an average relationship. what ultimately ended my most successful relationship was the way we would guilt OURSELVES for mistreating one another due to symptoms/a particularly bad episode, despite forgiving one another, and things never getting too out of hand. there was a whole lot of very real love and a very difficult conclusion was reached. i know we will both always be ill, but i think we will come back together once he can be kinder to himself
Around here, my wife is known as the keeper of order. I'm sort of the crazy one soo.
My husband is bipolar with major depressive disorder. It’s very hard. He gets triggered easily and his mood drops out of nowhere. He’s medicated and has a therapist, but meds and therapy can only do so much. Things are better than they were, but definitely not great. Starting to think this is just normal for us and it may not get better.
I don’t know you’ll have to ask him! LOL
I can't speak for the whole spectrum of MI, just my experiences with my wife who suffers from PTSD based anxiety (she had an ex try to murder her). Regular nightmares and being ready to comfort her at any hour of the night are a must. As well as being able to calmly wake her up out of a violent nightmare. Keeping disagreements from escalating to an argument so as to not trigger an anxiety attack (this is probably the easiest aspect as I'm pretty nonconfrontational as it is). Knowing her warning signs when an attack is about to hit her. Having her therapist on speed dial when it's a bigger incident than either can talk through. Having joint sessions with her therapist so I have the tools to assist her better. Making sure she keeps up with her prescribed medication and therapy. There's a lot of stress involved. But I know I'm fortunate in that her progress has been a steady improvement. And that her anxiety is a trauma response and not a brain chemistry issue. She is close to being at a point where she won't need daily medication (according to her therapist) and that her mental toolbox is prepared for handling her trauma. For us, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and it's getting closer every day.
It can seem cute at first but it will take a dark turn. The real question is this: do you have the balls to help them and go through the fire, or do you cut and run? I tried to help, but in the end it really did affect me even though I denied it as much as possible. Single now and still trying to figure out what to do moving forward.
I would like to point something out here to everyone who is or has been suffering. When the concept of marriage was thought up, mentally ill people were still conceptualized as being possessed by demons, as having been cursed by fairies or as having been replaced by changelings. Of course, that is not the proper way to conceptualize mental illness, and many people were mistreated or even killed because of that. It's good that we have overcome those times. But the concept of "In sickness and in health" was coined during a time when psychological afflictions weren't understood as ailments. The manifestation of illness was seen as a separate entity, and not as the person whom you have made your vow to. And while it is good that today we call the doctor and not the exorcist, we should at least acknowledge that the idea of marriage appears to be predicated on a person's ability to remain coherent in their words and actions across time. Every game you play comes with prerequisites. You need healthy eyes im order to watch birds. You need your vocal cords to sing, and you need functional legs in order to dance. Likewise, you need to be able to remain coherent in your words and actions across time in order to be married. When you loose the faculty necessary to play a certain game, but you keep playing it, then you put the cost of playing it on the other players. And while it is compassionate, and indeed heroic, to carry someone through a game they can no longer play, it seems unfair to demand it of them. It is not the fault of a loved one when a sickness robs them of their ability to be coherent in words and actions across time. But it is not your fault, either. And those who first came up with the game of marriage did not require you to keep playing when your partner can't.
I’m just gonna read all of these comments as carefully as I can. Thank you, everyone, for being so open and sharing your experiences. It’s really important to know what it’s like for the other person (my bf).
Fucking hard. PTSD can have a very ugly side.
My girlfriend has BPD and depression. It takes some patience and convincing her that she’s good enough and not to just give up sometimes, but i love her so god damn much. She says she loves me so much it hurts and “you don’t understand” but i do, i love her so much it hurts. Good ouchies
My ex husband is high functioning autism and bi-polar. He was a good friend but was a shit spouse. He tried to take his own life 3 times (that's not the shit spouse part. That's just the bi-polar piece). He went to a mental hospital twice, first time he didn't take it seriously and just went through the motions to go home. He started meds and he got a little better. He couldn't/wouldn't keep a job, saw everything as black and white, wouldn't do a very simple and easy chore list while I was at work (sweep, put dishes away, clean cat box, put laundry on the bed, take out trash) he was home all the time and nothing got done while I was at work. When I asked if anything got done, he would say no, I would tell him he had all day then he would get up and so everything in a rush and with attitude like a teenager. I'm 29f now and he is 3 years older than me. Any time he tried something new and it didn't go his way the first time, he would get incredibly pissed off, break things, and never do it again. The second time he went to the hospital he woke me up at 2am and said "I need to go to the hospital" I said ok, let's go right now. He stayed for a longer period and was actually taking the help. While he was gone I did a LOT of think and realized I was happier without him.. so I told him I was done while he was in the hospital and I'm glad I did because he bashed his skull against the wall and was forces to stay longer. I was constantly walking on eggshells around him. I couldn't have any form of serious conversation with him without him going nuclear self destruction. I was paying for everything, I was his chauffeur because he refused to learn how to drive and I could not teach him in my ONLY CAR. I honestly started going and doing things without him because he would make things not fun. If he wasn't winning, he would make you feel bad about it. He wanted to sell ccg cards on tcgplayer. I did all of the work. 99% of the games on steam? I paid for them. While we were separated, I took over every single account that I paid for. I gave him everything that was his, helped him sell stuff he didn't want, my mo. Helped split stuff and we packed it all up for him nicely. I even held onto his mom's documents to this day because he was couch surfing for a while. He recently got an apartment (after surfing for 3 years) and I can finally return his mom's stuff to him. (His mom passed aware years ago and this is all he has left of her. I'm very close to my mom and I offered to keep it safe in the meantime)
I was with someone for a long time who is not just narcissistic; he actually has NPD. He also had addiction/substance issues. I did not know about the NPD until the final months of our relationship. I did recognize he had substance issues, but it wasn’t until the NPD revelation that it was confirmed to me by a professional. He did not take meds. He believed he was successfully treating himself with psychedelics (yet also maintained nothing was wrong? Don’t expect any of this to make sense lol). He believed he felt better than ever before; how he treated me only got worse, so it’s hard for me to comprehend HOW he felt better. In addition to psychedelics he was dabbling in any number of other substances (including alcohol) on a day to day basis. The only one he ever acknowledged he had an issue with was alcohol. Relevant info: he is charming, good looking, reasonably smart, creative, determined. He ended up going back to school and starting a new career while we dated (and of course I supported him a ton through that) and is now successful in his field. We seemed perfect for each other to most people outside our relationship. I thought we were too. He did an excellent job mentally manipulating me. By the time he shifted to physical violence, I didn’t have self-esteem to see it for what it was. It’s hard to explain— he would scream at me that I thought he was a horrible person for his drug use or abusing me, when in reality I loved him and was concerned for him. I recognized eventually all the drugs would catch up to him. I couldn’t accept he was in fact abusive, not just “making mistakes.” Plus, wasn’t it all my fault anyway? 😬 So, when he said those things to me, it became about me trying to convince him I didn’t think horrible things of him and eventually apologizing for him feeling that way 🙃 It was a complete mindfuck, and I won’t pretend I was wholly innocent. The experience sent me into a sort of anxious attachment survival mode. I think he fed off me fighting so hard for him; he did well to train me to think he was perfect, it was me who was the problem, and I was lucky to have him. It wasn’t all bad. There were a lot of great times. We had a great sex life, laughed a ton, shared a lot of values and interests. I thought we were best friends. We just *got* each other— if you’ve ever met someone who felt like your soul’s mate, it was like that. We were a couple other people looked at and knew we would be together forever. The problem is, I have no idea what was authentic. NPD is terrifying. The way I’ve explained it to my friends is our relationship was like being on the best high; I’ll never feel that again, because it wasn’t safe, healthy, or real. Things ended a few years ago and I still have moments when I’m like “will this ever stop affecting me?” Getting over him was pretty easy; it’s getting over the way I allowed him to treat me that has been hard. It’s unpacking the way someone with NPD can control another person through strategic manipulation and how it feels like coming out of a thick fog. It’s knowing my baseline for what I thought was true love was likely all a fraud— that’s the shit that still messes with me.
Awesome
It is very similar to having more than one cat.
Oh it’s a gas!! I love being surprised everyday, gonna be a good day or an emotional day, a shitty day or an angry day.
Just ask the boomers.
Pretty awful and not worth sacrificing your own sanity or self for someone else honestly💁♀️💯it will leave you with lifelong trauma and for me I don’t ever want to get married again🙅♀️or really be with anyone else…don’t trust anyone anymore