Mental health and REALTION..ships.

Is it mental to think I can be in a relationship when I’m considered....erm mental?

Integrating, interacting and compromising in a relationship can already be an immense challenge for some. However, if you were to add mental health into the equation you would have a whole different set of challenges to consider. When it comes to managing mental health there is much to understand. There is also an increasing amount of information out there which can sometimes feel overwhelming.

As mental health becomes more publicly explored and talked about, there can be much confusion in the way of how mental health shows up in relationships. There are many ongoing questions that some people with mental health may even ask themselves before entering a new relationship. Should I avoid relationship’s when I suffer with a mental health issue? Would I just be burdening another human being with my problems? Do I need to heal my issues first before I can find love?

Whereas, the questions you should really be asking yourself is, do I trust this person enough to share my mental health issues with them? Will this person be kind, considerate and understanding of my needs? Does this person understand how my mental health affects me? Once you establish this then you can better begin to understand how your mental health fits into your personal relationship. Talking about your mental health with your partner is extremely important because it builds trust and understanding. Equally, having an understanding partner is also paramount to how the relationship will work out.

Ideally, this is how we would hope the relationship to start out and continue on like. However, what happens when you want the relationship to work but find it too difficult to talk about your mental health issues?

For a long time women were considered most likely to suffer with mental health issues because women were perceived as being more emotional than men. Women were presumed most likely to talk with friends and family about their issues, crying to let it out and exploring their emotions. We know that this is a very vague and sexist assumption to make, yet are we wrong to assume that men weren’t doing the exact same thing? And if not, then what were they doing to let their emotions out? If women were already finding it hard to talk about their mental health in relationships then how in the hell were men feeling?! (And yes men do have feelings, they are human beings too!)

Even today, with Mental health becoming increasingly recognised and talked about in the public eye, somehow men are still flying under the radar with the highest suicide rates in the UK. According to mentalhealth.org.uk statistics,‘in the UK in 2018, there were 6,507 deaths by suicide and overall men accounted for three-quarters of those UK suicidal deaths.’ Thinking about why this may be, it is understood that society puts a lot of pressure on men to be the provider, to be financially successful and to be viewed as strong, both mentally and physically. This pressure alone can impact on a man’s mental health without even considering other variables such as past life experiences and childhood upbringing. Therefore, if evidence suggested that men genuinely found it harder than women to open up about their mental health issues, how would this show up in a relationship?

From my own personal experience being in a past relationship where both parties brought mental health to the table. This was a double whammy. It was pretty evident as the relationship went on that my partner at the time was finding it increasingly more difficult to talk about his mental health issues than I was. However, fortunately for me I could recognise the signs to a certain extent because I was experiencing them too. Signs such as; loss of motivation, not wanting to get out of bed, suffering from low self- esteem and feeling attacked by the outside world. At the time I thought that recognising the signs early gave me an advantage to helping him and our relationship, but it did not. Eventually, what I began to learn from this was if a person wasn't willing to try and talk through their issues, then this left me with a very limited amount of help that I could provide them with.

So how do you know when it’s time to call it quits on a relationship where mental health exists but isn’t spoken about? When you have tried your best but your best is no longer enough. When the other person's mental health is starting to affect yours in a negative way. When mental health becomes weaponised, with manipulation and gaslighting. Speaking again from personal experience, mental health should never be used against you in order to try and make you stay with someone. It’s important to put yourself first without feeling like you're the bad guy. You may think to yourself, What if I leave and they hurt themselves? What if they can’t survive without me? And as harsh as it may sound, these will never be valid enough reasons to stay with someone. The only thing you can do for that person is urge them to seek professional help and encourage them to talk to other people in their life.

In the end, it's all about communication, cooperation and understanding. If there is a willingness to get through it together as a couple then mental health and relationships can absolutely work. Although, without these qualities the relationship will become increasingly challenging and harder to navigate. If this does happen then never feel guilty about not being able to help someone through their mental health journey, because that’s exactly what it is, a journey. A journey that sometimes asks us to remove ourselves from the equation in order for that individual to change for the better and to protect our own Mental health in the process.