If you take away anything from this piece, I want you to understand that many people with mental illness know and feel how taxing their condition can be on their loved ones. If your significant other has a mental illness, the best thing you can do for them is try hard to understand the complications of their illness. Ask questions, go to therapy with them, be a shoulder to cry on, but do not tolerate chaos or allow abuse. Encourage them to make the choice to find the help they need. Be patient, don’t expect change over night. Believe in their capability to recover and do great things. And most importantly love them for who they are.
My first real boyfriend met me in the middle of a severe turmoil with bipolar disorder. Our relationship rode the same rollercoaster as my brain. I loved him deeply and always will, but the mania was too destructive and the depression was too burdening.
I remember days when we first started dating, I would be at work, pacing back and forth obsessing over what he was thinking or what he was doing. I was already infatuated with him. We bonded over our similar interests and honey mooned on the highly inflated mania I was flying on. The romance blossomed over our spontaneity and excitement to absorb everything about each other. We never did anything boring; together, we approached everything as an adventure.
I began to fall rapidly in love with him when he began taking the time to try and understand me when I didn’t even understand myself. It was foolish to get involved in such a serious relationship when I was so mentally ill. You cannot be a healthy couple if you’re not healthy individuals, but again it is the reason I am where I am and I cannot and would not take it back. I strongly believe that every relationship has a purpose and a place, even if they don’t work out in the end.
He would go to psychiatric appointments with me when I needed it. He researched endless hours on bipolar disorder and relationships with a manic depressive. I will always think that’s the kindest, most loving thing anyone could ever do for me. Before I had even made the decision to fight this illness, he had decided he wanted to fight it with me. He wanted me to overcome bipolar disorder and find health because he saw an amazing woman underneath it all, and that eventually gave me the strength to want that for myself and clarity that I might just be worth getting well.
A perfect portrayal of who he was is how he reacted to my deep episodes of depression. One incident, I fell into despair, and was sitting outside of work helplessly, weeping. I called him. And minutes later, he was there. He collected all my equipment while I sat outside coddling my broken soul, piled everything into his car, and took me home. I quickly sunk into a depression that lasted for several days, maybe even weeks. My memory is fogged with a lens of thick sadness.
For times like these, I have a stock of what I call my “emergency medications”. Pills prescribed to be responsibly used when the emotions are so intense I cannot function. I remember him getting the pills out of my bag, filling a glass of water, kneeling next to my body, sprawled out on his tear-soaked floor, and whispering “do you think you need these?”
To me, that’s the most love I’ve ever felt.
He knew me well enough to understand how dangerous and unhinged an uncontrolled, severe depression could be. But he also knew not to force me to take my medicine. He knew how to gently guide me towards choosing to get help for myself. He understood me more than anyone ever could in that moment. And for that I will always love him.
He was the reason I decided to fight my illness. I had damaged many relationships with family and friends through out my life, but the pain I caused him was the first destruction that forced me to care about the reality of my disease. I’m forever sorry for the chaos I put him through but eternally grateful to him for showing me I was capable of great things if I could find mental health.
Don’t interpret that incorrectly, you shouldn’t decide to treat your mental health for someone else. Understand that you should do it for yourself. When I met him, I had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and didn’t take the time to comprehend it at all. Then, another diagnose didn’t mean much to me. I had been hearing mental illness diagnoses all my life. I knew something was wrong with me and what I was doing wasn’t working, but I had no motivation to care about myself and my mental health. Maybe I thought I didn’t deserve it; maybe I just didn’t care. Getting mentally well wasn’t something that occurred to me until I saw how my instability was impacting someone I cherished so dearly and who loved me so intensely.
The relationship began to fall apart when I began having frequent ups and downs with depression and savage moods. One minute I wanted to spend every waking moment with him, the next I wanted nothing to do with him. I remember screaming at him with all the forces of unstoppable pessimism for reasons I could not convey. I remember him tolerating my obsessive body dysmorphia and patiently waiting for me to decide how many calories I could consume on date nights. I remember randomly demanding to do more activities because I got an idea that I was discontent and we needed more excitement. Finally, he said to me that it was strenuous for him to come home from work because he didn’t know which “girlfriend” he was coming home to. That confession hit me hard. He was frightened by my unpredictability. My erratic behavior controlled so much of our relationship. Hearing that my shifting moods exhausted him struck my heart. I needed someone to show me that my illness was impacting others.
Months went on and we put bandaids all over all our problems, but eventually the black madness began seeping out. No one recognized how mercurial my brain had become, before it imploded. I didn’t recognize it. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know I should have been voicing the chaos I was experiencing and the desolation my brain was seeking. I did not even tell my therapist, let alone my boyfriend. I was living with a mask of sanity and normalcy; unconsciously, hiding my mayhem from the world. Then it was too late, I chose flight and disappeared from his life for three months.
I blame myself for the final demise of our relationship. While in caustic psychosis and after several catastrophic decisions, I left him and our dog. I tearlessly said goodbye and waltzed out of the house he bought for us. Often when floating on those stormy clouds of turbulent mania, I rebelled against the norms, craved havoc, and made extremely insensible decisions. It wasn’t much different from the time I ran away from college simply just to run away or when I spent all the money in my bank account just simply to spend a bunch of money.
I lived three foggy months indulging in sensual madness. My memory of those days is very vague. When the psychosis began to fade and depression began to creep back in, I realized I had let the mania take control and push me to rebelling against all the things I loved and believed in. Even if I didn’t care that I was spinning out of control, I realized I cared that I was breaking my lover’s heart. When I finally began to achieve a slight grasp onto the little reality I knew, the grief, devastation, and guilt of leaving the man I loved came pouring in.
Our story didn’t end there. I returned from my unrestrained spree of turbulence, lost, confused, and exhausted. I came back needing the man who so warmly understood my deep depression, but our relationship was more broken than ever before. It had been shaky even before I disappeared and the bandaids had not been enough. How I acted seemed to him as deliberate, abusive, and frightening, and I could not convey how out of control I was. As I learned from Kay Redfield Jameson’s numerous books, sometimes the destruction done to relationships in mania is irreparable. After a few months of trying rebuild what we had, he realized this was the case for us; there was too much pain in both our hearts and too much excrescence left behind.
I wish I could take back the pain I caused him, but I am grateful that it has been a part of the reason I am where I am today. I do believe every relationship offers much emotional growth, even if things don’t work out. It’s hard for me to admit that my transitory moods and violent anger were abusive and toxic. It is still so hard for me to swallow that I could affect someone I loved so intensely in such way. Unfortunately, when mentally ill you can push people to the edge of no return. The destruction psychosis can do to a relationship is sometimes unrecoverable. It took me time, but I chose to learn and grow from that and share my experience for those who are in similar situations.
I have come so far from who I was with him. I think it’s safe to say I am a completely different person. I have emotionally developed immensely and understand what it means to be a good companion. Since being with him, I’ve worked really hard to prevent my illness from negatively affecting any of my loved ones, not just significant others. I’ve confronted the damage I’ve done in other relationships with important people in my life, such as my parents and my siblings. Often I fail and I’m always learning, but I’m trying and that’s what matters. The truth is he was always right, there was a beautifully capable woman underneath all the brain dysfunction.
I will always hold great respect for him for wanting mental health for me and encouraging me to want it for myself. He didn’t force me, but loved me in a way that made me want to be a healthier person. His desire to find solutions for my illness, helped me learn to desire that for myself. This kind of support and encouragement does not necessarily have to come from a significant other, but for me it did.
I am grateful that this relationship taught me as someone with bipolar disorder, I have to recognize the power and damage moments of mania and psychosis can have. I still feel shameful for the violent agitations I enrobed our relationship in, but I have learned from them. To pursue getting in a relationship, I must be constantly pursuing understanding my illness and communicating the mental dysfunction I am experiencing to the right people. To be a good partner, I must have the tools to recognize, then voice when I think I’m falling to depression or when I’m approaching black, tempestuous mania. If I don’t have a handle on those things, I could cause fierce collateral damage on the ones I cherish most.
If you are mentally ill, think hard about the self work and emotional growth you must do to be a good companion. If you are lost in your illness, you may require recovery and discovery before you are capable of being in a healthy relationship. If you are lost and already in a relationship, share and communicate with your partner that something feels wrong even if you don’t understand what is exactly wrong. Voice the thoughts and processes going through your brain that you don’t understand is huge step towards mental health. I feel if I had known or had words for the havoc my brain was craving when I left, maybe I could have received help to bring my mania back down to earth.
But also, make sure you have chosen a partner who is willing to stick by you through the tough work you have to do for your mental health. Confront the fact that being mentally ill means your life has certain complications that not everyone can handle. A relationship is more functional when the people involved are invested in understanding the depths and intricacies of each other. For me, that means one of the things I believe my partner needs to understand is the depths of my bipolar disorder.
If you are a significant other of someone mentally ill, it is important to note how delicately he handled me when I was lost to depression. The significance of finding someone who loved me enough to try and truly understand me will never fade. The best thing you can do as their partner is to genuinely attempt to understand the complexity of their illness and be interested in their pursuit of medical and therapeutic treatment. But do not make the mistake of tolerating chaos or excusing abuse. That’s an oversight my ex made and allowed too much from me. The decision to get well has to be their own, but having support that encourages a desire to get help is important for any mentally ill person. Accept their failures and flaws, recovery is a long journey but possible.
