relationships and mental health
For me, this post is a sensitive topic. My relationships have struggled over the years, and it really started when I began having mental health problems. I didn’t know it at the time, but something in me changed, and a lot of my friendships began to strain. My senior year at Purdue, I got a new boyfriend, decided to get serious about school, and really step back from drinking. My friends, who I thought were forever friends, didn’t last through the change, and I have spent a lot of time blaming myself for that. So, what went wrong? Did I face this with other relationships? Was my mental health to blame? With these friends, there was no goodbye, and it truly was worse than a break-up. I feel like I was always apologizing and never stuck up for myself because I thought it was my fault. If it were now, I would have done things differently.
Mental health illnesses that are commonly associated with relationship struggles are anxiety disorders, depression, OCD, PTSD, and personality disorders. Anxiety disorders can cause you to overthink relationships, avoid social situations, and potentially avoid conversations. Depression can cause you to withdraw from your relationships. With OCD, you can have excessive reassurance-thinking or perfectionism, and PTSD can cause trust issues and emotional shutdowns. For me, PTSD also causes me to avoid intimacy even though in the past, I was hyper-sexual. The only disorder I don’t have is a personality disorder. But I would like to add bipolar disorder to the list. With bipolar disorder, there is mood swings, acting out, or withdrawing. For all of these disorders, there is a feeling of being misunderstood, and for me, I have to fight not to be defined my mental illnesses or the stigma that comes with it.
It’s hard to explain what is happening to you when you aren’t diagnosed yet. How do you explain how you feel with no answer to why that is? Communication issues are a big problem in relationships. For example, when I was raped, I didn’t tell anyone for years and by that time, I didn’t know how to explain it. When I was still around my rapist, I told my friends it was sex, but when I was finally free of them, I tried to take it back and say it was something else. No one really understood that. With another friend, I told them it happened more recently than it did because I didn’t want to have to explain why I was struggling now. It’s impossible to understand when you haven’t experienced it yourself. Other relationship issues revolve around trust and conflict or self-sabotage. For me, I tend to avoid conflict or pull away instead of solving problems. I can also repeat unhealthy patterns that I developed through trauma and essentially sabotage my relationships.
Healthy relationships are essential to recovery, and there’s many benefits to having them. They can provide support and encouragement, provide a safe space, provide a sense of purpose, lower stress levels, provide physical affection, build healthy habits, cause less loneliness, and improve your quality of life. In relationships, it is important to address the conversation between mental health and relationship responsibilities. This is going to be different for each person. For example, my parents will take on more than my old college roommate. Although, with every relationship, I ask myself am I too much? Caregiver burnout can cause secondary trauma from stress and resentment. Boundaries are key to keeping a relationship healthy, and there needs to be awareness, compassion, trust, and communication.
At some point, I knew I couldn’t give my relationships what they needed. Relationships that I always thought would be forever are no more. But my experience with mental illness has showed me who is there for me no matter what, and at the end of the day, those are the relationships I want to keep.
