I was with someone with mental health issues for a while....likewise it was all entirely about her overwhelming all consuming needs. It was like being a carer not a partner. People with these conditions have no place starting relationships with people.
I can qualify this, once bitten twice shy, as it were. Being her carer was what I ended up being until she bailed out.
Its their condition that ensures they cannot have a mutually fulfilling equal relationship with another person. What is more, it has been mine and others experience that these conditions are kept hidden from the new partner for as long as they can, so we can add dishonesty into the mix too.
I'll further qualify this - she kept her illness from me until she moved in with me. Iirc something like almost a year after we had started to see each other. It was difficult to pinpoint anything wrong until then as I often did not get to see her as she was. It was only when I forced the issue that there was something seriously amiss that she told me about her condition; from that point, her problem became my problem.
But likewise, let's not say that those who find themselves in a relationship with a mentally disturbed partner must always ruin their own lives. People (for whatever reason) can become toxic and at some point a partner can be justified in bailing on a relationship for reasons of self-preservation.
Abuse comes in all sort of forms, and I would never suggest someone "must" stay with an abusive partner. Years of caring for a depressed, bi-polar or sociopathic partner (for which most people are ill-equipped) with no end in sight has to stop at some point.
Having mental health issues doesn't automatically excuse poor behaviour in a relationship, nor require that a partner has to endure it.
Looking back I will freely admit I was grossly unprepared for the emotional strain it put on both of us. In the end it became a total nightmare that overshadowed everything in our relationship.
Looking back on it with time and clarity I sometimes wonder if the person I fell in love with to begin with was real and not a façade she presented. Maybe that's a disservice to her. More likely she was all of those things, good and bad. But at times it certainly felt like a deception, particularly when we had just broken up.
Well it was obviously throwaway hyperbole. No need to go all SJW. Given the number of people that experience some kind of mental health issue during their lives, we've probably all been in a relationship with it and maybe been able to work through those problems to a better place.
That's quite different from those people we all know who simply suck the joy out of life and destroy relationships and the people around them because they have mental health issues that they are unwilling or unable to overcome.
People will often stay with a partner out of loyalty, and it takes them years to realise they are in an abusive relationship, or that they can't fix someone. Two lives wrecked instead of one, more if there are kids involved. Given how poorly most people understand others, let alone themselves, it's no surprise.
So while I agree we shouldn't stigmatise those with mental health issues, neither should we stigmatise those that can't or don't want to put up with the drama that such a person can bring.
If one day the likes of mental health issues are really treated as a normal part of life, then it should be just as valid for someone to not wish to deal with that, the same way you might not want to date someone who has kids, is in a wheelchair, has no money, etc. Once mental health issues are normalised, they are just like any other thing we may or may not want in a partner.
I'd say there are a few important things I learned from my experience.
You cannot fix someone who is broken. They have to want it for themselves.
Loyalty and your love for someone like that leaves you open to so much pain and confusion when you are shut out, as you inevitably will be.
I am perhaps stronger and wiser for the experience after all. Though I'd temper this with the thought that I'd not wish upon my worst enemy the sort of distress that I saw in my ex partner. Watching her disintegrate in front of me was very hard to deal with and to remain strong for.
It's all a long time ago now, but the memories of that time of my life are still quite sharp in some ways, dull in others. I like to think I let those experiences colour my decisions in a positive way as opposed to a negative one.
Everyone has to choose their path. My advice is to steer well clear of people with those sorts of problems if you can.
At least they cannot appeal to ignorance afterwards.
