How to Live with Your Partner’s Mental Illness
How to Tackle Depression and Anxiety with Your Partner
Sufferers of depression and anxiety can oftentimes feel like no one will ever truly love them. (Guilty) And the truth is, it is a challenge. But every person in every relationship brings their own “baggage” and this is no different.
I joke that the biggest difficulty I deal with in my relationship is that we live in a melting pot of mental illness. While we both have separate diagnoses, we have learned that what we need support-wise is similar. I applaud my girlfriend for how gentle she is with me when I slip into breakdown territory. And after months of successfully tackling each of our difficulties, I have picked up some wisdom.
Open Communication
As humans, when we are suffering from a depressive low or particularly panicky time, it is incredibly difficult to talk about it. For some reason, in our society we put on a mask to the outside world to hide our pain. Mental illness does not “feel” as serious as something physical like the flu – wrong as that may be.
But in your relationship, it is pivotal to have a way to say the words “I feel depressed” or “I am anxious.” I cannot stress this enough, talking about it takes so much power away from it. Pro Tip: use code words or phrases to express your feelings without actually having to use those trigger words (it works just the same – I swear)
Create a Safe Space
Something integral to having open communication is creating a safe space in your relationship. This can be created by both having a safe location (probably your bed) and by honing in on those elementary listening skills. Feedback is lovely but sometimes what your partner really needs is to be heard.
Truth moment: I suck at that last part. It is such a struggle for me to not try to solve the problem and I think that is a common challenge.
In addition, that safe place is enforced by ensuring that there is absolutely no judgment. When it comes to mental illness, a hug, a smile, a person to wipe away the tears… it goes a long way. And it is okay to break the tension sometimes! A properly timed joke can lighten the mood in the best way.
Be the Motivation
Mental illnesses all too often cripples you from following your dreams. Maybe you have a great goal and no motivation, maybe you cannot even dream anymore. But your partner can help you! It is so important that you push your significant other to do the things they want to do even when it feels impossible. (We aren’t great at doing this for each other so I will be taking my own advice here.)
Pro Tip: Make things manageable by breaking them into much smaller steps. For instance, I want to be writing more so a good motivation for me is to say “you only need to write for 30 minutes a day… that’s it!”
Another truth is that it is okay to just do the work for them sometimes. Certainly, this should have its limits because resentment can come quickly. But to an extent, I think this is a wonderful way to support your person. For example, my girlfriend gets anxious about making phone calls to set appointments and what not so when I can, I just do it for her. I tend to get overwhelmed with too much on my plate and get stressed about little errands like getting my oil changed so she does that for me.
Source: Withsomecertainty.com
“How to Live with Your Partner’s Mental Illness”