As regular readers will know, I suffer from mental health issues (anxiety and depression) which is something that has affected my life for a number of years now. This affects many aspects of my life, one of which is my relationships with people.
I had a boyfriend throughout 2017, which was a time when my mental health was particularly low. Not as low as it had been in previous years, but low enough for it to have a significant effect on my relationship.
As you may or may not know, I like to keep this blog pretty anonymous, so even though you know my first name, that and everything that I write on here is all you know about me. You don't know my last name, where I live, what school I went to, or anything else about my life. Most importantly, no one who does know that stuff about me knows about this blog (or at least to my knowledge they don't). So this is my kind of safe haven where I feel safe to post things about my life that I wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable telling people who know me face-to-face. This is why my ex didn't really know that much about my mental health, or what I was having to deal with on a daily basis. So today I thought I'd tell you all everything I wish that he had known about my mental health so that your relationship doesn't suffer like mine did.
One of the things about having a partner is that you are meant to feel able to tell them about each and every aspect of your life and they are the one person that knows anything and everything about you. However with my ex, even though I felt as though I could tell him pretty much everything about me, I didn't feel that I could tell him about my mental health. I guess this was because I had never felt the need to open up to anyone else about it, so why would he be any different?
There was one time when I let my guard down a little bit and kind of let onto him what living with anxiety is like. I was looking through Facebook one day and found a quote about anxiety that I instantly related to, so decided to send it to him so that he was aware that this is something that I live with in the hope that he could somehow understand why I am the way I am. The quote itself was "anxiety makes you sit there and overthink every single thing. At times it makes you think people in your life are leaving you. You begin to feel abandoned, and not worth anything because the most important person/people in your life don't want you. You push them away so they can't discard you or leave you. When in reality, nobody was ever leaving. Anxiety this bad makes you leave the ones you love. It sucks". This was because at the time I was feeling the need to push people away because I'm used to people leaving me for other people and being the last person that people think about and feel as though if I'm the one to push them away, even though I don't want to, then I am in control. Of course, this wasn't (and still isn't) the case.
I guess that part of the problem was the fact that I felt that if I told him about what I was going through he would go and tell other people about it. May that be his parents, our friends, people from school, my parents, members of his family, members of my family, and I just didn't want any of them to know. It's not that I'm ashamed of what it is that I'm going through, it's just that I'm the sort of person that doesn't want to feel as though they've let people down (although let's face it, no one wants to feel like that) and I feel that if I admit to those people that I do have mental health problems then they will feel that they have failed me as my parents, family, and friends to stop me from having these problems. Even though I know that none of this was caused by them, I think that they might feel that way if I tell them.
What I wish he had known was how I was really feeling as even though I now know that he was completely the wrong person for me and the timing of our relationship was possibly one of the worst in terms of how I was feeling at the time, he would have had a better understanding of what was going on with me and would have been able to help me to an extent. I know that he wouldn't have been able to stop me from feeling the way I was feeling, however if I had at least opened up to him then he would have understood why I was acting the way I was acting. He would have known why I couldn't make certain social events instead of trying to lie about why I couldn't go or trying to find a reason to leave once I was there.
Having mental health problems suck. My anxiety makes me overthink every little thing possible and my depression makes me want to live a sheltered life and never leave my house (or my bed). Both of these factors applied to my relationship as not only did I feel that I had to hide them from my partner, but looking back on it they affected my relationship more than I originally thought. It wasn't just due to nights out, it was when there was the smallest possible problem with the two of us and I would be constantly overthinking it to the point where I didn't know what was real and what wasn't. I found that I was having to convince myself that things were alright and that I was just overthinking the whole situation, which once I had come to my senses I realised wasn't true.
What I learnt from this experience was that in a relationship you need to be honest with each other about everything, particularly the things that are going to really affect the direction that your relationship goes in. I wish that my ex had known how I was really feeling because maybe then we could both have a better understanding of each other and would have been able to sort things out much sooner instead of neither of us not having a proper understanding of what was going on with the other person and why things had gotten the way they had.
I guess what I'm trying to say is make sure you are honest with your partner about how you are really feeling and the problems you are going through, whether that be to do with your mental health or otherwise. The only way they can fully understand you is if you are completely open and honest with them as if you don't then you are essentially trying to be someone you're not and that's not the person your partner fell in love with. Your partner needs to properly get to know the person you are, and if that means telling them about your mental health problems then so be it. I'm not saying you should tell them about it on the first date, but maybe when you realise that it's starting to go somewhere and when you feel comfortable, tell them. Any decent person should want to support you and shouldn't make you feel small for what you are going through. I understand in some instances that some people might feel that they aren't able to support you in the way that you might need to be supported, and in some cases I can understand their decision to walk away, as long as they are honest about it. But if they are nasty about it in any way then they clearly weren't the right person for you and it should be a good thing if they end up walking away.
Just remember to not let your mental health define who you are and to not let anyone make you feel bad for the way you are feeling.
Love Beth xx
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