Hello my lovelies! Today’s post is another post in my Mental Health series. This post is going to focus on how mental health can have an impact on relationships (from both perspectives) and how to work with it and have a healthy bond with your partner.
I have been with my lovely boyfriend for just over a year. We are both somewhat quiet people but he is the more confident of the two. He is 15 months older than me too which means that we are in slightly different stages of our lives. As a sufferer of anxiety, I believe that I can be quite clingy and needy at times and get quite lonely when he has been gone for longer periods of time. The way that I feel we are working to deal with this is by establishing the length of time we will be spending apart and keeping in semi-frequent contact. I feel that this works well as I know when I will next see him and the lower amount of contact means that I distance myself slightly from the fact that he is not here. My anxiety is something which has had quite negative impacts on our relationship and caused strain before but I think this has helped to reduce that.
Depression is another condition which has had detrimental effects on our relationship. I have days where I simply don’t want to move from my bed and this can be very grating on my partner. I began to realise that it isn’t right for him to feel anchored because I am not feeling okay so, on my off days, I set small goals in my head- such as getting out and making our lunch or baking- to make me feel as though I am doing something without pushing me out of my comfort zone too much. Something that comes hand in hand with depression is the medication which I take for it. This is something that I feel can also have a negative impact on our relationship. If I forget to take my tablets or even take them slightly later than usual, I tend to get quite snappy and overtly emotional. This is quite hard for your partner to cope with so the way that we have worked together on this is that I have told him what things help me in those situations (e.g. quiet surroundings, positive affirmations and breathing exercises) and that is something that he ensures happens to lower my manic state.
Overall, I feel like having a relationship when you have mental health issues can be a little trickier and does require a lot of communication and openness about how you are feeling- not just for the sufferer but for their partner too as it affects them also. With time, however, I feel that you do get a little more used to it and know what to do to help out. I hope you have found this post interesting and I would love to know your thoughts in the comments below or on social media!
Until next time,
Chantelle xx
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