dating someone with a mental illness isnāt cute. it isnāt endearing. my depression doesnāt look like listening to your heartbeat before i fall asleep. my anxiety doesnāt look like holding your hand. my obsessive-compulsive disorder doesnāt look like writing your name a million times across notebooks. my post-traumatic stress disorder doesnāt look like screaming your name.
my mental illness looks like asking you if you love me fifteen times a day and not believing you a single one of those times, and not because iām ājust looking for attentionā but because i really. sincerely. cannot believe you. my mental illness looks like bringing up an argument from weeks ago because i canāt get over it, because i still lie awake letting it eat me alive. my mental illness looks like not showering for three days, hair matted to my face, not responding to your text messages because i donāt know what to say; thereās no excuse for all of this pain.
my mental illness doesnāt look like me, becauseĀ dating someone with a mental illness isnāt dating just one person. itās dating a person and their mental illness, too. you know, mental illness changes people. sometimes it turns them into people they donāt know. they say and do things they canāt explain. if youāre ignorant, you can ignore their apologies, brush them off, say thereās no way depression can make someone complete and utterly lash out, but
1. yes it can.
2.Ā mental illness isnāt just depression and anxiety. itās borderline personality disorder. bipolar disorder. schizophrenia. dissociative amnesia. anorexia.
itās things you canāt pinpoint, things you donāt know about; it affects everyone differently. and itās real. and we didnāt choose this. we could never choose this, even if we wanted to, and weād never, ever want to.
and it might look like looking for attention to you. it might look like not trying hard enough. but itās real to me, when iām smearing my own blood across my skin. when iām making impulsive decisions. when iām ruining every relationship iāve ever been in. and it hurts to hear that iām not doing well enough for your comfort when iām going to therapist appointments and changing medications every month.
because you love when i need you, when i tell you i canāt get by without you, when i truly believe that i need saving or i might end it all tonight. you love being the hero, but you hate when thereās nothing you can do, and iām sorry but sometimes it will seem impossible to get through to me, to make me believe that i deserve to be breathing.
and iāve met so many boys who have given up. who have ignored my cries. who think, āokay, well itās not like youāre going to die.ā when they realize they canāt save me, they stop trying. they pick a love thatās easier to deal with. a love that isnāt unpredictable. a love that isnāt a love triangle between them, me, and my mental illness. everything i was afraid of comes true, and my mental illness grows stronger every time that it does. sometimes it overpowers me.
but i am more than the ācrazyā label you place on my forehead when my mental illness isnāt abiding to your standards. i am more than the ācuteā label you claim when it is. i am more than the way i am silenced, the way people donāt often try to understand, the way mental illness isĀ perceived as something general when itās case-by-case.
my mental illness looks like love, the purest love iāve ever known. it looks like doing more for others than i do for myself. it looks like bearing my soul to you and hoping you donāt get sick of me. my mental illness is brave. it is so brave, and i donāt need saving. i just hope you try to understand and stick by me.
sugurugetos
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