It’s been 10 years since my last long-term relationship.
My life has unfolded this way for many reasons, but the main one is this: It’s very difficult to sustain a relationship when you live with depression, anxiety and complex PTSD.
I have a terrible track record when it comes to dating. My efforts to conceal my mental health symptoms on dates often backfire, and the few serious relationships I’ve had have been turbulent. I go to great lengths to appear more stable to my partners than I actually feel, but pretending to be stable isn’t the same thing as being stable, and chaos has a tendency to become more chaotic when you try to contain it.
Will I ever be well enough to have a healthy long-term relationship? I’m not getting any younger: I’m turning 44 this year. What will dating look like when I’m 50?
The safety of being single
I like the idea of having a romantic partner, but the truth is, it can be more challenging to manage my symptoms when I’m in a relationship than when I’m single. It’s hard to tolerate the embarrassment and shame of someone witnessing me at my weakest and most vulnerable. As painful as loneliness can be, there’s safety and comfort in being able to spend most of my time alone, so I can deal with my symptoms in private.
I know that social isolation does make mental illness worse. However, given the countless dates I’ve had when I’ve gotten triggered, broken down into tears, spaced out and gone numb, it’s sometimes hard to tell which is worse—loneliness or rejection.
When dates go down in flames, I end up dealing with rejection on two levels; rejecting myself for my inability to act and feel in a way that I think is “normal,” and being rejected by the guy who witnesses my surface confidence disintegrate before his eyes.
The vicious cycle of dating
Over the past few years, I’ve come to realize that there’s a vicious cycle happening, and I don’t know how to escape from it. The symptoms of my mental illness inhibit my ability to date successfully, and my inability to date successfully makes my symptoms worse.
The cycle goes on and on; when I try to date, it leads to frequent triggers and breakdowns, which is hard on my mental health, so this leads to not dating for long periods of time, which is hard on my mental health as well. The result is being single, middle-aged and lonely.
To be fair to myself, I do pretty well in managing the depression, anxiety and complex PTSD in my day-to-day life: I’ve been able to work pretty consistently, I have friendships that I treasure, I have an ongoing writing practice and I do many of the classic self-care things they tell you to do (I meditate, I do Yoga, I even sneak some vegetables into my diet).
However, I believe that intimate relationships are the final frontier of recovery from mental illness. If you can develop and sustain healthy long-term relationships, you’ve definitely levelled up in your quality of life.
I believe that, in my mid-forties, I am just now entering this phase of recovery.
Recovering love
I’ve suffered from anxiety and depression since I was very young. I’ve never known relationships outside of the context of trying to function within them while struggling to function in general.
I have no doubt that I’ll be living with mental illness, to some degree, for the rest of my life. Two things that will change, however, are the severity of my symptoms and my capacity to manage them effectively.
Managing my mental health as effectively as I can, so I’m able to recognize the love I have and offer love in return, will be a key factor in improving my quality of life.
Another thing that I’m hoping to see change is the amount of love I’m able to give and receive. I like to think that increasing all forms of love in my life could be a positive loop to replace the vicious cycle of dating I’ve been experiencing for so long.
Perhaps in this positive loop, opening my heart more to other people will help me manage my symptoms more effectively, which in turn will give me the strength and courage I need to welcome more love into my life.
I don’t have control over the trajectory of my recovery, nor do I have control over when or where I find love, or what that will look like. What’s important, though, is to appreciate the love I have in my life now, which I so often neglect to do, possibly because I frequently feel so unworthy of it.
Equally important is for me to appreciate how much better I manage my symptoms now than I did in the past, and to draw strength and courage from the progress I’ve made.
Whether or not love will take the form of a long-term relationship in the years to come, I know that managing my mental health as effectively as I can, so I’m able to recognize the love I have and offer love in return, will be a key factor in improving my quality of life. I can’t use a crystal ball to see exactly what the future holds, but I know that the best thing I can do today is to treat myself the way my loved ones would want me to be treated—with love.
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image 1 Ylanite Koppens من بيكساباي 2 image by Arek Socha من بيكساباي
