How to navigate dating if you struggle with your mental health

This story was originally published in Group Therapy, a weekly newsletter answering questions sent by readers about what’s been weighing on their hearts and minds. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Dating can feel like a high-wire act.

You put your best foot forward, presenting to your new romantic interests what you consider the most attractive aspects of your personality. You want to reveal just enough of yourself so that you can connect in an authentic way, but not too much, too soon, before you’ve built trust.

And even when you try your hardest to walk that line, you don’t really have any control over whether people will be into what you have to offer.

The delicate dance of dating can feel even more tricky if you struggle with your mental health. We received a great question about this from a reader: “How do I navigate explaining and setting expectations about my mental illness while dating?”

I asked two writers who have traversed the choppy waters of dating with a mental health condition to answer this question. They spoke about their own experiences and gave their thoughts on when (and under what circumstances) you should open up about your struggles, and how to express your needs in new relationships.

Dating with a mental health condition

There’s so much to think about when you’re getting to know someone romantically. But if you’re anxious or depressed or manic or preoccupied with all the things that could go wrong, it’s a whole lot harder.

For Allison Raskin, dating with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) used to be a minefield.

Sleepovers with new love interests were a no-go because of the germs in their homes, and them spending the night at her place was out of the question, too, because they might see her act out her compulsions, she wrote in her book “Overthinking About You: Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Have Anxiety, OCD, and/or Depression.”

Her anxiety would ratchet up when the relationship became official; she’d spend sleepless nights wondering where they were or why they didn’t respond to her texts, then convince herself they’d been hurt or didn’t care about her, after all.

“I fell into every ‘crazy girl’ stereotype — really obsessive, very emotional,” Raskin told me. “It was like an area of my life where I couldn’t control myself.”

Raskin is engaged now, and though living with her partner takes a lot of work and self-awareness, she said she’s been better able to stay centered in her relationship now. She credits therapy, going back onto antidepressants and a whole lot of introspection. Raskin didn’t make the connection that her OCD was negatively affecting her romantic life until she’d done the hard work to feel grounded and confident enough to maneuver the uncertainty of dating.

“When I was younger, I was like, ‘You don’t like me or you aren’t ready to commit to me, so I’m going to try and change your mind.’ I would try to wear people down,” Raskin said. “But it was all tied up in these thoughts I was telling myself, that I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t lovable. That I had to really work hard to find someone who would want to be a long-term partner.

“But then I started to be nicer to myself and my brain, and that changed the way I related to other people. I stopped being drawn to people who weren’t interested in me. It was a game-changer.”

Kara Lynch, a mental health advocate and blogger in Charlotte, N.C., is actively dating. “Relationships take work, and so does living with a mental health condition. It’s a full-time job,” said Lynch, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 22. “It’s complicated and exhausting, but it can also be beautiful and rewarding.”

One of Lynch’s biggest challenges has been navigating mental health stigma in the BIPOC community.

“It’s still rampant,” she said. “I have to assess whether a guy is socially conscious, mature and compassionate enough to even have a discussion about what it means to live with a mental health condition.”

When to talk about your mental health while dating

There’s really no ideal moment to bring up your mental health condition with a potential boo. It really depends on how comfortable you are with the person, and — crucially — where you see the relationship going, Lynch and Raskin said.

“Bipolar doesn’t define me, but it is a part of who I am. I don’t think it’s something to hide or be ashamed of,” Lynch said. “And I feel like if you’re going to be authentic, and really date intentionally, there are certain things you need to share at some point in the relationship.”

If you’ve been hooking up with someone for six months but you don’t really know much about them (and you’re fine with that), you probably don’t need to tell them your mental health history, Raskin said. But if you really like someone and see the potential for something deeper, try to get a sense of how open-minded they are about mental illness; one way to do this could be to mention you’re in therapy. They don’t need to be as informed as you about mental health, but you should get a sense that they’re willing to learn.

Before you have these conversations, be sure to reflect on your own feelings about your condition, Raskin said. “If you feel a lot of stigma attached to it, the way you share will be very different than if you’ve processed and come to terms with it.”

Start by sharing a little bit at a time about your condition (you don’t need to tell them everything all at once) and observe their reaction, Raskin recommended. You could do this by talking about how it affects your ability to do your job, for example. If they don’t seem interested or try to change the subject, that may be a sign that they’re not safe to share with, she said.

But if they seem genuinely curious, actively listen and ask questions — that’s a green light.

“We also have to allow people to have reactions,” Raskin said. “If you share with someone that you’ve had a suicide attempt, it’s fair for them to have a reaction to that. What happens after the initial reaction is what’s really telling.”

It’s an unfortunate truth that some people may not be OK with this part of your experience. But having these conversations weeds out people who probably won’t be well-suited for you, Lynch said.

“This way, you don’t waste your time, you don’t waste theirs and you can move forward with people who are intentionally, naturally part of your tribe,” she said.

Setting expectations with a new partner

Our reader asked how she can “set expectations” while dating with a mental health condition. I interpreted this as an inquiry into how she should communicate what it might be like to be in a relationship with her — the triumphs, challenges and everything in between — but also her own expectations of her partner or partners.

“There’s this popular assumption that you’ll meet the right person and they’ll instinctively know how to help and support you,” Raskin said. “But that’s an impossible ask, and will set you up to be disappointed.”

Be clear about what you need from the other person for the relationship to work. Raskin and Lynch gave me some examples:

“Hey, I’m really enjoying getting to know you, but I know myself and I’m someone who needs to be in bed by 10 or I can’t function.”

“My anxiety is working overtime. Can you please let me know if you made it home OK after a date?”

“I overthink as a result of my mental health condition. If you’re busy, can you just let me know that’s the case instead of going silent?”

If they’re not willing to or capable of providing those things, it’s probably time to move on, Lynch said.

“Some people won’t reply to a text for an entire day,” Raskin told me. “That’s fine and can work for some people, but I couldn’t date a person like that — it’s a question of compatibility.”

I agree, and I think we should give people the room to show up differently once we express our needs. My partner wasn’t great at answering texts when we first started dating (which, it turns out, wasn’t specific to me — she just isn’t glued to her phone!). I talked to her about how inconsistent communication can trigger my anxiety; she took it to heart and started responding more quickly.

At the same time, I also got better at noticing and working with my anxiety when it came up in these moments. The ability to self-soothe was critical to Raskin’s growth, too. “Before, if I was worried about something, I’d always have to ask for reassurance, instead of being able to provide that reassurance to myself or the tolerate discomfort of not getting the answer I want right away.”

Final takeaways

I asked Raskin to share some other helpful takeaways from her book, which drew from her own experience as well as expert advice. Here’s what she said:

• The type of partner you’re looking for when you have a mental health condition is the type we should all be looking for — someone who is empathetic, open-minded and curious about you. “For a lot of us who have grown up struggling with mental health, there’s this assumption we should take whatever we can get when it comes to partnership,” she said. “I really wanted the message of the book to be that you’re allowed to have the same standards and expectations as anyone else. If anything, the work you’ve done to deal with your mental health probably makes you a better partner than other people who haven’t had to do that kind of reflection and self-work.”
  
• Sometimes we’re not in a place to date, but that doesn’t mean we won’t get there. “Sometimes taking care of ourselves is recognizing ‘I’m too triggered by this,’ or ‘I’m taking a rejection too hard.’ Being able to recognize when that’s happening is really useful. Look at the other areas of your life; if your mental health is making it really hard to show up at work, now is probably not the time to start dating. If you’re doing well in the other areas of your life, that’s a good time to date.”
  
• There’s a popular narrative that you need to be happy alone before you can be with another person. “I don’t believe that. I think there’s a lot of healing and growth to be had in partnership with another person. If you prefer to be in a relationship, there’s no shame in that. It’s a normal desire.”
  

Whether or not you live with a mental health condition, I think we can all stand to learn something from the advice in this newsletter — how to ask for what we need in relationships, knowing what we deserve and with whom we choose to share our fullest selves.

If you’ve had your own dating experiences that might be helpful to others, drop us a line.

Until next week,

Laura

If what you learned today from these experts spoke to you or you’d like to tell us about your own experiences, please email us and let us know if it is OK to share your thoughts with the larger Group Therapy community. The email [email protected] gets right to our team. As always, find us on Instagram at @latimesforyourmind, where we’ll continue this conversation.

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More perspectives on today’s topic and other resources

The pressure of not knowing when or how to reveal your mental health status can be an additional and very valid source of anxiety, Emily Reynolds, who has bipolar disorder, writes in The Guardian. She lays out some great dating tips, including how not to tell someone you have a mental health condition (and ways that’ll work better).

Other interesting stuff

Times writer (and my dear friend) Deborah Netburn recently went to a workshop in Pasadena that was advertised as “a breath-guided meditation intended to contemplate death in many forms.” Going into the workshop, Deborah hoped that “spending an hour meditating on my inevitable demise would ease my fear of dying,” she wrote. “What I didn’t anticipate is that I would walk out feeling profoundly grateful for all the ordinary, messy, glittering life I’ve been blessed to live so far.”

Why it’s so appealing to use pop psychology terms — and when to stop. As more people have sought out mental health treatment and more therapists shared psychological concepts on social media, more of society writ large was introduced to therapy vernacular, writes Allie Volpe for Vox. But many definitions for now-popular phrases and words have become muddled in the process. Though such terms can be validating for people who can now put a name to an experience, therapy-speak can eliminate all nuance from a conversation.