Dating With Mental Illness

what are bad jesus movies?

ilx (really the internet in general including fb) is a very scary place for me to divulge lots of personal information. i have met ppl on ilx tho who i like to talk to about serious things on my mind. or if i'm going to post something to ilx that's intimate i spend a lot of time reading it over to make sure it is exactly how i want it to look - like that there's nothing unintentionally revealing. this is obv a fool's mission (since even within what you want to write is also what you don't want to write - i wondered what bad jesus meant and i thought maybe movies about jesus if he were bad, or bad like very difficult and painful to watch like the mel gibson movies but i think you probably meant bad like corny? v christiany? i'd think those might have some kitsch enjoyment) + more about anxiety about how i come off to other ppl. i'm always moved when ppl on ilx can reveal intimate details about themselves. i think it probably speaks well of the community here. lots of ppl on ilx have good advice and stuff - i remember once or twice in college i had ethical questions i asked ilx about and i grew a lot seeing a community discuss them - it helped me figure out what was true for me. anyway i did drink a little tnite (some beer) and always 420.

Old ilx would be asking for pix by now

Am I right in thinking you've posted here before now mm?

monster mash, you've seemed like a decent dude in the time you've been posting. You can proceed however you like, obvs, but ILX (or certain members, anyway) tend to be pretty dickish towards expressions like this outside of a certain context. I'd recommend the depression thread, myself, which has thankfully remained something of a safe space.

Though that said, these are publically-viewable forums, just bear that in mind.

reasons for which i'm not posting in wdyll anytime soon (maybe someday), or revealing my last name, or giving too many details about myself, here.

wins: i like you. get off my ass!

anyway. bleurgh. chances are, that there's no one willing to talk about this very specific, fucked up thing here.

or, anyway. OKAY. you don't have to be sexy/good-looking. can we just talk about what it's like to date with mental illness???

actual mental illness, that is.

forgive me: everyone has depression, it's an epidemic. everyone has anxiety disorders, and so forth.

forgive me, i sound like an asshole, now.

this thread is for people that have to take anti-psychotics/five pills a day/have had mental hospital stays/etc.

. . .and are lonely human beings that wish they could date and connect.

ok then I'm out, but wishing you well

it's like any other disability or shortcoming. it's gonna weed some people out. your feelings are gonna get hurt as you are dating people and they are weird about it, or ignorant, or mean. it's gonna happen.

if you are online dating you can put it on your profile and some people will be cool about it. if some hot guy on okcupid said he had ptsd i would still hit him up.

in my experience as an adult with mental illness who has been in a couple ltrs, where it gets harder is after the honeymoon period is over and after you've had 2-3 episodes while living with my partner. i'm not sexy or good looking tho (not fishing here) so people kind of have to be into my personality in the first place. that helps anchor things. but i can be a shitty partner and trying of patience. being aware of that and trying to amend for it can help. so does very frank communication about my needs (when i am feeling well enough to identify them).

a book that i really liked that helped me get courage to live life was far from the tree by andrew solomon. read it.

ok i 'just' have depression but everyone has a story. y'know.

also drinking a lot + sex desire is a very volatile combo; can you do anything about the drinking or do you even want to

they're especially bad in combination, but really the trick is that both can lead to a sense of self-actualization that doesn't really pan out when you sober up. so you go back to it again, and it's a game of diminishing returns

they lead to a sense of self-actualization that doesn't even last the whole time you're drunk or fucking, and the fallout from either exacerbates the mental health ish for me

anyway, looks like no one's making fun of you, but no bandaids either

Abbott: You are radically rad. Thank you.

I'll ask a mod to change this thread title to: "Dating With Mental Illness".

Also: Mordy, you're a damn star, lol.

dating is stressful enough as it is, doesn't sound like a great idea when you're feeling emotionally rickety. and internet dating was depressing and a vector for self-hate ime.. might want to just join a club or something http://www.meetup.com/

man. the thing is, much of the time, i just wanna protect women from my mental illness. i mean, i'm not abusive or anything like that, but, i just don't want awesome women, who i sometimes come into contact with, to experience me or get involved in my fucking madness.

i take three pills a day and have had hospital stays, do i qualify for this thread

bleeeeurgh. i really didn't mean to make this thread so exclusive.

i know i'm sounding like a jerk, but i just don't want this thread to devolve into normal relationship problems/three-month-long depressions/or things of an easier sort.

it's supposed to be for people with chronic/nearly incurable/afflictions:

ptsd/schizophrenia/treatment-resistant depression/and so on.

would you care to diagnose me

just share your affairs and dreams with us. i've already talked about -a little- of my past here, you crazypants.

i don't date, for reasons brimstead outlined. also personally i think your impulse to protect other people from your mental illness is a good thing. i have that feeling too, which is another reason i don't date.

also i am hideous ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

uhhh. it's almost a fucking philosophy, with me.

yes, i am good looking, whatever, i asked to change the thread title so it wasn't so exclusive.

^ you are not hideous. anyone can make their self attractive, if they want. no one is actually hideous -- there are probably just things about your body/clothes that you've never learned.

i promise you're not hideous. no one really is.

and, ffs: because this is ilm: don't wear fucking jean shorts with an old, faded, sonic youth t-shirt. because, yeah, that's hideous.

if you dress like an adult, put on a nice sweater and khakis, and have learned to minimize your mental illness, you'll do fine.

problem is here: my mental illness is humongous. . . even though i dress well/have prestige/etc.

all the blurbs on dating profiles about "ambitious, driven" etc just made me want to shrink into nothingness. it's like the oxygen in california is cocaine to everyone else or something.

lol,

mental hospital girlfriend used to peak into my door, and run away. well, that stopped, once i called her out on it.

we did a heist, when the nurses weren't looking. we stole an orange late at night... and played catch with it. but, there's more to it, i'll tell you later.

we walked past the nurses station with the orange in her hoodie, just to rub their faces in it!

we still hang out, sometimes.

the heist is one of my favorite memories.
i want to go back there, and live there forever, where i'm safe.
make fun of me.

seriously tho wld anyone be talking like this abt themselves if they had a physical disability; a visible one
probably yes
but you'd still deserve to try to find love
or a quick consensual lay

all people have all kinds of things in their background or their medicine cabinet that some people would pall at

ok turns out i misused the word pall but still

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdvHpg8pI9o

i used to go to an elite school!
until this person played a sick joke on me.

well, this person told me they were dead.

i talked about it in the other depression thread.

they told me they were dead. i had to keep it to myself for 20 months, but after that, i told my mom, and my professors, and my advisor on the academic standards board.

they forgave me. it never happened in the history of the university, before. but, there were things done for me. i can't go into it.

it happened in november 2013.

i dropped out a few weeks ago. because: i cannot walk down those same streets, anymore. i cannot walk between those same buildings, anymore.

hell. they actually told me she was dead. i found out she wasn't, later. i'll explain it, someday.

i keep having dreams about the hospital, now.
it doesn't matter. i can't go back. just, i want to

my god, what did i do here.

hey everybody needs an outlet sometimes

my god, what did i do here.

Words uttered by every ILXor at one time or another. Welcome to the club.

honestly don't even think about it - you're not a real poster until you've drunk posted (or posted while in some other type of altered state) anyway ;)

I haven't made a thread I really regretted for years, now

not sure I regret them as much as no longer understand parts of who I was at the time

x-post.

duuuuude. i was like, on 18 shots when i posted these messages.

i'd still like to talk about this stuff, but the foundation upon which this thread is built, is uh, quite dumb.

anyway, i'm nuts and want love. carry on.

k, i'm talking to the ice cream girl again.

i'm gonna pass out unless.

how about people talk about what it's like to date with real mental illness, that's all.

fuck you, people with "depression" and "anxiety". you are making it harder for the rest of us to get help and become identified. all of you are histrionic and full of shit.

i want my people here: ptsd/schizophrenia/psychotic depression/actual bipolar, etc.

pshhh.. eavesdropping in on the problems of 'sexy' ppl is the only thing that eases my depression and anxiety

"i wish i was still your boyfriend, like in the hospital"

text.

Let's put light around each other.

Can we hug, and put light around each other?

Everyone probably thinks you're a narc anyway, don't sweat it

did you ever meet a dude named Campari G&T

how about don't make fun of me.

i don't know what to say. here, ok, here is the only thing i wrote that i haven't deleted as inflammatory or potentially insulting.

so sometimes you want to be loved, deserve to be loved, just like everybody else, but you know you have to be alone because you are so fucked up that no good can possibly come of it. you feel like you can't be happy without someone to love but if you had someone you know you would just drive them away with your crazy. except you don't know, for sure, because part of the crazy is that your judgment is shit.

IME = My Father, My Mother, The Swedish Lady, myself, them old boys at the pub pissing themselves on the barstools, that's the only alcoholics I know really. The only people talking about their intake were the 22 year old attention seekers who would tell the lassies about their time in prison for killing the guy who beat their pregnant girlfriend and made her miscarry, despite the fact that I've not seen them away from the village for 2 days since they were a child, and you know it was him killed them kittens, right? Also, who calculates their home drinking in "shots"?

ime we live in a culture that revels in, glorifies and won't shut up about harmful drinking but that's just m.e. too i guess

and i still drink and still joke about drinking i just think not kidding ourselves is a good and useful start to managing it

Yeah I fully accept my non-knowledge on this matter given that I don't really get out much from this inbred insular teuchter sub-society, I can't really speak for everywhere else. Except the only pub in the village exploded a few years ago, so now I have to walk 2.6 miles to the nearest hub of human contact. Where I think I am tolerated by this point, but it may be the owners making excuses on my part when I'm not there, on account of my "mental illness".

i guess i'm reminding myself about something as much as anything at this point

It's possible to be a 22-year-old attention seeker and have genuine substance abuse problems, I mean, QED

so, you guys know i'm a drunkard and an idiot, and would never act on anything i threaten to in this thread, right?

Hadn't noticed any threats myself

that's exactly what very unstable person I have known has said, including people who drank a lot and said "I'd never actually try to kill myself, I just say a lot of things when drunk" xp

it only takes one instance of waking up and wandering into the living room to see an unstable person trying to wash down a handful of pills with vodka

http://www.recovery.org/topics/addiction-recovery-helplines/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li8GrxE1jfg

lol. i'm still drinking.

i get it, now.

i am only 5'8". i am small (128 pounds). i am vegetarian for 12 years (it turns girls off).

i am also destitute.

i understand, now, that no one will ever marry me.

i would like someone to tell me i'm wrong. however, i know i'm right. no one will ever marry me.

not only am i vegetarian for 12 years (which girls hate), i also have severe mental illness.

lol. i'm a weirdo.

(i can't give up the vegetarian part).

i'm trying to come to terms with this. i'm 29. i just want to marry a nice woman. i just want to get married and love her forever. i'm not good enough for that.

i went to a good school, i'm good looking, but that's not how this works. i just turn people off. i just want to get married. i just want to get married.

how big is your cock?

*defecates*

i don't understand why you're both being jerks, but ok. :D

Don't give up, you can beat vegetarianism.

you don't need to get married. you might even fall for someone who isn't into it

bleurgh.

i just want to get married.
to someone nice.
but, i'm sick.
and, you're making fun of me.

i literally can't wait to regret that. i am drunk.

help.

yes, you need help, but unfortunately you're not going to find the sort of help you need on ILX. call your doctor.

it isn't like i'm not mad at myself. i wish i could stop thinking about this.

sorry. i really do disappoint myself.

sorry.

i hope i pass out/black out soon. fuck this.

thank you, the late great.

i know there's nothing i can do, ever - or, tonight.

i'm gonna drink and listen to dumb twee shit until i pass out.

What dumb twee shit?

thank you.

i was hoping for some intelligent discussion on what i posted, however.

you're not going to find the sort of help you need on ILX. call your doctor.

^^^

Thank you.

I've been here for 11 years.

is everyone mad at me?

I'm sorry. I can't stop thinking about it.

It took me about 20 months before I understand the lies.

Understanding barely helps.
I just wanna stop thinking about it.

She has Narcisstic Personality Disorder.
I'm still in love with the person she pretended to be.

Thank you.

I never wanted to think anything bad about her.

Can we please just agree that was abusve???

I haven't been the same since. I failed ever class that semester.

nobody's mad at you.

npds are the worst. thank god I never dated a pathological narcissist. they will lie about the most trivial things just to feed their hole. bpd aren't much better. they latch on to crazy ideas and everything is so starkly black or white, at the extreme ends of possibility.

ilx is not a great place to be drunk or depressed, though.

Hey, bamcquern, fuck you.

Why emil.y

I appreciated what he said.

This is the last thing I want to happen here.

I'm sorry, emily. I was insensitive.

And I've always thought you were a really cool person. I always follow what you have to say about if.

Dehumanising people into their (hypothetical) diagnoses is gross. Playing up stereotypes of those diagnoses is also gross. Please refrain.

bpd aren't much better. they latch on to crazy ideas and everything is so starkly black or white, at the extreme ends of possibility.

Pff...please understand that saying this kind of generalising, uninformed bullshit is pretty dangerous. Especially when speaking to people who are obviously emotionally vulnerable and therefore impressionable. Most mental health issues derive from trauma and are in no way malevolent. Also, using 'crazy' as a diminutive term in a mental health thread is not well thought through. There isn't even anything inherently wrong in the attributes you just mentioned...

Xpost I don't think anybody's mad at you monster mash. I imagine most people feel how I do, which is genuinely concerned. but i don't really want to engage with your posts because i don't want to play at being a therapist or a counselor. also i don't want to enable you to not get genuine professional help by filling in the role of that professional.

xp it was a dumb thing to say and think. Thanks for setting me straight.

it sounds like i also owe emil.y an apology. do you you have bpd? that's the impression i just received. i'm extremely sorry, and you're surely nothing like the monster i'm talking about here. you surely, could only be, better than that. (if you don't have bpd, then i'm just confused about the last few posts).

i hope this space is safe.

in any case, when it comes to my girl/jerk/monster, yes, she had bpd or narcissistic personality disorder, but she was also very young (she was 22 - I was 27), and she was very immature (even for her age - but she told me lies which made me feel like she was mature enough), (i was 27, i figured as long as the age range were within a five-year radius, i was okay. i wouldn't have dated a 21-year-old - i thought 22 was fine).

a therapist once told me that, no matter what, you should hold people accountable for their actions -- even with mental illness.
god, how wrong.
i mean, yeah, hold people accountable up to a certain point, but... even i've flaunted my mental illness to excuse my own dumbass behavior (don't get the wrong impression - it's more complicated and tactful than it sounds -- i was being blunt).
i mean, sure, maybe things like depression or bipolar disorder are more like afflictions, but things like borderline or narcissistic are a little more innate (IN MOST CASES, NOT ALL).

i don't wanna hold my girl accountable. i wanna blame it on her npd and get past this and forget it.

MM, you need to focus on yourself and stop perseverating on whatever you think this female acquaintance of yours did to you. For one thing you're coming across more than a little bit like a possessive stalker:

i don't wanna hold my girl accountable. i wanna blame it on her npd and get past this and forget it.

this is a very unhealthy line of thinking! she's not "your girl" and a desire to "blame it on her npd and get past this and forget it" is all kinds of wrong, for you and everybody else involved. especially since you're clearly focusing on her and her actions (as you perceive them) and not at ALL about getting past this and forgetting it. You are obsessing, you are drinking to excess (as confessed by you yourself) while you obsess over it, and it's making it really difficult, nigh impossible, to engage with you on this thread.

At this point I feel like one of the best things that could happen is that a mod locks this thread and you can start a new one if you want, but about yourself, not about somebody else and whatever they might have done to you. You probably need to see a (new?) therapist, and you need to consider if you should be on medication, or some different medication than whatever's not working for you right now.

The silver lining of mental illness, acknowledged as such, is that gives you a path to mental health, but only if you realize that it's about you and your emotional state, and not so much about other people. These days it would appear you're entirely focused on another person and that, my friend, leads nowhere good. For anyone.

No means no, MM. That's it; you have no right to demand anything from her. She is not "your girl". You are using an image of her to feed an obsession. You have no relationship with her now -- any relationship from this point forward is you being an asshole. There is nothing else to say.

There is one thing left to say: if you need help to stop thinking about her, get it. And you will not get it from her and must not try to.

[ADMIN]

I think Tombot's post is as OTM as it gets. I hope you finda a way to deal with this issue, but writing obsessive-sounding posts about another person with personal details that she probably doesn't want to be addressed on a public forum is not the way to go. I'm locking this thread and deleting the post. Like Tombot says, you can start a new thread and discuss the subject on a more general level, but these kind of personal accusations towards a third party who's not present are not okay.

[ADMIN]

Just to make it clear, if you write more posts like that, I will have to ban you from the ILTMI board. This is supposed to be a safe space to discuss personal matters, so posting intimate and identifiable details about other people without their consent is a banworthy offense.