Stigma against dating people with serious mental illness (SMI) is abundant. There is no shortage of discrimination against people who are difficult to understand, whether it be in the workplace or the public sphere, and when bringing them into one’s personal life.
Dating someone with SMI can bring fear and hesitation due to the uncertainty of how a person handles their SMI. But what if we had the tools and wisdom to help us navigate lives that may be “tougher” than the average?
Lauren Elise Rogers is a Certified Holistic Sexuality Educator and Embodied Intimacy & Relationship Coach, known for her warm, approachable style and evidence-informed practice. Grounded in a biopsychosocial model of care, she takes an interdisciplinary approach to sexual and relational challenges, frequently collaborating with clients and their healthcare providers to support comprehensive, individualized care. She helps empower individuals and couples to explore complex topics with curiosity, agency, and confidence.
Sarah An Myers: Dating someone with a serious mental illness like bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, or schizophrenia can be daunting. What are some things we can do to either dispel stigma or relieve the pressure on both parties?
Lauren Elise Rogers: Whether we are dating someone with a SMI or dating as a person with a serious mental illness, I believe that we are required to take responsibility for our own embodied experience rather than giving away or taking away responsibilities from the other. Kai Cheng Thom refers to the Ecological Model of Attachment as “one that includes complex and deeply rooted kinship networks, relationships with culture and cultural artifacts, as well as connection to the non-human world.” I like to explain this model to my clients as simply “not putting all of our eggs in the partnership basket.” When dating, we should not be looking for a parent; we should be looking for a partner. We are not meant to do relationships alone. We can allow ourselves to have a team around us, regardless of our mental health status. Approaching relationships with radical honesty, a supportive community, and a team of professionals should be the norm, not the exception. We are all deserving of intimacy and affection! The belief that romantic and sexual relationships should only exist between humans without serious mental illness is discriminatory.
SM: Is your advice the same for those who have never had anyone to take care of them? For example, people who have never had families, parents, siblings, or relatives do the “caretaking” role in both financial and emotional care?
LER: There is no shame in going through a stage of dating that’s more about caretaking than loving. When we haven’t been taken care of in childhood, we will seek out caretaking. This is not “wrong.”
Yet, I’d argue that romantic relationships are not the solution to our perceived lack of wholeness. To enter relationships from such a strong place of need is to entrust another person with too much power. Dené Logan, couples therapist, says that when we make them responsible for healing our original wounds, “we project onto them the fantasy of being the key to our sense of fulfillment.” Then, if/when they decide to cease or change their form of caretaking, the initial “love” we felt disappears, sending us reeling back into the idea that we are unlovable and unworthy. Logan goes on to ask if we are “truly looking to love another person, or to fill the hole within us created by the caregivers and the society who didn’t love us and see us in the ways we longed to be loved and seen”?
Instead of looking to romantic partners to heal the wounds left by our original caregivers, I suggest friendship. Robert Firestone, in his book, The Fantasy Bond: Structure of Psychological Defenses, writes, ”The therapeutic value of friendship must be emphasized, for it is virtually a necessity to share one’s struggle with others who support one’s individuality and personal freedom.”
SM: How does a prospective non-mentally ill partner approach someone with mental illness in the initial stages of dating, and what can they consider when merging their life with that person?
LER: I encourage non-mentally ill partners to approach a prospective mentally-ill partner with patience and spaciousness in the initial stages of dating. During the “honeymoon” stage, in the pure desire for togetherness, couples often sub-consciously detach from their communities and cease the practices that stabilize them when outside of the relationship. They might forego things like movement, therapy, hobbies, nutrition, etc. When considering dating someone with an SMI, non-mentally ill individuals can support and celebrate pre-existing practices that contribute to self-assuredness and self-security. This may look like going slow and spacing out dates to allow for other critical supports to remain, yet it sets the tone and gives both parties a clearer idea of what it could look like to merge lives and support the mentally-ill partner from a place of interdependence rather than co-dependence.
While it may feel like you’re fighting cultural scripts that celebrate enmeshment and spending every moment together, a 2016 study found that folks in interdependent relationships gained strength from knowing that they could each live their own lives and pursue personal goals with the support and encouragement of their partner.
SM: What do both parties have to realistically consider when involving someone with a mental illness in a relationship?
LER: When involving someone with a mental illness, all parties must consider their own limits and capacities. The non-mentally ill partner should be mindful that caretaking is not the same as loving. It is well documented that folks in long-term relationships often feel desire drain when burdened by emotional caretaking. Love does not require us to disappear. It is beautiful and healthy to enforce generative boundaries. Adrienne maree brown, writer, activist, and facilitator, coined two statements that I adore:
Relationships Essential Reads
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“It sounds like you might need some professional support. I love our relationship and don’t want to slip into an inappropriate role of healer or coach here. How can I help you connect to support?”
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“There is my work, your work, and our work. I am down for us to do our work, and I will hold down my work, but I cannot take on your work. I deeply support you in figuring out what you need to do around that.”
The partner with SMI can take pride and honor in their domain. Betty Martin, author of The Wheel of Consent, says that a “domain is all that we have a right to and a responsibility for. The more we take responsibility for our domain, the more freedom we have.” SMI is a sacred responsibility that the mentally ill partner has a right to and a responsibility for. Normal is a myth! There are many ways to love, desire, please, and be pleased! You do not move from broken to normal to perfect. All humans are in a continual cycle of woundedness to healing. You are fully enough–right now.
SM: Have you found hope and success with couples in long-term partnerships where serious mental illness does not limit them from a thriving partnership?
LER: Of course! When the partnership is not the sole source of support but rather a piece of the whole support system, I have seen long-term relationships thrive! In her book, Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections, Emily Nogaski says, “Confidence is knowing what is true…and joy is loving what is true.” When individuals and partners boldly acknowledge the presence of serious mental illness in their relationships, I find that they confidently lean on their community supports and joyfully celebrate their differences. This type of honesty builds trust and trust is essential to a strong and lasting relationship.
Healthy relationships do not require perfect humans, but simply curious human beings who admire each other and believe in the effort it takes to repair wounds and continually write courageous and radically loving relational scripts.
