8 Ways To Love Someone With Mental Illness

Photo by Dmitriy Ganin

Every relationship we cultivate will be fraught with its own unique challenges — the inner workings of one relationship won’t look anything like that of another one; the ways we resolve conflict won’t be helpful for every partnership. This is simply the reality of two fallible people coming together and committing to making things work.

But when our significant other has mental illness, there’s suddenly a million added layers of complications, obstacles, and misunderstandings. Mental illness isn’t always immediately obvious — it may even take a while before we can name it — but its presence holds an undeniable force, a power over the person suffering from it as well as their loved ones.

Loving anyone in the world well is enough of a hurdle; loving someone with mental illness well is a whole new hurdle — one that none of us are naturals at mastering immediately (or ever, for that matter); we might even feel overwhelmed at the thought, exhausted at the practice.

But as a person in a relationship with someone with mental illness, there are ways we can better love them, unique as they are, and things we can do to help them feel loved and safe with us.

01 | Extend empathy always.

People with mental illness have gone their entire lives feeling different and misunderstood. They’ve most likely encountered people who made fun of them, didn’t take their diagnosis seriously, or lashed out at them for being ‘difficult’.

Empathy is of the utmost importance when loving someone with mental illness. We won’t ever totally understand their mind and the way it works, but we don’t have to in order to offer them the love they need. Validating their struggle, even when it doesn’t make any sense to us, will feel like a breath of fresh air to them.

02 | Don’t take things personally.

We don’t have to suffer from mental illness to know it’s incredibly difficult to live with and navigate. As confusing, painful, and frustrating as their mental illness is for someone on the outside, we can only imagine how much worse the reality of their illness is for them.

Mental illness will often cause someone to act in ways that we won’t understand, do things we feel aren’t rational, or become upset by something we see as trivial — leading us to take their reactions and outbursts as personal attacks. But ultimately, these are symptoms of their mental illness.

It can be confusing and lonely to experience these symptoms as the outsider — it feels like being confronted in a foreign language that we feel we should’ve understood. But when we’re able to understand that our significant other is experiencing symptoms, rather than actively attempting to attack us, we’re better able to let these tough moments roll off our backs.

03 | Know the signs & triggers.

It can be utterly exhausting for individuals with mental illness to speak up when something is setting them off. They might feel like a burden, or worry that they’ll be misunderstood, or just feel like they’re battling their illness all alone, all the time.

One of the most loving things we can do as their significant other is knowing their tells — learning the things that will agitate their illness. If crowded places overwhelm them, keep an eye out for emptier streets when out with them. If they can’t stay concentrated for very long, learn when to let them breathe. If germs bother them, be considerate when touching them. Knowing the things that can overwhelm or upset them will help them feel less alone.

04 | Don’t expect them to ‘get over’ it.

It’s tempting to tell ourselves that one day, our significant other will take the right mix of medications or learn a magic trick to make their mental illness a thing of the past. And it’s probably safe to assume that they, too, wish this was possible.

But this isn’t how mental illness works. We can’t expect them to ‘get past’ their symptoms, just like we don’t expect someone with diabetes to get past their diabetes. People with mental illness can absolutely learn to manage their illness, but it won’t just disappear.

05 | Learn about their mental illness.

Every mental illness is like its own language; there are terms that are appropriate to use, signals to understand and interpret, practices to become familiar with.

When our significant other has mental illness, it’s imperative that we invest time in learning about their illness, coming to understand its causes, becoming familiar with its range of symptoms and their meanings. We need to take the time to educate ourselves on a deeper level if we hope to make them feel loved and respected.

06 | Ask them questions.

We won’t be able to learn everything from an article online or a lengthy podcast, no matter how reputable and thorough — one of the best ways to find answers to our questions is just by asking our significant other themselves.

Ask them why something in particular bothered them; open up a discussion about what they felt when something set them off; pose thoughtful questions that show them a desire to understand and love rather than condemn.

07 | Speak to a counselor.

Loving someone with mental illness can feel isolating, frustrating, and discombobulating — but we won’t necessarily want to open up to friends about it, especially if we want to respect our significant other’s privacy.

This is where speaking with a counselor comes in. Our relationship is bound to have issues that can’t be easily hashed out over brunch with friends or prayed about. Speaking with a professional, especially someone who’s familiar with our significant other’s illness, is key in finding the support we’ll need along the way.

08 | Take care of yourself.

We’ll want to take it all on like a champ — we’ll want to win the trophy for best significant other of someone with mental illness, if ever there were such a trophy. We just want to be the best for the person we love. 

But we can’t forget that we’re human, and we come with limitations. We’ll need rest, time to ourselves, and care for our own mental health. We can’t think of ourselves as the answer to our significant other’s illness, nor hold ourselves to unhealthy, unfair standards. There will be days when we feel less ‘capable’ of loving our significant other well — this isn’t a flaw, but instead, an indication that we need to be taking care of ourselves, too.