Mental illness stigma is probably most troubling within romantic relationships, because we believe that our partners should understand and support us more than anyone else in our lives. Many of us have likely experienced some form of mental illness stigma, be it from people that we know or from strangers who make assumptions about us based on our illness. There is more than one way that mental illness stigma affects romantic relationships.

Mental illness and guilt towards friends can impact our friendships and how we feel about ourselves. If feelings of guilt persist, they can lead to feelings of depression and can exacerbate the symptoms of our diseases. But dealing with guilt towards friends with regard to mental illness early can help you maintain healthy relationships and restore your emotional equilibrium.

Making and maintaining friendships when living with a mental illness takes effort, as it does for everyone. Maintaining friendships with a mental illness requires attention, sharing and emotional honesty which are some areas affected by symptoms of mental illness. Those who live with conditions like depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder may need to put extra effort into keeping their friendships healthy.

When you are in treatment for a mental illness, you’ve likely undergone a certain amount of talk therapy. If you’re well into recovery, you may very well have experienced years of therapy and, hopefully, a measure of success at uncovering and eliminating negative patterns and gaining self-awareness. So, if you’ve walked the path to psychological enlightenment, disease management and overall mental health, can you have a romantic relationship with someone who’s never been in therapy?

I am at an impasse, with my writing and with my feelings.  Of course, these issues are related. Last month, I began writing here about mending my relationship with my ex-boyfriend Bob, and we've been getting along very well in the meantime.  We've reached a point of sharing that is different than at any time in our past:  I've been able to share my feelings - past and present - with Bob and he has admitted a level of honesty I never expected from him.  I was very happy, until I sought to write a long piece about our relationship for my personal blog and I couldn't come up with a way to tackle the topic.  That's when I knew that I had some negative reactions mixed in with my warm fuzzies.

Lots of people take the last week of the year to reflect on the past and to look ahead to a new year where things are going to be different, dammit.   Those of you who have bipolar depression with a soupcon of borderline personality disorder – like me – might even spend a day alone fixating on what they did wrong this year. And, if you’re anything like me, relationships probably take up the majority of your obsession time.

In business school, I slept with my best friend Bob and then proceeded to fall in love with him. As these things go, he didn't return my feelings, we fought a few times then left town without speaking to each other.  A few years ago we reconnected - figuratively and literally - with similarly disastrous results.  Now, Bob and I are speaking again and I'm committed to making the friendship work.  No, I'm not a glutton for punishment.  Rather, I believe that making amends will help me be healthier and better manage my bipolar disorder.

Since my bipolar diagnosis, I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about romantic relationships: how to find one, how to act right when I'm in one, how to pick the right one. I've dedicated tons of blog air time to dating and to family because those relationships are my triggers. But I've neglected to address a very important person in many of our lives, an important relationship for people with mental illness: the therapeutic relationship.

Sometimes people with mental illness aren't the most self aware.  Some of us have a tendency to get consumed by our internal drama that it's hard to listen to other people.  We spend so much time listening to our feelings, processing our emotions, talking about ourselves in therapy to figure out how to stay healthy.  I'm not suggesting that we give up time-tested methods of self regulation, but I think that our relationships with others - not always that with ourselves - can tell a bigger picture about our mental health.

Many people aren't good at relationships, particularly at the beginning.  What might be a time of excitement and optimism for the average person can turn to anxiety and depression for someone with bipolar.  In this blog post, I compare the feelings I experience during the beginning of a relationship - in this case, with Erik, a new love interest - with the mood fluctuations of bipolar disorder.