Mental Health In Real Life
I had an interesting conversation last night with a friend I’ve known for the last 20 years..
We talked about everything that’s been going on in his life and how it’s affected his mental health, he said i could share tidbits on the blog in case it could help at least one person.
Everything stems from his childhood, I’m not going into detail about that but it was just a broken home. I don’t want to go through his life lessons because that’s not to be explained here at this moment.
While having our in-depth conversation Thursday night he stated he’s scared of relationships because none have ever worked out for him. He tried his best but nothing ever came from them.
His best friend just so happens to be my brothers best friend and he has a 14-year-old daughter to take into consideration. So I completely understand his concerns about a relationship.
This is how his part of the conversation went….
“It’s hard for me to predict how I’m gonna feel from day to day I might say screw it all or I might strive to make it the best it can be and I can’t expect anyone to take care of me when my life goes completely down the shit hole as it has paternalistically done for my entire life. I think that’s part of my mental stuff the manic part of things. “
“Like I haven’t even imagined or pictured in my mind what a relationship with someone would be like”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t change my mind… I guess we’ll see, I reckon this is where it starts. Being with me will be a constant chase or rat race I have to always push and I always have to be proven how much and that someone loves me and isn’t going anywhere but there’s not a single person on earth that can be pushed but so far but this is honest as any one person can be with you on the planet”
“I’m not saying that in a crazy way. I just know when I go all in when I love I love to the extreme when I’m happy to the extreme but I’m sad to the extreme when I’m mad I’m at the extreme and when the love part stretch to the extreme and it’s in the hands of someone else I just know that I tend to go overboard. So I don’t go at all.”
“Do I have all of my best self to give?
How can I give my best if I’m not my best?
Can I be someone that this person is proud to be with if I’m not proud of myself?
Do I trust myself with my own emotions?
Do I have the esteem and confidence to fully trust someone?
Do I care enough about myself to be able to spread care to someone else?
Am I whole enough alone to give a piece of myself to someone else?
“And I’m not saying all these questions apply to you I just ask myself things like this when it comes to situations like this and a lot of the times my answer doesn’t favor in the way of taking on more mental-emotional draw or expense. Because it wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved”
“I wanna talk about it first. I just gotta make time…. here are a couple of points on my behalf that make things a little difficult. you say KC (my twin brother) can’t or doesn’t have to know everything we do but it’s hard for me to treat him as my best friend if he can’t for instance… I couldn’t run up to my best friend and say “dude I got to tell you about this thing this thing she does with her tongue” and he’s not gonna hear his sister called a bitch but so many times if we argue. It seems like you wanna jump right into something and that’s fine but I’m accountable for easing and explaining a potential stepmother to a kid and her mom I’ve been introduced to every one of her boyfriends early on and never heard anything else about them a couple of weeks later.”
And I want you to seriously consider if you’re ready for a relationship based on something I consider for myself. “Can I give away something to someone that I do not have?”
These are the thoughts that have come up with him in our conversation, I hope I can help him find the strength to believe in himself as I have myself for years.
This isn’t about trying to fix anyone, it’s about being happy.
Do you have any experience with this? What is the best advice you could give him if you were me? I want him to be happy and healthy, I want to help him work through some of these issues.
I’m always sad how people don’t treat mental health like it’s a real thing. I went once to hairdresser who literally told me that people with mental health problems are people with no real life problems – they are bored. I guess she was an idiot, I’m not bored
oh my gosh, she said that?? Yeah, I’m not bored either, if anything we’re more productive trying to keep our minds occupied. Thank you for stoppping by!
Hi, I enjoyed your article. It’s brave to show real life struggles and inner thoughts we all can relate to. I would say to him that there’s always the risk of relationships not ending well or someone getting hurt but you learn from it and if you never take the risk then you’ll never know what you might miss out on.
Hey, thanks for stopping by. I pretty much told him the same thing, we won’t know unless we try.
i need to practice mental health better
Everyone can benefit from it, even the smallest things.
I appreciate your honesty and attention to this topic. In my experience to be a part of a healthy relationship you have to make peace with you past. It doesn’t need to define the person you are, but it is a part of your story. I would say listening to him is the kindest thing and it may take time. All the best.
That is exactly what I told him too. So we will see how things go, we might decide to just be friends but I’ll still listen to him. Everyone needs someone to talk to. Thank you for your kind words.
I’ve lived with these kinds of issues with my husband for the last 22 years, since I’ve know him. Broken homes are incredibly impactful, and finding good professional help can make a difference. Finding out that my husband had undiagnosed ADHD also gave us a lot of good help. Hope you guys find the help you need.
I wish you guys the best of luck too and I’m glad you’re making it work. It’s hard and he’s still dealing with a lot of it.Thank you so much for your kind words too.
This is such a vulnerable article to publish and I commend you on this. Early in my relationship I had these same thoughts, and something my partner told me and still says is that I need to take it one day at a time. I cannot change the past but I can work on the now.
It’s hard to change thoughts you’ve had for so long, that mindset is hard to change so take your time. He said to share it in case it could help at least 1 person. Thank you for your kind words too.
Thanks for sharing such an intimate post. All you can say is you never know how or what is going to happen but it is worth the risk as it maybe the best thing you have ever done. Let him know your there for him to listen too him but also let him know his past doesn’t define who he is right here right now. Thanks
Thank you for the kind words! That is pretty much told him, so we will see.