tryingmybest
New member
Hi everyone, I hope you’re all doing well. After my break from the board I’ve decided to come back and explain my situation in more detail.
I’m 19 years old, and have been in a relationship with and older poly guy for a long time. (However, I would like to mention not an illegal amount of time.)
When I first got with him I was a secondary partner and from my recollection he’d been with his girlfriend for a few months. I’d dated a really, sweet poly guy before, however only for a few weeks, and as his only partner. So basically, I knew what poly was, but had no F’ing idea what I was doing.
Not to mention that I kinda had my head in the clouds. Now, to try and prevent this from turning into a tragic rhapsody, I’ll simplify this next bit. I have several different mental health conditions and autism and I will list the ages that I was diagnosed below.
Age:
5: Autism
12: depression
17: Schizophrenia
18: (the dreaded, lol) borderline personality disorder, Alcohol dependency (now in recovery)
19: Dissociative identity disorder and PTSD
So… loads of fun stuff, am I right? (I’m joking, I’m joking)
Now, none of these are particularly great, but I know that one of these tends to cause more problems in poly relationships more than the others and I’ve read some rather frank and not so forgiving articles written by poly people about this condition, Borderline Personality Disorder.
Now, I get it, it can’t be great being with someone with a mental illness, and if the concern comes from a place of honesty of whether-or-not you can care for the person accurately, good, I commend you. It’s when it gets to this ‘BPD phobia’ that it begins to bother me, (and makes me question your moral character.)
I am what some call a ‘quiet borderline’. You won’t have me flipping tables or screaming and shouting at you. But you might have to deal with frequent suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and other self-endangering or self-injurious activities. Basically, where the overt borderline ‘acts out’ we ‘act in’.
Combine this with all that other crap and you get pretty much hell on earth for me, and anyone closely involved with me. Including my partner.
My partner has been diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder (schizophrenia and bipolar), depression, anxiety and PTSD. He has been a great support to me throughout the time I have known him. And I feel is the only person I have any real connection with. It is not that I see him as perfect, but rather, that I can tolerate his imperfections and still love him.
As bad as this may sound, usually, I don’t like other people. Or not even that, I just seem to be in a world of my own and unable to connect to or relate to them. Yes, occasionally I may talk to someone in an attempt to control my emotions, but after that time has passed, I feel no need of them. And as politely and as kindly as I can, I drop them.
I’ve started to do this thing where if I either feel indifferent, or actively opposed to someone, I don’t go near them. Because I know what its like to talk to someone that cant relate to you, or perhaps doesn’t seem to be interested, and I just think, let them be.
Why bother being in the presence of another human if you cannot be ‘with’ that person in soul?
My partner doesn’t like this and sees it as immaturity on my part, I have tried to explain it to him but I’m not certain he fully understands, yet. This might not be such a problem if I didn’t find it hard, or to be more honest, impossible to relate to 98% of humanity.
Then to add on to that, the fact that it must be hard for him to understand how a person can only need and long for one other like-minded spirit and yet he seemingly needs an abundance of them. I say needs as it seems to be something he has no choice over.
I have already said that if I were ever to move to his town I would have my own house and my own money. I know his dream would be to have me, and the other (future) life partner all under one roof. I have already told him there is no way this will ever happen, not even necessarily because of his future partner, but just for the fact that I need and like a lot of time on my own, a space with two other people in close proximity to me at all times would send me into overload.
I do have concerns about the future now that I have been his long-time partner and he has only had fleeting girlfriends. But a lot of the time when I read articles about this it often mentions that we wonder if the other person will be better than us, smarter than us, prettier than us and it brings out our insecurities.
Except, that is not, (at least knowingly) how I feel or what I wonder about. To me the question is more like ‘Why does this other person have to be here?’ I end up wrecking my brains trying to understand simply why?, what is it that causes this need? I know from previous discussions how his desire is actually, far more romantic than sexual.
The worst part is that I feel like I really should be over this very basic of questions by now. I also feel like I owe it to my partner to accept him. I cant say too much, but I have parts of my sexuality that I cant reveal to anyone but him. (I mean seriously, no one. I’ve spoken to a psychiatrist about it before and he swore me to secrecy and to never speak of it again.) Sometimes I do feel like he uses that against me.
So I try and rationalise it in the sense that I have other sexual likes and desires other than him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him immensely. But equally, merely liking something and pursuing intimate, romantic relationships are two completely different things.
I see him now, really coming out of his shell, going out with friends or to his martial arts classes, going back to university and he seems much better than he used to be. I used to be the one looking after him, but now the roles are reversed.
As my dissociation is beginning to wear off (which is a good thing, in some ways.) All my other issues are beginning to flourish in a hellish mess. He is getting much better very quickly, and although it is part of recovery, I am getting worse, we’re in two completely different mind settings.
And I wonder, am I simply too mentally ill to be in a poly relationship? (or any relationship? You could question)
Poly relationships are fantastic in the sense they leave no stone unturned, but not so good for that exact reason. Whilst poly partners do support each other, I believe it also requires an abundance of self-sustainability and ability to relate to others, that maybe I just lack.
I’m 19 years old, and have been in a relationship with and older poly guy for a long time. (However, I would like to mention not an illegal amount of time.)
When I first got with him I was a secondary partner and from my recollection he’d been with his girlfriend for a few months. I’d dated a really, sweet poly guy before, however only for a few weeks, and as his only partner. So basically, I knew what poly was, but had no F’ing idea what I was doing.
Not to mention that I kinda had my head in the clouds. Now, to try and prevent this from turning into a tragic rhapsody, I’ll simplify this next bit. I have several different mental health conditions and autism and I will list the ages that I was diagnosed below.
Age:
5: Autism
12: depression
17: Schizophrenia
18: (the dreaded, lol) borderline personality disorder, Alcohol dependency (now in recovery)
19: Dissociative identity disorder and PTSD
So… loads of fun stuff, am I right? (I’m joking, I’m joking)
Now, none of these are particularly great, but I know that one of these tends to cause more problems in poly relationships more than the others and I’ve read some rather frank and not so forgiving articles written by poly people about this condition, Borderline Personality Disorder.
Now, I get it, it can’t be great being with someone with a mental illness, and if the concern comes from a place of honesty of whether-or-not you can care for the person accurately, good, I commend you. It’s when it gets to this ‘BPD phobia’ that it begins to bother me, (and makes me question your moral character.)
I am what some call a ‘quiet borderline’. You won’t have me flipping tables or screaming and shouting at you. But you might have to deal with frequent suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and other self-endangering or self-injurious activities. Basically, where the overt borderline ‘acts out’ we ‘act in’.
Combine this with all that other crap and you get pretty much hell on earth for me, and anyone closely involved with me. Including my partner.
My partner has been diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder (schizophrenia and bipolar), depression, anxiety and PTSD. He has been a great support to me throughout the time I have known him. And I feel is the only person I have any real connection with. It is not that I see him as perfect, but rather, that I can tolerate his imperfections and still love him.
As bad as this may sound, usually, I don’t like other people. Or not even that, I just seem to be in a world of my own and unable to connect to or relate to them. Yes, occasionally I may talk to someone in an attempt to control my emotions, but after that time has passed, I feel no need of them. And as politely and as kindly as I can, I drop them.
I’ve started to do this thing where if I either feel indifferent, or actively opposed to someone, I don’t go near them. Because I know what its like to talk to someone that cant relate to you, or perhaps doesn’t seem to be interested, and I just think, let them be.
Why bother being in the presence of another human if you cannot be ‘with’ that person in soul?
My partner doesn’t like this and sees it as immaturity on my part, I have tried to explain it to him but I’m not certain he fully understands, yet. This might not be such a problem if I didn’t find it hard, or to be more honest, impossible to relate to 98% of humanity.
Then to add on to that, the fact that it must be hard for him to understand how a person can only need and long for one other like-minded spirit and yet he seemingly needs an abundance of them. I say needs as it seems to be something he has no choice over.
I have already said that if I were ever to move to his town I would have my own house and my own money. I know his dream would be to have me, and the other (future) life partner all under one roof. I have already told him there is no way this will ever happen, not even necessarily because of his future partner, but just for the fact that I need and like a lot of time on my own, a space with two other people in close proximity to me at all times would send me into overload.
I do have concerns about the future now that I have been his long-time partner and he has only had fleeting girlfriends. But a lot of the time when I read articles about this it often mentions that we wonder if the other person will be better than us, smarter than us, prettier than us and it brings out our insecurities.
Except, that is not, (at least knowingly) how I feel or what I wonder about. To me the question is more like ‘Why does this other person have to be here?’ I end up wrecking my brains trying to understand simply why?, what is it that causes this need? I know from previous discussions how his desire is actually, far more romantic than sexual.
The worst part is that I feel like I really should be over this very basic of questions by now. I also feel like I owe it to my partner to accept him. I cant say too much, but I have parts of my sexuality that I cant reveal to anyone but him. (I mean seriously, no one. I’ve spoken to a psychiatrist about it before and he swore me to secrecy and to never speak of it again.) Sometimes I do feel like he uses that against me.
So I try and rationalise it in the sense that I have other sexual likes and desires other than him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him immensely. But equally, merely liking something and pursuing intimate, romantic relationships are two completely different things.
I see him now, really coming out of his shell, going out with friends or to his martial arts classes, going back to university and he seems much better than he used to be. I used to be the one looking after him, but now the roles are reversed.
As my dissociation is beginning to wear off (which is a good thing, in some ways.) All my other issues are beginning to flourish in a hellish mess. He is getting much better very quickly, and although it is part of recovery, I am getting worse, we’re in two completely different mind settings.
And I wonder, am I simply too mentally ill to be in a poly relationship? (or any relationship? You could question)
Poly relationships are fantastic in the sense they leave no stone unturned, but not so good for that exact reason. Whilst poly partners do support each other, I believe it also requires an abundance of self-sustainability and ability to relate to others, that maybe I just lack.
) and I'll speak to you between late January -April"