You should keep in mind that these days almost everyone has some sort of diagnosis, whether it be physical or mental, that could get in the way of an ideal relationship, yet people find ways to work around it. I’ve had problems with generalized anxiety and depression myself and I personally am drawn to people, both romantically and for friendship who are sensitive, and consequently often deal with mental health problems as well. People who are sensitive and have dealt with these issues seem to be very understanding and kind when it comes to these issues and might know the best way to help because they’ve gone it themselves. It’s true for me at least; I can’t speak for you. This isn’t to say that you don’t need to have control over your mental health in the long term, because you do need to.

You absolutely shouldn’t be afraid to try relationship if it’s within your reach. Well, I mean you will be afraid probably as that’s beyond your control, but it’s worth being brave and giving it a try. I’m in the process of getting over the end of my first relationship and even in the worst moments of pain and sorrow I don’t ever regret giving the relationship a try.

It’s best not to define yourself with these labels if you can help it. To not let yourself get carried away with or convinced with thoughts like “I can’t do that because i’m depressed” or things of that nature. This is easier said than done, but if you can pull it off i’ve personally found it very helpful to try and unthink the things i’ve told myself I can’t do, even if only partially. I’ve been dealing with pretty severe fatigue, brain fog, and other symptoms for over a year now (finally getting to a root cause with my alternative medicine doctor, which seems to be related to my liver, so hopefully i’ll be on the upswing soon) and along the way I gave up doing a lot of things because I was convinced I couldn’t have enough concentration to read, or enough energy to exercise, or whatever, so I stopped doing them, or enough clarity to even hang out with friends. Only in the last month or so have I come to realize that while true, I may be to foggy to read much at all sometimes and even when i’m clearer I can’t read at a level i’d like to or remember it very well, it doesn’t mean that I can’t read. When I have enough clarity i’ll try to read sometimes, even if it means reading a book that’s at a middle school level and being okay with not remembering much. As for hanging out with friends, while it was hard, and I often wouldn’t remember more than 5% of what we could talk about the next day (unlike in the past when I could probably recall at least 75% of a conversation the next day), it didn’t mean that I couldn’t hang out with them, even if for a long time I told myself that I couldn’t. I recently made an effort to reach out to the friends I haven’t seen in a while and had a lot of fun with them and they can’t even tell that i’m dealing with any cognitive symptoms. Ultimately it boils down to try and work on the barriers that are truly within your control, and accept the ones that aren’t. It’s a concept that comes up time and time again on websites like this.

It would be helpful if you could talk about not having a job if you’re comfortable (what are the barriers? have you had many jobs before? etc) as addressing that would be a great first step in the right direction.

I hope you find this helpful. I’m new to giving advice.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Alex.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Alex.

Dear Brian:

Those diagnoses (I have almost a dozen of those in my “resume”) are nothing but clusters of symptoms. What originated these symptoms is trauma, that is injury in your formative years. A serious injury and the hurt and fear are trapped in your brain, causing symptoms. The fear is fear and the hurt is hurt. The thing is that any decent, aware-enough person knows fear and knows hurt and can tell you about it. There is nothing that singles you out as … abnormal. Inside you fear and hurt like anyone else.

It is your choice to seek a relationship or not but please base it on reality, not on the delusion that your diagnoses are anything more than a few clusters of symptoms meant for therapists to orient therapy with you, or for psychtiatirsts to prescribe drugs to you based on those diagnoses and for insurance companies to recored the correct diagnosis number on each billing item.

anita