Would you date someone with mental health issues?

Oh, one more thing—for example, I’m not religious. I wouldn't marry someone who is an active practitioner, like someone who prays every single day, attends church regularly, and wants to raise their kids in the faith. To me, those things just wouldn't align with my own worldview, and I wouldn't be able to accept them.

So, does that count as discrimination? Maybe. But honestly, I would find it perfectly clear and acceptable if someone chose not to date me because I wouldn't want a church wedding, wouldn't want to baptize any children, or simply don't live by religious principles. I wouldn't feel discriminated against at all in that situation.

silentpilot6 said:That’s a fair question... especially considering the whole "discrimination" debate. Let's look at it.
I wouldn't date someone struggling with drug addiction or alcoholism—there is just no way. I'm sorry, but I feel that way. To me, those issues carry much more weight than mental illness. A person suffering from a mental health condition isn't responsible for what they're going through, whereas people dealing with addiction are making choices. I don't think anyone in this day and age can claim they "didn't know what they were getting into." 😕
If a girl occasionally makes a mistake or messes up a little 😁... I see that as being on par with having a drink every now and then like everyone else does. 😁

In modern America, alcoholism and drug addiction are officially classified as diseases. ☕

Angela Bailey7 said:silentpilot6, I honestly think you’re just slapping a schizophrenia diagnosis on this girl when she’s probably perfectly healthy and fine. And besides—what about all those other medical issues that can be way more serious than mental health struggles? When you're looking at a woman as potential life partner, shouldn't you first ask for a full medical history of her immediate and extended family to ensure your kids don't inherit some bad genes? Even if you do end up with "bad" genetic material, it doesn't mean a disease will actually manifest.

The real issue here is the prejudice in our society; people act like those with mental illnesses are somehow "lesser." But the truth is, there are probably more people struggling with mental health issues who haven't been officially diagnosed than those who have. And one more thing—how on earth do you think you'll make a "good choice" by picking someone without a diagnosis, only to find out later she was hiding her true nature and turns out to be a malicious, manipulative gold-digger?

According to your logic, people with mental health struggles don't even deserve a partner or to be loved—which is ridiculous, because they likely need support even more than "perfectly healthy" people do. It also seems totally foolish to suggest you should pick a partner based solely on cold logic rather than your heart. My mother always used to say it's better to walk through thorns with the one you love than to build a castle with someone you despise. All this over-analyzing won't do you any good; life is going to happen to you regardless. You think you've mapped everything out, but life always has an unexpected curveball waiting for you. Don't complicate your existence by trying to plan for a future that hasn't happened yet while ignoring the reality of today. And as my mom used to say: if you aim for the rose and miss, you're still gonna hit the dirt...

God, I have to weigh in on this.
Anyone who hasn't been in a relationship with someone struggling with severe mental illness honestly has no clue what we're talking about. It is just constant giving. You pour yourself out until there is nothing left. And the worst part? You feel like you're running in place. There is zero progress. They stay sick, the relationship is anything but harmonious, and you’re just watching your own battery drain to zero. Every single day gets harder. It keeps spiraling until you reach a breaking point where your own survival is at stake—where your basic instinct to just *survive* forces you to walk away.
Very few people can handle that kind of weight. And those who can't? They shouldn't be judged for it.
Not everyone was born to be a healer. 🙄

I met this girl through an online forum, and we went out a few times. During one of our dates, she opened up to me about her struggle with schizophrenia.
To be honest, it really spooked me. I started spiraling about what the future would look like and how a relationship like that could actually work. 😢
Naturally, I didn't want to dive headfirst into anything serious. I couldn't stop thinking about what our kids might face—schizophrenia has a genetic component, after all. 😢 Plus, she was on antipsychotics, and you definitely can't be taking those during pregnancy.
People who start preaching about discrimination clearly haven't found themselves stuck in this kind of spot before.
The truth is, whether we realize it or not, most of us are looking for a partner who is healthy and attractive. Why? Because, deep down, we just want our kids to be healthy and smart.
Anyone claiming otherwise is just being a hypocrite. 😉

So, is this what we're actually looking at in the end?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9yay...eature=related

Drew Morgan said:In modern America, alcoholism and drug addiction are officially classified as diseases. ☕

I understand... but what does that have to do with anything? Would you personally choose to be with someone struggling with alcoholism or addiction?

silentpilot6 said:I understand... but what does that have to do with anything? Would you personally choose to be with someone struggling with alcoholism or addiction?

Right, because you'd just spot an alcoholic or a junkie instantly, I guess.😉
You've got some kind of radar.😁

And what about smokers?🤷 That's an addiction too, I suppose.😁
Or adrenaline junkies, sex addicts, chocolate lovers...😉
Masochists, sadists...🤷
Gold diggers...
Women who don't want kids...😲

hiddenhawk3 said:Right, because you'd just spot an alcoholic or a junkie instantly, I guess.😉
You've got some kind of radar.😁

And what about smokers?🤷 That's an addiction too, I suppose.😁
Or adrenaline junkies, sex addicts, chocolate lovers...😉
Masochists, sadists...🤷
Gold diggers...
Women who don't want kids...😲

so, what's the move there?🙄

"Quote:"

hiddenhawk3 As expressed by: So, you think you can spot an addict from a mile away? 😉 Do you have a radar? 😁 And what about the smokers? 🤷 And that is what addiction looks like. 😁 Some people just have an endless craving for adrenaline, intimacy, or even chocolate. 😉 Masochists and sadists. 🤷 Sponsors / Sponsorships Women who choose not to have children.

Please, let’s not resort to generalizations or try to diminish the point by making it relative. 😁 In such a foolish manner.

I can spot an addict from a mile away. You clearly cannot. 😕
Then you clearly haven't encountered an addict or an alcoholic before.

And what connection do "they" actually have to the categories you listed below?

When you say you could never be with someone who is a killer or a rapist, I find myself wondering about those who commit much smaller offenses. What about the people who steal loose change from a cash register, the ones who jaywalk against a red light, or the folks who lie to a police officer about having only had two beers? 😁"... you see the 'logic' in that." 😵

cosmictinker21 Asks:
What's up with them? I guess.🙄

So, I guess the question is... are they even normal? 🤷 Nah. 😕🙄

hiddenhawk3 said:Right, because you'd just spot an alcoholic or a junkie instantly, I guess.😉
You've got some kind of radar.😁

And what about smokers?🤷 That's an addiction too, I suppose.😁
Or adrenaline junkies, sex addicts, chocolate lovers...😉
Masochists, sadists...🤷
Gold diggers...
Women who don't want kids...😲

Yeah, and? Even if you don't catch immediately that someone is using drugs—though I doubt that would happen often—you'd probably figure it out after being in a relationship long enough, seeing the track marks or catching them crashing in some sketchy part of town. If it doesn't bother you, great, you can go join them 😁. But if it does, you just walk away. People leave each other over much smaller things; it's really not that deep
.
And if we're going to play the relativism game, I wouldn't date a guy weighing 450 lbs because I'm not into overweight men. Nor would I be with anyone shorter than me, since I don't like short guys. And honestly, I couldn't care less if that counts as "discrimination"
.
As for that last point, I'm a woman who doesn't want children. Any man who wants kids has every right in the world to not marry me. I don't think he's discriminating against me by choosing someone else 🙄.

Interesting topic, silentpilot6. You’ve really stirred the pot here and pulled out all sorts of opinions from everyone.
I appreciate the honesty, though.

I just wanted to touch on these accusations of discrimination for a second. Honestly, if we're being real, people discriminate every single day in a million different ways. Here’s a quick rundown:

We judge blondes, brunettes, short guys, tall women, the fit ones, the balding ones, the overweight ones, the skinniest people in the room, the kids, the seniors, people wearing beat-up sneakers, people who look like they haven't showered, people who talk too much or not enough, people driving a Tesla versus a beat-up Ford, people with certain body types, or even people based on how smart they are...

To make a long story short, it's all "discrimination"... or maybe it's just personal preference?

Should we really be judging a woman because she isn't interested in shorter men? Or a guy who only goes for brunettes?

A handful of those daily biases are actually illegal or regulated by law, sure, but everything else? That's just fair game.

In my eyes, silentpilot6 is just looking at things objectively based on what he knows and his own life experience. It's basically just basic self-preservation. But hey, if he happens to get a little bit of a guilty conscience about it, who knows? He might actually change his mind...

True, discrimination can be defined in so many ways... it really just depends on your perspective and whether you fall into a specific "marginalized" group. But I'm actually curious about something else: would you ever consider dating someone struggling with addiction? Unfortunately, there are plenty of 😢 around us, and the potential risks of being involved with someone in that situation are likely even greater than being with someone suffering from a mental illness...

silentpilot6 said:True, discrimination can be defined in so many ways... it really just depends on your perspective and whether you fall into a specific "marginalized" group. But I'm actually curious about something else: would you ever consider dating someone struggling with addiction? Unfortunately, there are plenty of 😢 around us, and the potential risks of being involved with someone in that situation are likely even greater than being with someone suffering from a mental illness...

Most of the time, we just end up gravitating toward people like ourselves. So if you're an alcoholic or a junkie, some other 😁 isn't going to bother you much.

Here's another thing to chew on: if you're a hard worker, someone who's actually driven and trying to build a solid, secure life, would you ever pick someone who's just reckless, lazy, and living completely hand-to-mouth every single day?

I haven't seen this much trash being thrown around even in the parlaonica...
I don't want to exhaust anyone with my personal opinions, so I’ll just tell you the truth about what happened in my life and let you draw your own conclusions.

My mother has schizophrenia.
Basically, I grew up living with a schizophrenic...
It was like this: my parents were constantly fighting, the house was always a mess, and the whole atmosphere was chaotic, unhealthy, and incredibly tense.

Every three or four years, my mother would end up at a psychiatric facility in Queens. When she was actually home, she’d smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, drink three liters of coffee, and just stare blankly at a single spot on the wall; she was so heavily medicated that she couldn't even move.

There was no joy in our house, no guests—people actively avoided us. And then there were those times when she would get some new fixed idea and cause total mayhem (for example, when I was 12, she somehow convinced her father to kill my dog because he was getting "too much attention"—WTF?!—or she'd fall in love with some stranger from work and demand a divorce, even though the poor guy had no idea who she was. There are books about that kind of thing, but I won't bore you with it...

People with schizophrenia can't be "cured"; they can only enter remission. That happens when they finally become conscious enough to realize the absolute nonsense and misery they've inflicted on their loved ones, so they feel guilty and try to make amends. But honestly, that just leaves you feeling even more bitter, because you can't even hate them properly when they're acting like that.

The bottom line is that given the situation at home, I started using drugs at 16. All that chaos resulted in my father—who originally entered the marriage as a completely normal, healthy, and cheerful man—losing his mind. He ended up institutionalized in Queens with a diagnosis of PTSD and personality changes, etc.

When he came back from the facility, he was a different person. His eyes were somewhat vacant, and he basically stopped giving a damn about anything. Within two months, he found a woman about twenty years younger than him (he was around 50, she was about 25) and divorced my mother.
He found me a job out on an island (we're from New York City), drove me to the bus station, gave me the money for my ticket (I was 18 at the time), and said, "That's it. You've finished school, you're an adult, you have a job. Fight for yourself... Bye."

He moved away from New York City, has two little girls with his new wife who are already in third grade, and lives a relatively nice, normal, and peaceful life. So, in a way, it's a happy ending for him...
So, I guess that's how you handle being the spouse of someone with schizophrenia...

Unfortunately, this is all true. I haven't written everything down; to give you a real picture, it would take me a week...
I'm 29 now. If you're interested in seeing what kind of person a child turns into after growing up in an environment like that, or if you want to know what happened next with my mother, let me know and I'll write it (I don't want to bother you if you aren't interested).....

Did you inherit the condition? Since you were using drugs before, at least you had a head start on the psychoses.

Lawrence Wells said:I don't think I could ever do that. Honestly, I'd be way too terrified. Mental illness is hands down one of the hardest things anyone can go through 😢

I get why you're scared, but "mental illness" is such a massive umbrella term. Just like any other health issue, great people can get hit by it too. Anyone can struggle, but plenty of people recover. We shouldn't paint everyone with the same brush.
Hey everyone.

Honestly? Nah. I’m already crazy enough on my own, I don't need anyone else joining me 😁
🤣🤣🤣

rustyskipper7 said:I haven't seen this much trash being thrown around even in the parlaonica...
I don't want to exhaust anyone with my personal opinions, so I’ll just tell you the truth about what happened in my life and let you draw your own conclusions.

My mother has schizophrenia.
Basically, I grew up living with a schizophrenic...
It was like this: my parents were constantly fighting, the house was always a mess, and the whole atmosphere was chaotic, unhealthy, and incredibly tense.

Every three or four years, my mother would end up at a psychiatric facility in Queens. When she was actually home, she’d smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, drink three liters of coffee, and just stare blankly at a single spot on the wall; she was so heavily medicated that she couldn't even move.

There was no joy in our house, no guests—people actively avoided us. And then there were those times when she would get some new fixed idea and cause total mayhem (for example, when I was 12, she somehow convinced her father to kill my dog because he was getting "too much attention"—WTF?!—or she'd fall in love with some stranger from work and demand a divorce, even though the poor guy had no idea who she was. There are books about that kind of thing, but I won't bore you with it...

People with schizophrenia can't be "cured"; they can only enter remission. That happens when they finally become conscious enough to realize the absolute nonsense and misery they've inflicted on their loved ones, so they feel guilty and try to make amends. But honestly, that just leaves you feeling even more bitter, because you can't even hate them properly when they're acting like that.

The bottom line is that given the situation at home, I started using drugs at 16. All that chaos resulted in my father—who originally entered the marriage as a completely normal, healthy, and cheerful man—losing his mind. He ended up institutionalized in Queens with a diagnosis of PTSD and personality changes, etc.

When he came back from the facility, he was a different person. His eyes were somewhat vacant, and he basically stopped giving a damn about anything. Within two months, he found a woman about twenty years younger than him (he was around 50, she was about 25) and divorced my mother.
He found me a job out on an island (we're from New York City), drove me to the bus station, gave me the money for my ticket (I was 18 at the time), and said, "That's it. You've finished school, you're an adult, you have a job. Fight for yourself... Bye."

He moved away from New York City, has two little girls with his new wife who are already in third grade, and lives a relatively nice, normal, and peaceful life. So, in a way, it's a happy ending for him...
So, I guess that's how you handle being the spouse of someone with schizophrenia...

Unfortunately, this is all true. I haven't written everything down; to give you a real picture, it would take me a week...
I'm 29 now. If you're interested in seeing what kind of person a child turns into after growing up in an environment like that, or if you want to know what happened next with my mother, let me know and I'll write it (I don't want to bother you if you aren't interested).....

Such a heavy story. 😢

I'm wondering, when your father first got married, did he realize your mom was ill? Or were the symptoms just not showing up that clearly back then?

And given your username, I really hope you aren't "abusing" Subabus! 😢

Angela Bailey7 said:silentpilot6, I honestly think you’re just slapping a schizophrenia diagnosis on this girl when she’s probably perfectly healthy and fine. And besides—what about all those other medical issues that can be way more serious than mental health struggles? When you're looking at a woman as potential life partner, shouldn't you first ask for a full medical history of her immediate and extended family to ensure your kids don't inherit some bad genes? Even if you do end up with "bad" genetic material, it doesn't mean a disease will actually manifest.

The real issue here is the prejudice in our society; people act like those with mental illnesses are somehow "lesser." But the truth is, there are probably more people struggling with mental health issues who haven't been officially diagnosed than those who have. And one more thing—how on earth do you think you'll make a "good choice" by picking someone without a diagnosis, only to find out later she was hiding her true nature and turns out to be a malicious, manipulative gold-digger?

According to your logic, people with mental health struggles don't even deserve a partner or to be loved—which is ridiculous, because they likely need support even more than "perfectly healthy" people do. It also seems totally foolish to suggest you should pick a partner based solely on cold logic rather than your heart. My mother always used to say it's better to walk through thorns with the one you love than to build a castle with someone you despise. All this over-analyzing won't do you any good; life is going to happen to you regardless. You think you've mapped everything out, but life always has an unexpected curveball waiting for you. Don't complicate your existence by trying to plan for a future that hasn't happened yet while ignoring the reality of today. And as my mom used to say: if you aim for the rose and miss, you're still gonna hit the dirt...

Spot on. *claps* *claps* *claps*
👍