I’m only asking this as a woman who’s on a antidepressant and an antipsychotic, I quite literally cannot mentally be happy or function without my pills and will have to take them for the rest of my life but because of this I feel like I cannot be in a relationship to be honest.
How do you feel about being able to have a long term relationship with a woman that’s on antidepressants/antipsychotics?
r/AskMen
Comments
Having been on antidepressants I get it but they generally also come with their own issues to navigate. That they mess with you sexually a large portion of the time is well known, for example. My doctor was very careful to ask if I had suddenly taken up gambling or online shopping when I started them.
Sounds like you internalized the message that you are unlovable or not relationship material because of your medical/mental/emotional struggles. Please seek therapy in addition to the medication – you can live a fulfilling life with a spouse by your side, but not if you believe that you cannot and cannot see the emotional intelligence work you still need to do.
I’d prefer not to be in a long term with anyone taking chemical medication to moderate their mental health. I have enough to deal with in life these days without adding that party to the mix.
That said, I’ve had a few partners where I found out they were on anti-anxiety meds after dating a few months. I feel like that one is super common for women these days.
Studies have already proven that physical exercise is a more effective antidepressant than “antidepressants”
90% of people on them should be off of them.
I wouldn’t do it personally.
You’re gonna have the guys that are ok with it and the guys that are not. My suggestion is to be upfront with all your dates that could become serious partners. Those people that are not ok with dating a girl that must take these meds, will walk away.
Wouldn’t bother me
I’ve been on them, but even before then, I never looked at anyone differently because they have to take psych meds
I don’t focus on the fact that they’re needed, but the fact that they’re being used: that’s a flag that they’re aware of their own issues, at least to some degree, and working to try to compensate. It’s like having an issue with someone who wears glasses because that means that they have impaired eyesight, whereas I think the fact that the more important part is that they have the glasses. Treatment was sought and administered, that makes it very workable.
Then again, I understand a lot of other dudes would be concerned about such mental health issues being hereditary, which is not a factor for me because I adamantly don’t want children.
I mean if they work well and you’re mostly on top of it sure that’s fine. Do you want kids?
Anti depressants isn’t all that big of a deal to a lot of people.
The anti psychotic are a bit of a red flag to some. There’s a tale as old as time where people stop taking them and then …problems.
Find a therapist, learn to love yourself, put yourself out there, hopefully you can find someone who has a lot of compassion and understanding. It’s not a red flag, and its not impossible to find someone
Gently, and with love from a kind Internet stranger – HOGWASH young lady!!! 😘😘😘 Straight honesty from an old guy… taking meds for your health doesn’t make you unloveable in any way, shape, form or fashion. 💖👍 It’s simply taking care of yourself, and THAT, m’dear, is a sign of maturity. 🥰🥰🥰
[removed]
Wouldn’t do it
Being able to?
My gf is on both antidepressants and antipsychotics aka “mood stabilizer”, along with ADHD meds. My ex wife was on antidepressants and ADHD meds (sometimes), and I’m on two antidepressants.
Honestly the ADHD is a lot harder for both of us to cope with. Actually obtaining the stimulant refills is difficult and unreliable due to supply issues and state regs. I’ve also been “friends” with someone with unmanaged BPD (borderline) and that’s not something I can ever tolerate.
Moral of the story here is that I can’t handle unmanaged mental health problems in a relationship.
If I’m down for you then I’m down for you
I’m happy you are treating your chemical imbalance but from personal experience I’m noping out of any relationship.
That sounds very high maintenance. A great relationship is when each person thinks they’re getting the better end of the deal. Do you think you’re getting the better deal here?
No I wouldn’t. Deal breaker.
That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.
Seems like with the escalation of everyone being on some form of mind-alteration medication, people will struggle to find someone who isn’t on pills.
The bigger problem here is the psychiatric industry inventing illnesses that can best be described as “just life” happening. I’m wary of anyone who takes pills to stabilize their moods. Life cannot be cured and the more people believe that their natural behaviour is curable, the worse our society is getting.
If you care about a person you try to make it work in my opinion , I was wondering about the same question recently.
If the relationship is good, it’s good. Doesn’t matter what she suffers from, or what medicine she’s on. I’m not going to have children anyways, so I don’t need to think about this stuff for the children’s sake.
The way I see it, it’s preferable that someone be taking care of themselves properly than someone who is not. There are some others who need to be on meds like that who are not, and that’s more problematic for relationships.
Tried with my ex-wife and mother of my two kids. It was a burden for me and had to end it.
I don’t date mentally stable women. We wouldn’t have anything in common.
I don’t know a lot on the subject as i’ve never had issues like those, but it kind of sounds like a ticking time bomb.
I wouldn’t mind it. You need those antidepressants. Taking them doesn’t make you any different from those taking maintenance medicines, and most, if not everyone, doesn’t seem to have a problem with dating them.
Instead of being particular about what kind of medication you’re taking, I’m someone who’ll be more concerned about how you treat me. It’s a given that antidepressants can affect your emotions; I know it’s part of their side effect. As a partner, I’d be understanding of that, but you would also have to do your part in being more aware of what you say/do, and taking accountability for them.
Everyone deserves to find & have love in their lives. We all deserve to find that special someone. It is difficult enough to find someone in this day & age. Even if we may feel as if we don’t deserve it, we do. It is just human nature. We all have wants, needs, desire. To be happy, to be fulfilled. 😊
well, join the club, I completely understand, the world a cruel place and very few people escape growing up without traumatic stuff happening.
i’ve been taking them for 2 years now, I can’t explain how much better they’ve made my day to day life, I wouldn’t hold it against you and as long as you keep taking them.
i’ve seen a few friends stop taking them because they think they don’t need them, then they totally change for the worse. sucks for the libido but sacrifices must me made I guess.
Im in the same situation as you. My partner of 6.5 years has been with me and held my hand through my struggles no matter how painful it was to her. I am not perfect with taking my medication but she’s still here. Women are more accepting than men though but there are men out there just as accepting.
I could. But I’d want to know a few things. In order my experience would be:
Anyone I’m dating who discloses this to me, I’ll automatically know they are actually considering/qualifying me as a substantial partner versus them just saying it. People don’t disclose long term and impactful truths, especially the negative ones, from short term relationships
What I’d want to know is a) do you struggle to want to take your medicine and b) what struggles exist when you’re off your meds?
If you struggle to take your meds because you actively dislike doing so, or otherwise just have really poor discipline around it. That is a huge red flag. You’d have to explain how it makes you feel, but how responsible you actually are is something most people are going to leave to their own judgement of you.
If who you are while off meds isn’t going to a crisis of serious physical harm or criminal consequences, then it also seems workable. Otherwise, I’d have to be sure you’re on point about taking them to consider a long term relationship and even then it might be iffy. How I’d proceed upon hearing this would basically force me to really try to scrutinize and speculate on matters which means trying to do it too early would be a problem. Usually first 2 dates, maybe even 3 I find are extremely non-revealing with almost anyone (on my end). So if I really don’t feel like I’ve seen you acting very genuinely and comfortably over the majority of a date, it’s going to be more difficult to commit.
The last detail to point out is that offering this information, if done outside of an early date, seems like it implicitly asks the question “will you ride with me despite knowing this.” So communicate carefully around it so the guy doesn’t feel trapped. I’ve had a partner disclose something kind of in the same ballpark, but she did a great job not being presumptious about my being OK with it.
I don’t think i could ever feel safe.
As the son of a bipolar mother I’m familiar with people who have these issues and I can assure you that it’s a lifelong strategy for getting the medication correct for what’s essentially a chemical imbalance in your brain. As long you’re not convincing yourself that you can just stop taking them, then you will be able to have a happy, healthy relationship with whoever you want. Personally, I think I’d pass because because I wouldn’t be willing to supervise your medical situation and our relationship after spending an entire life supervising my mother. It’s difficult to have a relationship with someone who is going through rather dramatic changes constantly.
Do the pills have any negative side effects on your day to day?
It hasn’t stopped me before, even when it should have.
Honestly it’s not an issue, the problem is more to do with whatever diagnosis requires the pills. So for example, depression with insomnia, no biggie. BPD plus bipolar rapid cycling type 2, no thank you 🙂
I couldn’t possibly care less if she treated me right and took them consistently. Don’t allow your mental illness to cause you to be mean to him and you should be all good
I honestly don’t think id be able to be in a relationship with someone like that. The reason is pretty simple, god forbid something happens and you’re unable to get your meds you’re gonna be a wreck and to put it bluntly, your partner isn’t your therapist…. they shouldn’t be forced to deal with a mental health crisis. If I’m gonna be completely honest you seriously need to seek therapy for this. No one NEEDS to be on antidepressants their whole life. There’s clearly an underlying cause that’s putting your mental state in the situation it’s in and your psychiatrist decided that rather than try to address that they’d just dope you up and ignore the root cause of the problem… which is frankly modern psychiatric practices and is why the western world is the most heavily medicated part of the world. What you need to do is figure out what’s causing you to feel this way and either work with someone to fix the issue entirely or figure out ways to lessen the problem by learning what your triggers are and what can alleviate them. For example, if you have anger issues and you know x situation is causing you to be angry then you have 2 options, 1 is remove yourself from the situation or 2, do something in that situation that helps you calm down(like counting backwards or imagining yourself in a funny situation). You need to work with someone to help you through this because living medicated is not healthy and like I said above, god forbid you can’t get your meds for a bit you’re screwed. This is honestly one of the factors that causes suicide in depression patients. They either are so reliant on their medication that when they can’t get it they sink deeper into depression and end up killing themselves, or they start feeling better after a few months/years then they go off their medication and realize that all those problems that caused them to be depressed never got resolved. You need to find a resolution to your problems not use medication as a bandaid to cover them up, this isn’t healthy. That’s the irony of modern mental health(though I’m not saying mental health was much better years ago), instead of finding solutions to the problems they use medication to dope you up so you forget you even have problems.
I’m pleased for you that you’re managing your condition, but it’s not for me to get involved with someone in that space I’m afraid.
My husband doesn’t care at all.
It’s going to be okay ❤️
No thanks. There’s no telling what she’ll do to me or say about me. lol
Antidepressants are not at all a big deal.
Can’t speak on antipsychotics, but I’d certainly ask a few questions.
If Person is cool while on meds, I want to know what they wouldn’t be like off of them, and the odds of them ever being off them.
I would respectfully decline.
Not for me.
Quite a lot of people are on antidepressants etc. It’s not something to be ashamed of.
Sounds like too much drama and too much risk
It’s hard because one day she likes u the other day she is betraying you
It’s honestly a lot of baggage to take on. I think your best bet would be to meet people out in the world and build friendships, with men and women both. If one of those male friendships develops into something more, as long as you are up front with him, then I think being on the meds will have a lesser chance of affecting the relationship than, say, trying to date from apps.
Nope. I wouldn’t do it.