August 2012: Relationships And Mental Illness

This month’s topic was suggested by the very lovely Laura.  She thought discussing how people make good relationships work in spite of their mental illness would be a good topic.  In her words, “I know we have some very fortunate souls on our blogroll and on Canvas who do have relationships that work.  I would love to hear from them about what makes them work, and how they found their mates, etc.”

You know I usually like to get the ball rolling by discussing my own experience in this arena, no matter how atypical I feel it is.

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High Functioning Mentally Ill

“High Functioning” is a term usually reserved for describing autistic people or others with developmental disorders who operate a bit better than expected, which unfortunately isn’t saying much. It’s also occasionally applied to mental illness and other learning disorders. As applies to ADD, which is technically a developmental disorder, I like the following quote that I turned up (I edited bad use of commas because it burns, it burns!)