This is Nana Bear, one of my childhood toys.

I wonder which relative thought that this sad teddy bear was the right gift for me. I was an outgoing child with a sunny temperament; did someone think I needed a reminder that life wasn’t so carefree for everyone?

Nana Bear touched a nurturing, protective chord in me. I favored her over my happier teddies and made sure she joined in every game and tea party so she’d never have a reason to feel even sadder. I took Nana to bed every night and hugged and cuddled her, hoping that one morning she’d wake up smiling. Someday, surely, all my  love and attention would transform her!

Loving someone with unacknowledged, untreated mental illness can be like this. It may feel like you pour all your attention and efforts into loving and helping this person, but they never change and the problems never get solved.

Please notice that I said unacknowledged and untreated mental illness. There are more treatments available now than ever before, for even the most difficult conditions. People who seek therapy and practice good mental hygiene can have successful love relationships, despite their disorders.

The personality disorders are especially hard on relationships, because they are ego-syntonic. The worldviews and fantasies of individuals with a personality disorder are inherent parts of their ideal self-image and feel absolutely “true”  and “real” to them. People with PDs commonly do not feel there is anything wrong with them, and they resist and resent being told otherwise. (In contrast, people with depression, anxiety, OCD and other ego-dystonic disorders generally experience their conditions as illnesses, not as components of their identity).

A personality-disordered individual has thoughts and behaviors and self-perceptions which are so out of sync with the world around them as to cause serious problems in relationships, careers, and other life functioning.

Yet, like Don Quixote, the personality-disordered person looks at windmills but sees dragons. Talking this person out of their skewed perceptions is near to impossible.

All the love and affection in the world will not make a person with Avoidant Personality Disorder more engaged and assured, because he “knows” he is inadequate. It won’t cure the black-and-white thinking or paranoia of the person with Borderline Personality Disorder. It won’t conquer the Dependent Personality Disorder individual’s lack of confidence and fears of abandonment; for her the world is a genuinely terrifying place she simply cannot face by herself.

If anything, love and support alone, without professional treatment, can keep these individuals from reaching out for the therapy they so badly need. An indulgent partner may inadvertently stoke fantasies and insulate the personality-disordered person from reality, thus exacerbating the disorder.

Nor will love and affection alone cure depression, anxiety, or any other mood disorder or mental condition.

Love, support, affection, acceptance…all people, regardless of their psychological conditions, need and deserve these things!

But the effective treatments for mental illnesses are therapy and medications, NOT love.

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From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (February 19, 2010)

From Psych Central's website:
Mental Illness Disguised as Love | Always Learning (February 22, 2010)

    Last reviewed: 19 Feb 2010