Q: How do you feel that mental health impacts relationships? 

A: Relationships are complex, right? It takes, let’s say it’s two people who are in a relationship. Both people kind of have to be aware of themselves. They have to think about, “what am I doing in the relationship? What works, what doesn’t? What am I contributing? What am I not contributing? So relationships involve a lot of awareness, like self-awareness and self-checking in.”

And the mental health of a person struggling with symptoms, if they know about it, at least then they could get help. Sometimes we don’t know that we’re struggling with some kind of mental health related issue because mental health looks different for different people.

It can be really hard to kind of zero in on “is this a mental health issue? Is it a personality issue? Is it just the way I was raised?” We always think that it’s good to know more about yourself and know how you function in relationships. Therapy is a great way of learning more about oneself. Using the therapy relationship as a way to figure out what am I doing that works and what am I doing that doesn’t.