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Comment by draw_down | Hacker News Reader

God bless you both but I could never do this. Life is hard enough without your partner making things that should be easy difficult.

I was with someone like this for years in my 20s and it eventually became unbearable. At some level, "I have anxiety" starts to feel like an excuse, not that the person can control it exactly, but we all have the ability to tell which of the thoughts occur to us are good ones worth listening to and which aren't. I became resentful of how, for example, a nice vacation would be ruined over worrying about a lingering bill for $50 or whatever. It's really hard to be around someone like that long term and still feel like they make you happy and that your life is better with them in it, when it so clearly is materially not better. It's like all the color drains away from life and why bother doing fun stuff since it'll just get ruined anyway?

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> but we all have the ability to tell which of the thoughts occur to us are good ones worth listening to and which aren't

I can assure you, we don't - for some people this is not at all clear, and especially not without outside help.

Yeah, that is phrased poorly and I don't quite know how to put what I'm trying to say. But still I believe we know on some level when we are lying to ourselves. The tricky part is to work out why, and what we are attempting to protect ourselves from when we do it.

I say all this because I deal with these issues to some extent too. But I don't give myself the out of "well I have depression". I'm responsible for my actions and I only have my one life. If something I do or refuse to do doesn't make sense and is making my life worse, I think about why and how I can stop it. I've gotten a lot of help and therapy over the years. It's not easy but the alternative is a lot worse.

> Life is hard enough without your partner making things that should be easy difficult.

Would you make the same argument about a partner with cancer, or Alzheimer's, or multiple sclerosis?

I think we should allow people to express that living with somebody who has serious problems is very hard.

Sure. I'm curious if he would extrapolate from his experience with mental illness to physical illness. I have a friend with cancer now and it is very very hard work for his partner.

I don't like when people compare mental issues to physical disease because three doctors will all diagnose the same cancer as cancer, not so with e.g. anxiety. (Not to mention the race, class, and gender biases that come into play with diagnosing mental issues).

Beside that, there is some element of choice if the condition exists at the time you decide to make the other person your partner. If you meet someone with cancer and decide they'll be your partner, well, you make that choice and everything that comes with it. This is why I say I can't do it. I tried once, for a long time. If your partner becomes ill at some point after that, well, that's life. And it could just as easily have been you.

But anyway, yes, it's hard no matter what. Illness is bad, and sad, and it makes life hard for everyone.

Cancer is not the best example here. Cancer, like anxiety or depression, is not a single disease, it's cluster of symptoms that can have a multitude of different causes.

You can tell when it's bad enough, like if there are visible tumors, but try to get 3 doctors to correctly diagnose whether a cancer is completely gone after treatment.

On the other hand, I guarantee 3 out of 3 doctors will diagnose my panic disorder as panic disorder.

I have recurrent tonsillitis, clearly a physical disease, yet 3 doctors couldn't figure out the cause.

When it comes to disease things are almost always murky, whether it's "physical" or "mental".

I don't really like it when people don't think mental disease isn't a physical issue.

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