> Mental health issues are not emotions. They may interplay to a degree, but do not mistake clinical anxiety or depression for someone being excessively emotional. It is a medical disorder of the brain that causes it to malfunction. My ending statement is a bit hyperbolic, but not really: dismissing a mental health disorder as emotions is how people end up dead.
This is not true. Anxiety is an emotion. And in a close relationship there is a lot of transference going on. Often avoidance (key behavior with anxiety) is leading to game playing. Emotions you feel, you now as a partner have to deal with. First of all identifying them as not of your own. Just imagine waking up, your partner feeling ill and fearing for their life. You feel some fear too. And that is without even stepping into the wonderland of personalty disorders.
Anxiety can reach a level where it strongly impacts behavior and thinking. A lot of the schools of therapy of mental health therapy (particularly the cognitive-behavioral ones) are built on the interplay of strong emotions and thinking.
If it is all a physical brain problem then outside life events should not be able to trigger it so easily. There is a feeling-thinking-feeling connection and it seems there are often unfortunate persistent feedback mechanisms too. Especially emotional connected mental health issues are reachable these days with targeted psycho-therapy.
For a partner it can be vital to seek out professional support for themselves even or especially if the person with anxiety is not in therapy. As a rule of thumb the healthier partner often seeks help first.
Calling emotions emotions is not dismissing it. Mental health is a general label, emotions is a more specific label and anxiety an even more specific one. The more careful we describe the better we can tackle it. Emotions and in particular overwhelming anxiety needs to be taken very serious. This stuff can kill, that I agree with.