Mental Health

Seems to me that stagnant is good enough.

Chronic mental health issues really are like chronic physical issues. Once you find the spot that's your normal, it's maintenance rather than cures.

When part of that is caused by, or linked with, life situations that can't be changed easily (or at all), you either decide to let go of life in general and do nothing but deal with the disability (and chronic, treatment resistant depression is a disability as much as my screwed up spine), or you find ways to live as best you can and treat that disability as a disability rather than an acute, curable problem.

You find ways to improve your life as much as it can be, and that includes developing relationships, finding meaningful work within your abilities, finding things that bring passion and joy when possible. Depression in specific is not a permanent, unscalable barrier to passion, joy, or love. There may be times when there's not room for those things, and managing the depression has to be the main focus, but if you're stagnate/stable, that's not the case.

Being real here? I was only a few credits shy of my bachelor's in psych. I never saw any evidence based data on dating with depression being a drawback. That's been a very long time ago, so it's possible something has come out since, but I'm skeptical.

What I've seen in group therapy, in support groups, it simply doesn't point to there being a need or benefit to sidelining romance long term. It may need to be a few years, while someone is doing the work to find balance with a treatment resistant depression or other mental health issues. And, there's some psychiatric issues where it may be a long term benefit to avoid dating, but that's not the norm, and it would still cease to be a barrier if/when the issue is controlled via medication.

Now! This is the important caveat to that. We aren't always able to tell when we're stable. Nor are we all in a place where dating's drawbacks won't be a disturbance to stability. Rejection, failed partnerships, disagreements and drama, there's a lot that can go wrong. If you can't tell for absolute certain that your depression (in specific, but it applies to other issues) is stable and you can handle those bumps in the road, it may need to wait.

I'm not a shrink. Never completed my degree, much less any clinical requirements. The only reason I brought it up was to show that I did more than my due diligence on looking through published data. I'm not saying this as any kind of mental health pro at all, in any way. You always consult with your care providers before taking advice from randos.

Back to an anecdote. When I was at my lowest with depression, and the opportunity came up to enter into something serious, one of the things I had to look at was my resilience. Did bad things make my mental health worse? Did losing someone, or navigating existing relationships make me worse? Did it cause more than a temporary blip on the radar?

For me the answer was no. I had deaths in my family during that span, I had lost friends because of the array of mental health issues I was dealing with, and while they did cause a surge in my anxiety and depression in specific, that surge was temporary and in scale with the events.

I can not say if you're in that place. All I can say is that if that's where you are, where that bad stuff of life doesn't sink you deeper and leave you there, then maybe it's okay to go looking for the good stuff in life, and take the risk of temporary setbacks.

I will add that you need to be aware that these kind of problems make relationships harder, more prone to fall apart. It stacks the deck against you. Since you also have to be honest about health issues when things look like they're getting serious, you have to be completely honest when that time comes. You can't hide it, or lie about it because that's dooming the incipient relationship before it starts. So there's almost a guarantee that you're going to face failures to start. If you aren't ready for that, if the idea of it makes you more depressed, it may not be time to go for it yet.