{"id":5279,"date":"2017-08-16T11:43:19","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T09:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5279"},"modified":"2017-08-16T11:45:03","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T09:45:03","slug":"polyamory-and-mental-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/5279\/","title":{"rendered":"Polyamory and Mental Illness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Via Twitter, I found <a href=\"http:\/\/polyamoryonpurpose.com\/poly-advice-mentally-ill-need-talk-problems\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this advice<\/a> on talking about mental problems when in a polyamorous relationship:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If your partner is constantly battling suicidal thoughts and you want to talk about how they never do their share of the dishes, stop. Is it fair that you are doing most of the dishes? No. But they are literally fighting for their life and asking them to take energy away from that battle to hash out a schedule for the dishes isn\u2019t fair to them either.<\/p>\n<p>Being in a relationship with someone who is severally mentally ill (or physically ill, or sometimes just dealing with life shitting on them) means prioritizing. Yes, it is annoying as fuck that you are doing all the dishes. But who does the dishes is not as important as keeping everyone alive and healthy. Before you can fix the dishes problem, your partner needs to heal. That, as I have said elsewhere, takes time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As is so often the case with stories related to polyamory, the example could easily apply to a monogamous relationship. This is probably deliberate, because it deflects attention from the serious issues that are unique to polyamory. Were the example to be specific to polyamory, it might read:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If your partner is constantly battling suicidal thoughts and you want to talk about how you want to sleep with your other lovers more often, stop. Is it fair that you can&#8217;t sleep with your other partners? No. But they are literally fighting for their life and asking them to take energy away from that battle to hash out a schedule for sex isn\u2019t fair to them either.<\/p>\n<p>Being in a relationship with someone who is severally mentally ill (or physically ill, or sometimes just dealing with life shitting on them) means prioritizing. Yes, it is annoying as fuck that you can&#8217;t be with your other lovers as often as you like. But having sex is not as important as keeping everyone alive and healthy. Before you can fix the sex problem, your partner needs to heal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Putting it like that raises the obvious question: should someone who is mentally ill be in a polyamorous relationship in the first place, given the additional stresses and burdens such an arrangement inevitably brings?<\/p>\n<p>Or is being mentally ill a requirement?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This post is part of the Polyamory and Mental Illness blog series.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One would almost think the two to go hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via Twitter, I found this advice on talking about mental problems when in a polyamorous relationship: If your partner is constantly battling suicidal thoughts and you want to talk about how they never do their share of the dishes, stop. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/5279\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[87,27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5279"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5279"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5283,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5279\/revisions\/5283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}