I'm a sexual assault survivor, and I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder earlier this year. Because I'm open about my experience and havewritten about it for various websites, most of my partners date me with the knowledge that I have preexisting mental health issues. Most of them have been understanding. Some of them haven't. "This is a lot to deal with," one partner said when he found out. Which I suppose, to some extent, it is.
The first month of a new relationship is often a heady blend of orgasms, dopamine and trying to keep your embarrassing quirks under wraps. It's the time of black lace lingerie before the period-stained, polka-dotted cotton panties come out, the time where you talk about your punk band from high school but not your membership in the Dungeons and Dragons club. But keeping secrets from a new partner is all the more difficult if you have a mental illness.
[For more of this story, written by Sophie Saint Thomas, go to http://mic.com/articles/126436...ith-a-mental-illness]
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