Felicity Banks

Yet another up side to mental illness

February 27, 2010 at 1:07 pm (general life, Mental illness)

I have found marriage FAR easier than I expected. To be honest, however, not a day goes past that I don’t want to slap my husband at least once. It’s all a matter of perspective (and he IS astonishingly good-natured, which certainly helps).

I think some mental illnesses make fabulous preparation for marriage. For instance, since everything in the entire world annoys and fills me with rage, I am quite good at sharing a house and room with a deeply peculiar individual (who reads this blog, and will be taking that as a compliment right now – as he should). He annoys me no more than my own existence, so that’s handy. Probably the toughest part of marriage is living together harmoniously – but since I’ve survived my own mentally ill company, I can now handle anything. (Particularly if it doesn’t involve leaving the house or getting dressed, which are still a bit difficult – conveniently, my husband quite likes it when I’m at home and naked.)

Mental illness also means you’ve already lost a great deal of what is most precious to you – your independence, your intelligence, etc – so whatever your spouse asks of you is relatively little, even if they want you to eat your own faeces – and, to be clear, this is not a request my partner has made. (NB: if your spouse actually wants you to eat poo, they probably have some issues of their own.)

Mental illness is also excellent training for being a parent of a teenager. Even teenagers can’t be more insulting or more consistently demeaning than the voices in your head.

Therefore, mental illness is excellent preparation for marriage.

On this basis, the best possible preparation for marriage is probably a year or so of imprisonment and torture. I’ll be recommending that to future generations then.