‘Sometimes I resent him and want to leave him’: Living with someone with a mental health condition


by Leonie Corcoran
26th Feb 2022

Anna is 36. Her partner of four years is living with high levels of anxiety, but is not seeking treatment or support. Sometimes things are ‘normal’. At other times, she has to encourage him to get out of bed. After two years of living together during a pandemic, she’s tired. Very tired.

Raw. Frayed. Optimistic. Jaded. I move between these four states, sometimes all in one day. It reminds me the Irish phrase of experiencing “four seasons in a day”. That’s me sometimes though I feel like I am in the ‘jaded’ season more often than not recently. My partner is living with a mental health condition and I am living with him. A number of years ago he was diagnosed with, what he said, was “anxiety”....

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