I Work In Mental Health So I Diagnose Everyone I Date—Here’s What I Think Of My Last 8 Guys

A bit of a disclaimer before we proceed: these are not professional diagnoses, I’m not bound to HIPAA guidelines since my dates aren’t my patients, and details have been changed around a bit to protect privacy. Also, I should note that these men probably didn’t have full-blown disorders but certain traits of the disorder. All that being said, here’s what I thought of my last eight dates.

  1. Antisocial personality disorder He was really, really hot… but he also had a prison record. It was fun while it lasted until he started being shady about other girls he talked to. He definitely checked the boxes for antisocial personality disorder: disregard for the law, impulsivity, deceitfulness, and lack of stability. He came off as very charming but underneath, I don’t think there was much of a conscience.
  2. Schizotypal personality disorder Oh, how I tried to make this one work. He was so very smart and I enjoyed conversations with him so much. But he smoked too much pot, always kept his curtains closed, and was obsessed with conspiracy theories. He didn’t have a full psychotic disorder but he was more paranoid than most and had some very odd ideas that I just couldn’t get on board with. In the end, I had to break it off because I got tired of hearing how every small thing I brought up was a government conspiracy.
  3. ADHD He was sweet and really kind, but I just couldn’t. He forgot to take his medications quite a bit and that seemed to exacerbate the problem. He would leave his apartment looking like a disaster area all the time, he constantly interrupted me, and he was always forgetting things. This wasn’t the reason we broke up and I know it wasn’t his fault but it was still hard to deal with at times.
  4. Depression This was one of the saddest, hardest breakups I’ve been through. He refused to get help for his depression. He stopped going to work, buying groceries for himself, cleaning his place, and exercising. For a long time, I thought I could fix it if I just picked up the slack. He was pretty devastated when I left and I felt so guilty about it for a long time. However, I reached a point that if I stayed with him any longer, the depression would take both of us. I had to save myself but I couldn’t save him. I did, however, reach out to his family and friends when I ended things so that they could jump in with the support that I could no longer give him.
  5. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder This was the longest relationship I’ve had and his OCD was not what ended our relationship but it was a large contributing factor. Things were great until we decided to move in together. I knew he was a neat-freak but I had no idea what I was really getting myself into. He would vacuum his living room for hours at a time. We weren’t allowed to have pets because of the mess they made. Sometimes we had to eat dinner over the sink if he had recently cleaned the floors. If he washed his car, we couldn’t drive it. He used so much laundry detergent in each wash, I wasn’t sure how he didn’t break out in hives every time he put on his shirt (although he did smell very good!). When he started to get angry at me for not following his strict rules, I had to make a hard decision, and my decision was that I didn’t want to live like that for the rest of my life.
  6. Narcissistic personality disorder The classic abuser, he gaslighted me until I didn’t know up from down. He convinced me I had anxiety and paranoia when in reality he was sneaking around behind my back with his female coworker. When I confronted him about it, he suggested I see a therapist about my anxiety issues and the fact that I’m worried he’s cheating on me. I believed him, and it took me a full year of therapy after our relationship ended to feel like I could trust my own intuition again.
  7. Alcoholism He didn’t drink on our first date so I actually thought maybe he was sober. Turns out, he had already consumed his alcohol before he even got there. He was good at hiding it, probably from his years of practice and his high tolerance level. I only saw him on a few dates before I realized he was regularly getting plastered.
  8. Sex Addiction I dated a sex addict for around five months before I realized what he was doing behind my back. There were so many signs that I missed! He was a good guy but needed the help of a qualified therapist, not just my ability to diagnose people in my head.
I love to write on my laptop with my cat on my lap and a cup of tea nearby :)
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