Is Romantic Love the Cause of “Mental Illness”?

What if love is the real cause of depression?

What if the push-pull of a partner who can’t let go is the cause of bipolar disorder?

I’ve known too many beautiful, sensitive people who took their own lives. All of them were called “mentally ill.” Diagnosed with depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder. Medicated. Treated like they were a lost cause.

But when I look back—closely—it wasn’t mental illness - it was heartbreak.💔

Romantic heartbreak. Deep attachment wounds. Emotional abandonment.

Every one of them was anxiously attached.

Every one of them loved someone who was avoidant—someone who couldn’t handle emotional closeness. Someone who pulled away just when things got real.

And most of them died not because they were sick, but because they were left trying to love someone who kept running.

And here’s something no one talks about:

So many anxious partners are accused of being confrontational. “Too intense.” “Too emotional.” “Too needy.”

But they’re not.

They are just trying to connect. To feel safe. To UNDERSTAND the avoidant who sees connection as confrontation. The avoidant can’t handle intimacy—so they label closeness as “pressure,” and vulnerability as “neediness.”

And that distortion leaves the anxious person questioning their entire being.

For many of the people I knew, the final straw wasn’t just the silence or the breakup. It was watching their avoidant partner move on—quickly—into something that looked calm and stable.

That rebound relationship was the death blow. Because to the anxious, it felt like: “You just couldn’t love me—because I was the problem.”

And they carried that lie to their graves.

I’ve been there - torn, trapped by an avoidant who loved me but couldn’t say it. Who breadcrumbed me with messages devoid of emotional integrity. I almost didn’t make it either.

But I got off the meds (safely). I went to therapy. And not just for myself—for my avoidant ex, too. I wanted to understand why someone I loved so much could leave me like I didn’t matter. And I realised…

It wasn’t all me. It was both of us. Two unhealed people, living out opposite patterns of fear.

I wasn’t “too much.” I was just willing to love someone who wasn’t ready. Who freaked out at true love and intimacy and ran for the hills in a desperate bid for self-protection. They weren’t cruel—they were terrified of closeness. And I was punished for wanting it.

Here’s what I now know::

💔 The anxious needs to stop believing they’re broken.

💔 The avoidant needs to start going to therapy

💔 Diagnoses like bipolar are often labels given to emotionally intelligent, deeply sensitive people who feel too much in a world that honours emotional numbness.

To the anxious: You are not confrontational. You are relational. You seek connection, not chaos. You love hard because you feel deeply. That is your strength.

To the avoidant: Please stop running. Please go to therapy. Not because you’re bad—but because you’re hurting too, and it’s spilling into people who love you.

To both: You are not enemies. You are mirrors. And the healing begins when one of you chooses to stop blaming and start understanding.

As I did.

Love didn’t break me. The silence and the bread-crumbing did. But understanding put me back together.

And maybe—just maybe— this understanding can save someone else, too.

TR