You're listening to Life Kit from npr.
Hey, everybody, it's Marielle.
I wonder sometimes why is it that as humans we can be our most confident together, relaxed selves and then romance comes into the picture and we get weird.
I mean, I've noticed this for a long time.
Like, you can have a friend who is like a really stable, rational friend, and then in their dating life, they're like a completely different person.
Alison Raskin is a writer, a podcaster, and a mental health advocate.
And she has a theory.
I think it's because it's a part of us that is asked to be the most vulnerable.
Like it is often where we have the most intimacy.
It's also more, I think, appearance based than other aspects of our lives.
There's a lot of insecurity around, like, outright rejection.
It's really high stakes and it kind of taps into the societal messaging that we should always have a partner and that having a partner is a signal of your self worth.
And so I think there's just so much tied into romantic relationships that it can bring out parts of us we don't experience in other aspects of our lives.
Alison wrote a book called Overthinking About Navigating Romantic Relationships when youn have Anxiety, OCD, and or Depression.
Those are three things that she's dealt with personally and they're also three disorders that tend to co occur.
So this episode is for the folks in the book title.
But she's gotten feedback that the advice is also helpful in general because in.
Reality, like relationships and especially romantic relationships can sort of ignite anxiety in us, even if we don't necessarily have anxiety in other aspects of our lives.
And I also think just being in relation with another person can be really confusing.
Oh, also because many of us have been taught that we will have all of our physical, emotional and social needs met by our soulmate or romantic partner.