Sometimes you can find yourself in a relationship where the other person feels they should “save” you from bipolar disorder—this isn’t possible, but there are other ways he or she can help.
By Natasha Tracy
Hi, I’m Natasha Tracy and this is BP Magazine’s BPHope vlog. Today I want to talk about “white knight syndrome” in relationships.
When some people look at a person with Bipolar Disorder, they may see the person as broken or damaged. You may not see yourself that way, but someone else might.
And for some people, this is a major attraction. Some people are attracted to others they deem to be “broken” because they want to fix them— this is known as “white knight syndrome.”
This is someone riding in on their white horse and saving you from the evil dragon. That’s what’s happening. And sometimes, a relationship forms because one person has that “white knight syndrome.”
The problem is that a relationship of any type cannot be built around one person trying to “save” another. Human beings can’t be “saved.” I can’t run out and save another person, no matter what I do—not from bipolar disorder and not from anything else.
We need to take responsibility for saving ourselves because that’s the only thing that works.
And someone else who loves us and wants to help us needs to understand that they can’t save us. They can help, they can be there, they can support us; there’s a whole litany of things they can do to be great supports of our wellness. But, in the end, they can’t “save” a person with bipolar disorder. No one can.
So if you happen to find yourself in a relationship where the other person is just trying to “fix” everything that goes on in your life (and bipolar disorder), that might be white knight syndrome and that’s something that you always want to look at in a relationship.
I’m Natasha Tracy and this is BP Magazine’s BPHope vlog.
