Crazy in love just took on a whole new meaning. <\/p>\n
A sweeping study<\/a> found that people with psychiatric disorders are more likely to say \u201cI do\u201d to someone with similar mental health struggles, rather than marry someone without a diagnosis.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pattern holds across countries, across cultures, and, of course, generations,\u201d Chun Chieh Fan, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research, told Nature<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n People may be attracted to partners who understand their mental health struggles firsthand, researchers theorized. Maksym \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n Psychiatric disorders are on the rise in the US, affecting a staggering 23.1% of adults in 2022 \u2014 up from 18.1% just two decades earlier, according to the National Institute of Mental Health<\/a>. <\/p>\n Past studies<\/a> have shown that when one spouse battles mental health issues, the other is two to three times more likely to suffer from stress, anxiety or depression.<\/p>\n But the latest research goes even further, suggesting that mental illness might not just strain relationships, but also play a role in sparking them.<\/p>\n In the study, Fan and his colleagues dug into health records of over 14.8 million people across Taiwan, Denmark and Sweden.<\/p>\n They looked at nine psychiatric disorders: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, ADHD, autism, OCD, substance-use disorder and anorexia.<\/p>\n The team found that people with psychiatric diagnoses are significantly more likely to marry others with mental illness \u2014 and often pair up with someone who has the same condition.<\/p>\n Having a psychiatric disorder has been previously linked to higher divorce rates. Yakobchuk Olena \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n That pattern has only grown stronger over time, increasingly steadily among couples born in the 1930s through the 1990s.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite differences in cultural contexts, patterns of spousal correlation across psychiatric disorders have limited variation between Taiwan and Nordic countries,\u201d the study authors wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Only a few disorders had regional differences. For example, Taiwanese couples were more likely to share an OCD diagnosis than their Nordic counterparts.<\/p>\n While the study didn\u2019t prove why the mentally ill tend to marry each other, Fan had a few theories. <\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps they better understand each other due to shared suffering, so they attract each other,\u201d he told Nature.<\/p>\n The researchers also pointed to a phenomenon called convergence<\/a> \u2014 where partners grow more alike over time because of shared environments.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s the harsh reality of social stigma, which can shrink the dating pool for those with psychiatric disorders, quietly steering who ends up walking down the aisle.<\/p>\n Children of parents who struggle with certain mental illnesses may be at a higher risk of developing them later on. Studio Dva Kera \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n The study also uncovered a striking finding: Children with two parents who share the same disorder are twice as likely to develop it themselves compared to those with only one affected parent.<\/p>\n The effect was most pronounced in conditions believed to have a genetic component<\/a>, such as schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder and substance use.<\/p>\n Across the US, 1 in 6 youth ages aged 6 to 17 experience a mental health disorder each year, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness<\/a>.<\/p>\n Psychiatric disorders don\u2019t just affect the mind; they often have a ripple effect throughout a person\u2019s body, their family and even the wider community.<\/p>\n Take depression, for example: People living with it face a 40% higher risk<\/a> of heart and metabolic diseases compared to the average person.<\/p>\n