This discussion is interesting because it hints at a larger issue—the attitudes towards the mentally ill, in general. I.e., would you date someone who was schizophrenic, depressed, or bipolar? Or would you stay away from them, no matter whether they had it under control or not?
I think that what often happens is that people get involved with someone who is relatively healthy, and then develops a mental illness after many years in the relationship. Spouses have a very hard time of it, and I’m sure a lot of marriages break up because of that.
I guess I’m thinking that you simply can’t predict, with much accuracy, whether a person will be the person you think they are now. A bulimic woman might grow into a very balanced, healthy woman. A stable man may turn out to be bipolar when he hits middle age. As they say in investments, “past performance is not an indicator of future performance.”
People change, some for the better, and others for the worse. The Dad doesn’t want his daughter to marry the neer-do-well young man. The guy has no job, and hangs around his garage tinkering with computer chips. Thirty years later, he’s the richest man in the world.
There are so many rags to riches stories. Probably there are also a lot of riches to rags stories (although not as many). Bulimia to health? Health to bulimia? Who knows? There’s probably data on this somewhere, and here we all are shooting our mouths off about our prejudices, simply because we are ignorant (me, as much as anyone else, although I think I should get credit for recognizing it).