Relationship ruined by Anxiety and Depression

[Rh27]

Hi all,

First time posting but I'm here because I'm a mess. I've today gone on a break from my loving girlfriend of four years and quite frankly, I have no idea why.

We met and lived together at university, thrown into a serious relationship right from the off. And everything was great. We've got plenty in common, enjoy each other's company and I can say without a doubt that we are truly best friends. We had a bit of a hiccup back in January that saw us break up for a month, with a long distance relationship and my slowly forming depression playing a major part.

We got back together in March and I was ecstatic because this is the girl I hope to marry and spend my life with. Sorry to sound a bit cliche but she just completes me. That is until I had a massive attack of guilt after drunkenly kissing someone in a club - probably the lowest point of my life. From then on, my life has been horrendous.

What started as two months of purely confessing any wrong thing I had ever done saw me put us at the brink, but I simply couldn't control my thoughts. We then had a nice holiday, which sadly saw my anxiety and depression ruin it towards the end. And then one morning, I woke up with the thought "I don't love my girlfriend" stuck in my head. I battled it for two months, which saw me question absolutely everything about us until this morning, the anxiety forced me into suggesting we have a break for now.

I have no friends anymore and I've pushed everybody I care about away. I've been diagnosed with Depression and Situational Anxiety, and have had talk therapy which only worsened my problems I feel. I'm not currently taking any mediation.

Has any sufferer been through anything like this? Unsurprisingly she was angry with me when I suggested, until I had a panic attack and slowly realised this isn't me. I don't know what to do anymore, I don't know who I am anymore and i feel like I've been a complete idiot. The anxiety has lessened slightly but the tears have only increased. Any sort of help would be massively appreciated because I feel like I'm losing myself.

[lior]

Hey. Yes, I have had similar experiences to you.

Depression makes me (and lots of other people) not experience love feelings. I've had periods just like you describe where I doubt that I love my partner. Then the love feelings come back when I feel better (not depressed).

Talking therapy can make you feel worse before better - the idea is that you process your problems so you can let them go. Through talking therapy I eventually realised that I'd been abused, which made me feel AWFUL - but before I just felt awful without knowing why. Understanding my experiences in a deeper way through talking therapy meant that I could do something - understand, learn, and work out how to take action - rather than just feeling bad and not understanding why, or how to stop it from happening again.

Do you think medication could help? It doesn't make the love feelings come back, but it can take away the crushing pain.

I've felt that feeling of losing myself. It's an opportunity to re-build yourself - to find out who you want to be, really, and learn how to be that. It takes a Really Long Time - but you will become your best self later. Now is the time for healing.

Whether your girlfriend and you make it is up to both you and her. She might not be able to cope with your mental health. She is not obligated to stay by you. But you can hope. If she wants to help you, whether or not you stay together, it would be useful for her to educate herself (via Professor Google) on how to support depressed friends. You can make it easy for her by looking this up yourself and sending her links.

I recommend that you take responsibility for your actions and acknowledge if you hurt her - regardless of whether you meant it or not, or whether you were completely taken over with depression or not at the time of things you did, it was still you that did those actions. I personally have a lot of compassion for people's behaviour when they are suffering with mental health problems, and I believe that friends should be able to forgive and let it go (within reason). You can make it easier for them to forgive and let it go if you apologise, and if you try to explain what's behind your actions (depression, anxiety, beliefs, etc.)

You really love her - she'd probably like to be reminded of that what can you do to communicate that?

A lot of what you've written here - if she knew all this, maybe that would help. Can you get in contact with her and try to explain? Maybe in person? In person = hugs! And you need some hugs today!

Good luck, I want to hear what happens next. xx

[Rh27]

Hi Lior,
Thanks for the reply.

I know that I love her - I just can't explain how I know. She is my best friend and we were all set to move in in the next couple of months. I was so excited for it but it's just like something's happened in my head that I can't identify.

Lately I've found myself getting irritated and agitated when with her, but that's probably because she's the only person I spend anytime with right now. Have you ever just felt like you're two differently people in one? There's a part of me I really don't recognise anymore.

I've found myself saying mean things to her and I don't know why, I feel such a terrible person. I don't want this to end and to move on because I know there will come a day where I just realise how stupid I've been. To have stuck with me after everything I've done, the girl is a hero.

We're communicating a little at the minute, I'm not sure when we'll see each other next but she's still the only person I want to be around.

Just out of nosiness, how have you dealt with the lack of feelings? Have things sorted themselves out into a good place?

[braindead]

no 1 you not taking any meds, and you are talking crap to your love ones , it takes a special person to love someone with a mental illness and you have shown your X thats what you have, first you need meds to get your head from out the planets and back to earth. Therapy i am like you i think its a load of crap how can a therapist see into your brain at any given time. YOU CAN TELL YOU GIRLFRIEND you have a mental illness and are getting treatment for it so the things you said were not you talking but your nuked brain.She will either throw her arms around you or do a runner, MY wife has been married to a nutcase space cadet years and put up with everything you can imagine BBBBBBBut she loves me, does your girl love you enough is what it boils down to

[DREAMER05]

I'm so sorry you're going through this! My boyfriend has thankfully always been able to deal with my panic attacks and irrational thought process and knows how to bring my down from it. However he does know that I struggle with GAD. Does she know what you're going through? Also educating our loved ones on how to understand us goes a long way. Communication will always be key. I've learned to identify my attacks and I call the boyfirend or verbally tell him "I'm beginning an anxiety attack and I don't know why." Then we go through the possible reasons why I feel this way or sometimes I know right from the start what has triggered me. Usually then he helps me rationalize through my thoughts. The most important thing is for your partner to accept this issue and learn how to help you cope through it. I hope this helps. Feel free to reach out if you need to talk.

[lior]

Yep - felt like there's a horrible person that has taken over the 'real me'.
What I felt was a 'real me' came back very slowly. The same 'me' never came back, but that's ok. I'm happy with the 'real me' that developed out of depression. She's wise and compassionate. The 'real me' of the past wasn't very assertive and it got her into bad situations.

Lack of feelings.... well I normally felt tormented pain rather than numbness. I was more numb to love and happiness. How did I deal with it? Practically - I did a lot of writing to process my feelings. I waited it out - moods pass, the numbness passes. I learnt about self love and self care - that made a huge difference. Psychodynamic psychotherapy has helped me momentously. Meds helped me. Probably lots of other things... numbness is just one symptom of a much bigger picture. Treating the whole picture is what's going to make that particular symptom go away. Do you have a more specific question that I can help with?

Things have sorted themselves out eventually. I don't think that any of my relationships survived my depression, but anecdotally I think most other couples do survive depression... I don't tend to pick the right people.

I actually lost a lot of friends because I was depressed. They didn't understand and they didn't care enough to learn. However, several friends became very close. I'd never ever had such close relationships as I did during and after being depressed. The real friends step up. I also made new friends who were on a similar wavelength of compassion to me. I have people in my life now who I value more than I knew how to value people before. A lot of good comes out of having been depressed.

It doesn't take a superhuman to love someone with mental illness - the love bit is the easy bit. It's how to deal with it that's the hard bit, and there's support available for that - through google research as a starting point.

[braindead]

Yep - felt like there's a horrible person that has taken over the 'real me'.
What I felt was a 'real me' came back very slowly. The same 'me' never came back, but that's ok. I'm happy with the 'real me' that developed out of depression. She's wise and compassionate. The 'real me' of the past wasn't very assertive and it got her into bad situations.

Lack of feelings.... well I normally felt tormented pain rather than numbness. I was more numb to love and happiness. How did I deal with it? Practically - I did a lot of writing to process my feelings. I waited it out - moods pass, the numbness passes. I learnt about self love and self care - that made a huge difference. Psychodynamic psychotherapy has helped me momentously. Meds helped me. Probably lots of other things... numbness is just one symptom of a much bigger picture. Treating the whole picture is what's going to make that particular symptom go away. Do you have a more specific question that I can help with?

Things have sorted themselves out eventually. I don't think that any of my relationships survived my depression, but anecdotally I think most other couples do survive depression... I don't tend to pick the right people.

I actually lost a lot of friends because I was depressed. They didn't understand and they didn't care enough to learn. However, several friends became very close. I'd never ever had such close relationships as I did during and after being depressed. The real friends step up. I also made new friends who were on a similar wavelength of compassion to me. I have people in my life now who I value more than I knew how to value people before. A lot of good comes out of having been depressed.

It doesn't take a superhuman to love someone with mental illness - the love bit is the easy bit. It's how to deal with it that's the hard bit, and there's support available for that - through google research as a starting point.

I disagree you must have a different lower scale mental illness, they definitely need to be super human for what is thrown at them any partner that takes on a chronic mental person IS A SAINT

---------- Post added at 09:02 ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 ----------

Yep - felt like there's a horrible person that has taken over the 'real me'.
What I felt was a 'real me' came back very slowly. The same 'me' never came back, but that's ok. I'm happy with the 'real me' that developed out of depression. She's wise and compassionate. The 'real me' of the past wasn't very assertive and it got her into bad situations.

Lack of feelings.... well I normally felt tormented pain rather than numbness. I was more numb to love and happiness. How did I deal with it? Practically - I did a lot of writing to process my feelings. I waited it out - moods pass, the numbness passes. I learnt about self love and self care - that made a huge difference. Psychodynamic psychotherapy has helped me momentously. Meds helped me. Probably lots of other things... numbness is just one symptom of a much bigger picture. Treating the whole picture is what's going to make that particular symptom go away. Do you have a more specific question that I can help with?

Things have sorted themselves out eventually. I don't think that any of my relationships survived my depression, but anecdotally I think most other couples do survive depression... I don't tend to pick the right people.

I actually lost a lot of friends because I was depressed. They didn't understand and they didn't care enough to learn. However, several friends became very close. I'd never ever had such close relationships as I did during and after being depressed. The real friends step up. I also made new friends who were on a similar wavelength of compassion to me. I have people in my life now who I value more than I knew how to value people before. A lot of good comes out of having been depressed.

It doesn't take a superhuman to love someone with mental illness - the love bit is the easy bit. It's how to deal with it that's the hard bit, and there's support available for that - through google research as a starting point.

I disagree, you must have a different lower scale mental illness, they definitely need to be super human for what is thrown at them any partner that takes on a chronic mental person IS A SAINT

[lior]

@braindead it's ok to disagree with me, but it's not ok to judge my health as you just did. Would you feel ok with me telling you how ill you are, or aren't?

[braindead]

@braindead it's ok to disagree with me, but it's not ok to judge my health as you just did. Would you feel ok with me telling you how ill you are, or aren't?

I DISAGREED with your thinking that anyone can love a mentally ill person. mabye you dont feel your mentally ill , you told me how ill you are and the friends and partner that left. you will need a special person to love you thats what i am saying , i no how ill i am i have been told plenty of times , why does it worry you to be told.

[pulisa]

Some people can see beyond the illness though. People shouldn't be defined by a diagnosis which can vary according to which psychiatrist/psychologist is consulted.