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My life situation; dealing with depression and breakup

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My life situation; dealing with depression and breakup

Postby TeaHorse » Wed Nov 30, 2016 4:34 pm

Hey guys, I'm new here. I came here since I'm dealing with certain things in reallife and I have no idea whom to talk to anymore, so I came to you for advice. Do note, there's a whole lot of things involved, I'll try to be as brief as possible, so if things aren't clear enough just ask and I'll clarify.

Note: I've been diagnosed with A.D.D. and asperger. They only told me about my asperger diagnosis about a year ago. I'm not sure if this is relevant to my story but I figured I should point it out anyway.

So my life has never been too great and I was first diagnosed with clinical depression at age 13. (I'm 21 now) My parents, whom are against psychiatrists and the lot, decided not to do anything about it. I suffered badly and had periods in which it went better, and periods in which I was worse. Now for he past two years, my depression returned due to various social issues and school situations. During all this time I had 1 friend whom was my support, my one friend, and whom felt like a big brother to me. I met him when I was 11 years old. I'm insaney grateful to him and he is the one person I couldn't go without. Either way, since my depression came back over the past 2 years my parents somehow came to the idea that I do should see psychiatrists and psychologists, but so far all of these things made me more miserable if anything atall. I'm currently following hippotherapy which is very relaxing to me, but apart from that didn't fix anything just yet. In fact, the only two stress-reducing factors I have in my life are my one childhood friend, and animals.

Now this is where it got worse; After 5 years of being the best of friends, we eventually started a relationship. And after 5 lovely years, he decided to dump me last september. I have been an emotional wreck ever since and got involved in a lot of drama in every possible way. A week after dumping me, another girl wiggled her way into his life and they have been dating ever since.

I'm currently in this situation where, I really want my boyfriend back, but above all else, I want my "best friend" back. We waited so long to start dating because we were afraid it'd ruin our friendship, so when we did, we made the promise that, even if we ever broke up, we'd go on being the close friends that we had always been. So I kind of feel like" fine, if he doesn't love me, I can't force him to be with me, but I at least want my friend back." Yet of course, especially now he's dating, things are very different. He doesn't want to hang out anymore, he's not atall thrilled to see me anymore and a ton of stupid, daily things are painful to me. It's killing me, really.

Apart from hanging out with him, I had 1 other social activity which I partook in together with him; a student's club. The thing is, the girl he's dating now is part of that club, as is he, and I learned the rest of my club is so "thrilled" for them to be together and in the end, doesn't care about how I feel atall, meaning I lost my club due to this as well, and thus my last social activity.

It's like, the one person who was like a medicine for me to handle my depression, now became the most major cause of my depression. The one person whom I could talk to when I felt bad, is now the one person who gets mad at me the least that I somewhat show how bad I feel. I really don't know what to do with myself anymore. I've been desperately trying to find something, someone to hold onto, but that resulted in a love triangle between me and two guys, one of which is also mentally very unstable and is now in a very bad position due to me, causing me to feel even worse with myself.

This overall situation is ruining my life since I find no more effort to attend my classes, study, or put in any effort for anything atall. Even when I try so hard, the panic just takes over and leaves me unable to do anything.

So here I am, telling all of this to you guys, hoping for a little thing to hold onto, hoping that someone will be able to give me some advice on what to do. So far antidepressants didn't help me, seeing psychologists or psychiatrists only made me more miserable, trying to find someone else to hold onto got me involved only in drama, I don't have any other person to talk to and I have no clue how to fix my depression. I'm this kind of person who normally only finds peace in solutions, so all these ways people try to give me to calm down that do not involve fixing any of my problems, just stress me out more.

I also don't really know how to go about my friend/ex. People tell me to just drop him since he's my "ex boyfriend" so to just move on, that I'm making it worse on myself trying so hard to hang out with him, yet as I see it this guy is the one true friend I had and every piece of me wants to fight for that friendship, every bit of me wants to try and get my friend back. But yes, my struggle so far has only proven very painful and useless. Yet if I drop him, then I lose him entirely. I try so hard every day just to casually talk to him, but I usually end up misunderstood and him being frustrated with me. But I know that if I'm not making an effort, he doesn't "need" me as he is now, so he's not going to make one either.

I know this is already a lot of story to take in while yet this only describes the very tip of the iceberg, so if something needs to be clarified, don't hesitate to ask. I really, genuinely hope that any of you can give me some valid advice, no matter how small. Thanks in advance.


ps. A lot of people tend to ask me why my relationship broke, if supposedly we were that good of friends, then why did it end? (and believe me, everyone around us couldn't believe our relationship ended) Simply, we got along for 99%, agreed on pretty much everything, at most had a little argument about who had to do the dishes or something, but that last 1% killed it. I'm this kind of person who feels like, in a relationship, you take your partner along on activities if they want to and if it's possible, while he's like.. "If I get invited to an activity by friends, it's inappropriate to bring my partner". I can ask 100 people, 50 will agree with him, 50 agree with me. There's no "right" or "wrong" in it. But this was the only thorn to our relationship. Me always feeling left out, and him always feeling like I was making drama while I shouldn't. We were always very open and always discussed our issues. Right before he dumped me, we had thought of a way to compromise, thinking of ways that he would ask me along on things more, and I wouldn't get upset in cases that he decided he didn't want me to come along after all. But he never even gave it that attempt in the end and left me soon thereafter. I'm really sad over this as I feel like our relationship was flawless except for this 1 stupid thing, and I'll never find a partner again who suits me this well.
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Re: My life situation; dealing with depression and breakup

Postby obsess » Sun Dec 04, 2016 6:00 am

You know your relationship better than anyone but it seems to me that the relationship wasn't as flawless as you think. You may have been very compatible and similar in your beliefs, morals, opinions, life goals or anything else... but I think maybe your depression took a big toll on him. It's a lot to expect from a partner to be your medicine - my 40 year old partner finds it draining and he has mental illness himself and he's a grown man with a lot of life experience and patience. It's even harder for a young guy in his early 20s who wants to get out there and live and be a boy.

I'm not saying him leaving you is fine. It's like a betrayal after being friends for so long. Especially that he doesn't even seem interested in resuming a friendship.
I think it's possible that he got tired of you needing a lot from him. Needing to talk about your problems, how bad you feel, needing to be around him a lot. He probably started to feel trapped and that's why spending alone time with his friends became important to him.

My partner and I have to be careful not to dump too much emotional stuff on each other. He's better at it than me - I am more needy and go on about how bad I feel and my fears and misery far too much. This can be so detrimental to a relationship. One person can take on the role of constant caregiver and that exhausts them. Some people will let you know. They will say enough is enough, and communicate that they need less negativity coming from you and outline what they need to feel better in the relationship. Others stew without saying anything and get more and more frustrated over time. Sometimes they feel too guilty to express their needs as well, because they know you're not very stable or well emotionally.
Until they snap and end it.

Maybe it's possible that this was a bit of a factor in why he isn't with you or investing into the friendship anymore. And maybe he's in another relationship because he did feel a bit trapped and now he's exploring freedom.
I can imagine it's so painful for you... but maybe he was not mature enough to handle depression. Or he just didn't want to spend his youth being someone's support system.

People always say you need to love yourself before you love another. Or you need to be happy before you can make someone else happy. I don't think that's true. I think people with all kinds of mental illnesses can be in fulfilling wonderful relationships. But you have to learn to manage your mental illness on your own (to a degree) or it can destroy a relationship due to putting so much strain on your partner. It's something I'm still working on for myself. My partner doesn't say it enough because he loves me and he does like being around me (most of the time!) but he needs time to recharge and be away from me without my constant influence because I do communicate a LOT and I say things that I should just keep to myself. I have anxiety/OCD/depression and whine way too much to him.

I am sorry that he's broken your heart, it's such a horrible thing to go through. There's feelings of betrayal, abandonment, emptiness and like your world has been turned upside down if the person was your friend and partner for a long time. I would say that you should stop trying to contact him if you are and he's avoiding you. If he cares ir if he wants to be your friend, he will. Also his new girlfriend may not want him to hang out with you so she could influence him too.

Let him come to you. If he will, he will. If he won't, he won't. If you do have communication with him, try to keep it as positive as you can. Not saying be fake and act happy, but don't talk too much about yourself and think of something to say that's positive. That can help train your brain for your sake as well. Depression makes everything seem dark, trust me I know. But you have to force yourself to say and do positive things as much as you can. It's okay to say you feel awful, just not to the same person every day. But I know it's so hard not to, when you do truly feel awful. I struggle with that a lot.

I hope you can find something that helps your depression. Forcing myself to eat well, exercise, have a routine, get my responsibilities completed does help, somewhat. Try not to ruminate on thoughts that you'd feel better if you had him to talk to. You need a new support system and coping nechanisms. It may take you a long time to find what that is but there will be something out there that helps. We need people in our lives but you can't use them as medicine long term or it depletes them.

Goodluck and hope you feel a bit better soon.
29, female, divorcing+in a relationship, INFJ.
Medical Dx - BDD, OCD, Panic disorder/GAD, Depression, Perfectionism, Alcoholism, Derealisation.
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