AIBU to give depressed withdrawn boyfriend an ultimatum....
So as the title says I've just given depressed withdrawn boyfriend an ultimatum. Now beyond anxious waiting for a response and wondering if I've been completely unreasonable.
Bit of background, I apologise this is so long. I've tried to condense it as much as I can....
We've been together for 2 years and both suffer from anxiety disorder. This actually brought us closer together as we understood each other's needs and feelings. We were very happy and planning to move in together. We've always had quite strict rules in place to help manage our anxieties. I've always been honest from day 1 that I need regular contact with him or I start worrying. This has never been a problem for him.
His anxiety is mostly over his working environment. He has very stressful job. Most of the time he manages his anxiety through regular exercise at the gym and a very low dose of an antidepressant called amitriptyline. In low doses this is used to treat anxiety and usually it helps him. Over the years he has tried multiple drugs and combinations. The only one that's ever been helpful is amitriptyline but only in a low dose. When he's tried higher doses he becomes unwell again.
His work was becoming more and more of an issue and his GP agreed he would be better working from home part of the week but his work refused to accommodate this. This caused him even more stress and anxiety as he was heading towards taking them to a tribunal. His GP referred him to a psychiatrist to see if they would support home working too.
This is where everything went wrong.
The psychiatrist after knowing him for less than an hour decided to more than double his medication and put him on the maximum dose of it. A dose for treating depression, not anxiety. Amitriptyline is a highly sedative drug and is also very dangerous as it has a high success rate with suicide so it's use is supposed to be monitored carefully. My boyfriend questioned her decision and explained he'd tried higher doses before with very negative effects. She basically said she was the expert and he should listen to her.
She more than doubled it with no scaling up period and then didn't ever see my boyfriend again. Infact he wasn't reviewed for over 3 months and it was a different psychiatrist
Once he started taking the increased dose it was like a switch going off. He stopped going to the gym, stopped going out, started drinking, we stopped having sex and he literally stopped caring about anyone or anything.
This was incredibly difficult for me but I love him and made it clear I'd support him. I explained that I could cope if I'm seeing him regularly. So we agreed I'd still go there every weekend even if we just ended up in bed doing nothing. He would always want to see me and said he'd find my company soothing. I'd go over every weekend and help him with chores around the house and cook for him etc, which I didn't mind doing as I liked helping him.
Despite this huge decline in his mental health the psychiatric team kept him on the same dose for over 10 months until me and his parents managed to persuade him that it wasn't working and convinced him to see a different psychiatrist.
The new psychiatrist immediately said he needed to come off the amitriptyline.
He gradually weaned himself off and has become more functional. We had sex for the first time in 10 months but he still has little or no empathy for anything.
I asked his GP to do some additional blood tests to check for any hormonal abnormalities before we try any other medications which she agreed to do and he had the tests last week.
Up until 6 weeks ago we were still seeing each other regularly every weekend but over the last 6 weeks he's become increasingly more withdrawn. Not answering my phone calls, hardly messaging me and we've seen each other less than 24hrs in 6 weeks.
I've given him every opportunity to end the relationship. He's insisting that he doesn't want to end it and that he's just "a mess" at the moment.
I'm reaching the end of my tether. I've supported him through 11 months but I'm finding it impossible to cope when he won't talk to me and won't see me. I've always been open and honest with him that I need regular contact or my anxiety starts to get worse.
I'm finding his behaviour impossible. He says he wants me to text him but then he'll just stop replying and will ignore me. Then if I stop texting him he gets cross. One minute he wants to see me and then he doesn't.
If I give him space he gets cross. If I try phoning he won't answer. If I text him he'll reply and then just suddenly stop.
I've asked him if he wants to break up and he says no.
I've asked him what he wants me to do. For example should I keep texting him even though he doesn't reply and he says he's not sure. I can't win. He's literally giving me nothing to work with.
On Wednesday he said he wanted to see me this weekend so I replied saying I'd come over on Friday and stay the weekend but that if he needed to do stuff I'd happily wait in his flat for him. He didn't reply and then ignored me for 2 days. Now he's expecting me to drop everything and go over there. I'm just fed up with it.
So basically I've sent him a long message explaining my feelings and I've told him we either go back to seeing each other regularly on a weekly basis or we end it.
I can't do all this uncertainty anymore.
But am I being unfair? I know he has depression and he can't help that but I can't carry on feeling like this and not knowing where I stand.