My life needs to change TODAY. Boyfriend has said I’m dragging him down

[Cooky1998]

To start, I have struggled with multiple things for years. I’ve had an awful lots going on recently but things have been ongoing for years.
I’ve struggled with my mental health for years now, and have tried various things. Medication did not work and a few types of therapy were ok but didn’t see long term benefits.
I feel like I’ve got to the point where I don’t feel like things will get better, I’ve tired so hard and been in the same place mentally for years now.
I feel like I am in constant fight or flight mode.

At the moment:

• work is extremely stressful
• I have chronic back pain everyday which I am trying to deal with
• I have had a recent hormone test which showed some abnormalities but need further investigation. I also have PCOS
• I have recently had a heart monitor which showed some abnormalities and, whilst not hugely concerning, they are referring me to cardiology
• Money is tight and struggling to make ends meet each month

Onto my boyfriend - we have been together for 2 years. He’s been great to me, he tries his best to be supportive even though he doesn’t really understand.

Yesterday evening I felt down and he asked me what was wrong, but I didn’t want to bring the mood down so I said nothing. He knew this wasn’t true so he asked me to talk to him. It was 10:30pm.
So I said to him I felt really down, how nothing is getting better, how I feel like I have no hope.

He suggested that I need to exercise more, but he suggested ideas that I either find boring or I have tried before.
1.5 hours later I’m still talking about the same thing, and he starts getting annoyed.

He said to me that I show no self awareness when I get into this state, that it’s midnight and he can’t see how I’m affecting him.
He has brought up starting long conversations late at night before, and yet I continue to do it. He doesn’t understand why I can’t show self awareness, and that I don’t see the impact I have on him. He said I’m bringing him down.
He said if I knew it’d be a long conversation, I should’ve had the self awareness not to do it late at night.
he also said “I don’t get what this conversation has achieved, and what your aim was” because it went round in circles and I didn’t take on his suggestions anyway.

He’s now upset at me.

He also said to me:

• I haven’t been happy for a while, he doesn’t remember the last time I felt truly happy.
• I haven’t been happy since we moved in together 6 weeks ago which he thought would help
• I am generally down all the time
• I am not actively trying to feel better.

My issue is, I genuinely believe that nothing will work. Deep down. I can sit here and fake motivation, and say I will try lots of new things, but deep down I feel hopeless. Like nothing makes me feel better and alsmot as if nothing is worth trying?

I really really need to change today. I really don’t know how to get past this

Why did medication not work. Were you looking for it to 'fail'?

You sound clinically depressed and I think that will involve medication. I agree about exercising; if your BF's suggestions are boring you need to think of your own that aren't.

I can’t see what’s your boyfriend is getting out of this relationship. For you personally- 100% therapy to change your life perspective

Chronic pain is anwful and is a major factor in depression. It’s an absolute bastard to live with, and makes us miserable gits if we aren’t careful. I bore myself, and I am very aware to try not to grind down others but sometimes it’s too much. So I empathise.

With exercise, sorry, @Cooky1998 , you just have to suck it up.

You don’t feel any benefit at the time and it is boring. Several weeks in you will start to feel better for it, and eventually it really does help a lot. But it’s a commitment of exercise 2 or 3 times a week for 6 weeks or so before those positives kick in.

Is there an exercise you can do with your BF so you are taking positive steps together?

Get yourself on vitamins to help in the short term - D for lack of sunlight, C for skin and hair, a multi vitamin with the B vitamins and iron for overall health.

It feels like nothing will change but I promise you things do.

I would honestly stop going to the doctors. You are collecting diagnoses and hoping that there is one thing that will fix everything. It won't. There are plenty of things you can do to improve your quality of life but you are using pending investigations as an excuse to not do anything to help yourself.
Refusing to look at antidepressants because you might have ADHD is just one example. Plenty of people out there are being prescribed ADHD meds alongside antidepressants.
Nobody can help you but you and it doesn't feel as though you are ready for a change.

You sound to me like you have very severe depression and all the advice of "just do x" is just bouncing off you because you don't have the motivation to keep up with any of it.

But the reality is that you can't expect results overnight. You need to do these things everyday for weeks before you can expect to start seeing results - a couple of runs or trips to the gym really won't change anything.

I know you're going through a lot in terms of your health but you can't use that as a reason to rot at home indefinitely - you really need to push yourself and do something, no matter how hopeless it feels.

I'd also take a really hard look at your diet - without sounding like an MN cliche, eating badly will have a huge impact on your energy levels and your mental health.

I absolutely echo @Seaweed42 my DH was also you for a long time and I was your boyfriend. Eventually I had to pull back and stop 'fixing' him or the marriage would have ended. We never did therapy in the end, but I told him that any changes needed to come from within him and that I would support anything he wanted to do to help make that happen (therapy, medication, new lifestyle changes etc.)
I can't say where the change began but he started to go for a swim in the morning after the school run, he cut back on alcohol and caffeine a little bit too but really I think the change was his acceptance of how was feeling. It wasn't easy for him to 'try' everyday and I really admire him for that. Depression is lifelong and he still sometimes has bad times, but now he knows they will end and he's built strategies to help make things better when they're terrible.

You sound clinically depressed. Nothing will sound like a good idea when you're clinically depressed, it clouds all of your thinking.

Why is your job stressful? Can you say more about that? If you hate your job then this is going to have a massive impact on your mood.

You sound like there is a lot of underlying pain in your life and your past. If that's so I have just come across an incredible new book called The Bridge by Donna Lancaster. She has done lots of work on trauma and healing and finding your way to accepting yourself and living a full life. It's really helping me at the moment. Maybe it could help you?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58837738-the-bridge

https://deepeningintolife.com

There's a good free online course you can do as an intro thegriefrecoverymethod.com

There's also a lot she writes in a horrible app called Substack, you can search for her in it, I can't cope with endless apps. Good luck OP, take care.

You sound depressed are you getting any form of therapy? Self care sometimes slips with depression too.
You are able to list all the things wrong in your life, can you list what’s right?

What is your sleep like?
Do you get out in daylight every day?
I would ask your GP about CBT, it might be an appropriate intervention in your case to help with the negative spiral you seem to be in.

Call me selfish but I couldn’t be in a relationship like that

I think small goals are going to be your friend here. I small change per week.

Have u tried inositol for pcos?

It sounds like you have a lot going on OP. Just to say, you should avoid vigorous exercise just now until you are seen by a cardiologist if you have been having heart issues.
Walking, yoga, pilates might be better.
Chronic pain would bring anyone down.
Hope you get some answers soon.

Sometimes going to the gym and doing a few runs is not going to be a magic bullet. I find couch to 5k one of the most boring things in the world but running 10 miles through the countryside is completely life affirming

i also have chronic back issues and physio told me not to run. I ignored them and have now done 3 marathons. My back only hurts when I don’t do any exercise, at one point I couldn’t walk round the supermarket!

nobody can save you, only you can save yourself, take the medication, it can be taken along adhd meds - I know because I’m also adhd and on antidepressants. They take time to start working (up to six weeks) and not all medication works for everyone but you HAVE to try.

What do you enjoy doing?

You won’t feel the benefits of running after just a couple of runs. It’s horrible the first few weeks. Then you start getting a bit more competitive with yourself and finding pleasure in the time you dedicate to it. Being able to say ‘I did a mile last week and now I feel like I can do an extra half mile’ gives a real sense of achievement, because nobody did that apart from you. You respect your body more for the things it is able to do. Find a podcast you enjoy and make it a break out of your day and away from everything else. I never get a ‘runner’s high’ per se but I feel like someone has turned my anxiety down after a run.
Not saying this is going to fix the way you feel but there is so much value in doing things you enjoy to add happiness to your life. I also do an evening class, just a few hours a week doing something I like doing, no exams, assessment, just for me.

I agree with @BrunchBarBandit, but especially with her “do something or do nothing” simplicity.

Right now, you’re not happy and he’s not happy. If you ‘do nothing’, that won’t change. If you ‘do something’, it might.

Start small: daily walk (20 mins with audiobook on)? Start a big jigsaw that you can sit and do together for 20 mins a day? Deep conditioner on your hair, face mask on skin, watch a movie? (Get him to do the same!)

I also highly recommend medication. Sertraline has given me the starting point to get out of several deep depressions.

Good luck 🌻

Have you thought of trying a dance class or singing group. Rock choir is an inclusive group and joyful. Fitsteps or Zumba are great exercise and fun. Your meet a lot of lovely people at both of these.

Much as you don't want to hear it, he is likely to be right about the exercise. It doesn't matter if you're bored or not, if you crack on through 3 sessions a week of exercise that is targeted at improving your core strength (such as rowing machine, weights machines and something like swimming or Aqua fit), you might still be bored and miserable, but at least you'll be bored and miserable with likely less back pain. If you use the gym facilities for showering each time, it might improve your skin and hair. And you'll be out of the house in the process getting some fresh air + possibly some daylight when travelling, which is better for your health than staying indoors.

Look at it in the most pessimistic way - if you're going to be bored and miserable whatever happens, you may as well be bored and miserable and a bit stronger, fitter and out of the house. Might make you sleep better, too, meaning you're less likely to be awake for long enough for talking about how shit everything is and it'll never change until midnight.

Nothing in your life will get better.

Until YOU take steps to make it better, and keep going.

No-one else can help you.
No-one is going to make it better.

Not your boyfriend
Not the GP
Not anyone on Mumsnet.

Only YOU

Exercise doesn't have to be gym-based

It's a lovely day - can't you both go out for a walk somewhere? A park? The countryside? The beach? Have you somewhere lovely near you?

Then stop off at a pub or a café after

Just get out in the open.

I was going to ask if you've considered ADHD. The whole having tried every suggestion and knowing it won't work and people getting frustrated because they feel like that response means you don't want to try, as well as the sense that everything is getting on top of you and never works is really familiar.

I couldn't engage fully with any kind of adjustments to my life until I actually had the diagnosis. I just felt like a fraud until then. But I'd strongly recommend learning as much as you can about ADHD anyway, as the background knowledge was hugely helpful when I did start to embrace it and make changes. Be aware that the most effective medications are stimulants and they probably won't give this to you if you have cardiac issues, so it might make sense to try out the medications you've been offered currently. But OTOH if the cardiac issues are down to stress then sometimes better understanding and management of ADHD will actually help with this.

A book called "so I'm not lazy, stupid or crazy?" The YouTube channels how to adhd and the russell Barkley one have been the most helpful for me. Beware of too much social media/tiktok type content as it can be misleading.

Also, stop trying to fix everything at once - it's impossible to do that and you'll only be able to make half hearted efforts at everything and that will get you down. What's useful to understand with ADHD and related conditions is that you will typically have a lot more going on than the average person and each of the issues has a knock on effect on all the others. So it's even harder to make progress than it would be for most people, and you probably won't see the effects of progress as quickly as you'd like because there are so many other issues impacting on things that just working on one isn't going to make much of a dent. But! If you can pick one or maybe two areas to focus on, and really truly let go of guilt on the others by either making sure they're taken care of or just deciding that's not my priority at the moment, then it's more likely (IME) that you'll make a level of progress on that area that actually does stick and also starts to very slightly lessen the impact on other things. It's not going to make your life suddenly easier because the reality is that you have a lot of different things to work on and they are all tangled up. Having a realistic idea going in ie knowing that solving (exercise) isn't going to magically make everything else go away helps because then if you do notice improvements to other things, it is more of a boost rather than starting something, finding everything else still hard and concluding that the thing you started isn't working.

I spent years with my ADHD ex every night wanting to spend hours taking about all his problems, none of which seemingly had any solutions. He invited me to say what he should do and then critically savaged any suggestions as to why they couldn't possibly work. Eventually it seemed he thought I was responsible and to blame for every problem. I felt at the time It was my job and maybe I was failing him. Only after I left did I realise it was ADHD and that this hours of fretting was something that no amount of listening or help from me would resolve. He still absolutely refuses to take any ownership for any of his problems or try to fix them (other than irrational baby out with the bathwater stuff). It was exhausting and it almost broke me. Please don't use him as a wall to throw every problem at unless you're willing to try solving them.

There is a gap between what we intend to do and how we actually act. One of the things that makes us most likely to change is if the change gives us a relatively quick result. Living with Persistent pain and depression, nothing gives you a quick result and there is no one thing that will cure you so actually finding the motivation to change is very difficult. It sounds like you are still waiting for the pain and depression to go away and hoping for a future where that will happen and things will be better. There is nothing wrong with hoping for this but what if that doesn't happen? You have to make the best of your current situation, take small steps to do things that help you make the most of where you are now.
You talk about nothing working, and I assume by this you mean nothing has cured you. For pain and mood, benefits are achieved by sticking lots of changes together not making one big change. Also for a lot of changes the timing has to be right, so something that you don't feel helped in the past may help now. There's nothing wrong with revisiting things you have already tired.

Exercise may be too big a thing/not the thing you want to choose to work on right now but it's probably something that would, in the long term, help your back and mood. But, it's your job to think of something you'd like to do, not your boyfriends. He's probably feeling a bit frustrated that you are putting barriers up and you're likely annoyed that he doesn't understand how bad things are if he's suggesting yoga (or whatever).

Pain and low mood have a knock on effect on every part of your life: sleep, diet, physical activity, work, relationships etc and this in turn makes the mood and pain worse. The first step is trying to identify what you need to do to look after your body and your wellbeing better and pick something that looks achievable. If this doesn't seem possible or it's hard to know where to start talking therapy can help pin down what's important to you, how you can motivate yourself and help with some of the barriers that you have to making these changes.

Find a way to commit to exercise, it will help if you’re consistent. If your bf wants to support you, why not agree that you make a specific commitment to doing something active. Even write it down in the form of a contract, then he can remind you of your commitment and encourage you. He doesn’t have to do this, it could be a friend or a relative or maybe you ask them all to hold you accountable.
i never want to go to my exercise sessions but I’ve committed to it with the group I go with and that forces me to go. Afterwards I always feel great. If I’d “rested” I wouldn’t feel rested or better at all, just worse.