My partner isn't supporting me through my depression

[PurpleRain08]

Hi everyone,

I know that living with a mental illness is not only incredibly difficult for the person going through it, but also for the people around them, especially the partner.

I suffer with depression, and borderline personality disorder. I have history of self harming and suicidal thoughts. I was doing much better, but this past week, I am just in an awful black hole that I am struggling to get out from. I have self harmed twice this week - after a 7 month hiatus. I feel hopeless, like a burden ect.

Normally my partner is very supportive, but this time I just feel like she hasn't been there for me. She knows how unwell I am, and how much I need her. I have a very big sensitivity to rejection and abandonment, so I know I am hyper vigiliant to looking out for any signs she does not love me... but this week she has just said some things that are really concerning to me, and I don't know what to do.

She said on Monday that she needed a 'night off' from having to do anything for me, for having to be there for me, that she was exhausted and drained, and needed to be on her own. I went home, obviously feeling shit. I already feel shame and guilt, and feel like a burden, so just having that said was hurtful. I was crying and could not get to sleep, I tried calling and messaging her but she said she didn't want to talk about it. I was so upset. She did come over but I felt so upset that she had enough of me.

The next day she says she needs space and that perhaps we shouldnt speak for a few days... even though she said she didn't want the space, she feels she needs it. Again, because I am so low, the thought of being without my main support system, the fear she is going to leave me, the fear she cant cope with me, the fear she isnt there for me was absolutely awful. She then backtracked and said that she could tell that wasnt good for me so she won't do it.... but she obviously needs it? How can she get her space, and me have her support when I am so depressed? How can I not feel unloved and unsupportive that she isn't there for me when I need her most.

Today she came to my house to see me, but was asleep the whole time. We didn't really talk about anything, and when she woke up, she did some work, and then said she was leaving to meet friends. Obviously I was upset because we hadn't interacted the whole time she had been there, she knew how bad I have been feeling, and she said she needs to have a life, she can't be there for me all the time, and don't I want her to have fun?

I just feel like neither of us are getting our needs met right now, and maybe she just can't give me the support and attention I need when I feel like this.

Wow. I think you've all made your point. To the person who has depression and can't see the wood for the trees.

OP, acknowledge to your partner that you know how difficult it is for her, then give her some space.

I'm sure there must be crisis help for you in your area. I suffer with mental health problems, and I know I can call Health in Mind in my area when things are really bad.

Contacting her on a night out is not the right thing to do in this situation, especially given the reasons she went out. You need to find professional help for this. Maybe CBT? I found that very useful. If you explain to your mental health provider or your GP what you have explained here they will be able to help you x

Bufferingkisses

Spot on.

@NotMaryWhitehouse the OP says they have borderline personality disorder which is more complex than depression. having depression does not mean your needs trump everyone else’s. Can you not see how the OP is exploiting her diagnosis & emotions to manipulate her girlfriend into doing what she wants ?

OP you know full well this needy, suffocating behaviour will only create the situation you fear most - abandonment. People aren’t endless supplies of support for you. Everyone has their own struggles & problems - carer’s Fatigue is a very real thing. Listen & respect your girlfriend’s respect for time to recharge. Your needs do not trump hers. I know you don’t mean to sound selfish, but you are being incredibly unfair to your girlfriend & deep down you know this behaviour is not healthy. Are you doing DBT therapy ? How many antidepressants have you tried ? I know lamotrigine & quietapine are prescribed for borderlines not just antidepressants.

Take responsibility & I advise to do so by exploring more medications, you haven’t given enough a chance yet.

As pp have said, you need to widen your support network. If your GF was a friend of mine I'd be advising her to put herself first, even if that meant leaving you. She is not responsible for your mental health.

What other support are you getting?

As pp have said, you need to widen your support network.

Yup. She isn't a support network, she's a human being with limits, needs and wants. And it sounds like she is supporting you, just not to the level you would like.

Speak to your mental health team, your GP or similar tomorrow morning about getting more professional mental health support for now. I can see you desperately need help but it's also pretty clear your partner is really struggling herself. For the good of both of you and your relationship, you need other sources of support. It doesn't mean she doesn't care - does your self harming mean you don't care about her? Of course not. This is the same.

the thought of being without my main support system, the fear she is going to leave me, the fear she cant cope with me, the fear she isnt there for me was absolutely awful.

I can't help but notice that your posts are ALL about you, your needs, your feelings. Where is your love, concern, care for your partner? What does she need? How do you give her the support she needs?

Op please listen to me when I say this. Your partner is your partner NOT your therapist.
Please let that sink in. The only person that can help you is you. You need PROFESSIONAL on going help. Start with your GP and find a therapist you connect with. If you don’t connect change to a different one. Same with medications.

I am in your partners shoes. My husband of 10 years has depression. Every time he was sad I would stay in,every time he cried I was there, I have ridiculously high empathy(which was tested) and for 8 years I didn’t only live with someone who was depressed it felt like it was directly happening to me. We found a really good GP, he changed medication and found a wonderful psychologist. I spoke to his psychologist with his permission and she told me what I was doing wasn’t helping him. No matter how much I love him and want to help him I couldn’t. So I told him I wanted to go back to being his wife now that he had the right team of professionals in place and I didn’t want to be his caretaker anymore(it took me 8 long years to get to this place) I had to let go of this idea I could help/fix him. I can’t. Only he can. This was 1.5 years ago, my husband has not missed one single psychologist appointment and takes his meds every single day. He finally started talking about his real issues and I can honestly say hand on heart he is happy. The change is incredible. I’m very proud of him. For me even though it’s 1.5 years later I’ll be honest I’m still exhausted and burnt out by the whole thing. I even did a whole year of therapy myself to deal with it all. It takes so much out of you. It really does.

You need to be responsible for yourself.
Find a GP.
Go see someone and make this on going.
Find different medications.

She can support you while you help yourself if she chooses but if you don’t start helping yourself she will honestly walk away one day.

Take care.

@Elle2019 this is a really beautiful posts & glad you & partner found your happy place again

OP I know it has been said, but you need to let her have some space. For her mental health.

If you had given her an evening to herself, you may have found she was able to support you more.

Her mental health, is just as important as yours. You feel you need her and she needs a break.

Do not push her to the point that she cant have a break and decides to break up with you.

You say you know its hard to care for someone with mental health problems and maybe you do. But you arent connecting that knowledge with your girlfriend. If you really know how hard it is you would give her the space she needs

This sounds incredibly hard for your partner. How long have you been together? How often would you usually see each other when you’re well? It’s a lot to expect her to give up all of her usual plans and devote herself to you 24/7, she needs time to herself and to recharge as well. Your behaviour, crying and saying you need her as she tried to go out is bordering on emotional blackmail. I have BPD and I understand the fear of abandonment, but it doesn’t mean you can put everything on your partner. It sounds like you could do with more counselling to understand how your personality disorder effects your thinking and your perception of other people’s intentions. Your expectations of your partner are too high and you’re looking at the relationship from a purely self-centred view without recognising that she has wants and needs as well that you’re not meeting.

You need help beyond your partner. Go to your GP. Ask for counselling. It’s also worth trying anti-depressants again, it can take over a month to start to notice any difference so you need to stick with them. The side effects also tend to be worst in the first few weeks but then do subside so again, you need to stick with them past the first few weeks to know if they’ll help. If even after a month or more they’re not helping then you may need to try a difffent kind.

I've been on both sides of this and I honestly think having depression myself was easier than living with a depressed DP. At least in the former situation I had a decent excuse for feeling crap - I was ill. When DP was ill I didn't feel I had any excuse - he was the one suffering not me. Except I was. I ended up on sick leave for severe anxiety, having turned into a gibbering wreck.

It took DP a long time to realize that his behavior was damaging me so much. Once he understood he did his damnedest to stop. He was on medication anyway, but he started to take responsibility for his actions.

It sounds as if your partner needs you to do the same. I know you're ill but it's not all about you. You have to back off otherwise you'll lose her. And if you don't lose her you'll be left with a shell of her.

It sounds like you're absolutely smothering her, draining her to the point she is empty with nothing left to give. What does she get out of this relationship?

I know this sounds harsh but - having had serious depression and anxiety with similar triggers - you cannot expect someone to carry you while you ignore theirs.

It sounds like she's pulling back for her own MH and wellbeing which she is well within her rights to do. My DH has BPD and has had depression and its exhausting. He absolutely always has to come first but we are in couples counselling because we do not have reciprocal relationship- the pendulum never swings in my direction no matter what I go through . He is selfish, negative and sucks the joy from everything. He can be mean and cruel when I cannot or will not 100% bend to his will. I appreciate that BPD is a very serious and difficult condition but you are likely driving her away and I say that as someone in her position. I had a horribly traumatic birth and c section and yet DH still felt I should support him not the other way around. What do you do for her aside from lean on her (and then criticide her) and why is she your only support system? That's unfair and unhealthy. DH also has no real friends he can count on because he's so antisocial. Start nurturing positive friendships around you and start engaging with medication and therapies that work for you. Its down to you to manage your condition. You're an adult but are depending on her as a child and nothing will kill a relationship faster.

Op I think you might be better posting for advice on managing your depression in mental health now.

OP, please, this isn't plain depression - this is your borderline PD running out of control.

You surely know that this drives people away? It is self-sabotage at its most extreme. It's saying, 'I hate people abandoning me, so I'm going to be OTT manipulative and clingy, and so they will abandon me to save their own sanity. And then I can say I am right, and no one really cares.'

Speak to your GP, speak to the Samaritans, speak to the local mental health team. If you haven't tried DBT, there is some evidence of its usefulness with BPD.

And ask yourself what love is. Are you able to put your partner first? She has been doing this for a long time, and it sounds like she is at the end of her tether. It is probably only out of her love you that SHE wasn't the one on the floor, a crying mess, begging for time alone to re-charge.

Can you put her first for just a short time and let her have some time alone? You may even find that if can find it in yourself to do that, that you will feel more able to cope - because you've broken that 'cling' cycle. Your inner being knows that the clinging will end the relationship - I'm sure you have experience of that already. If you keep on doing what you have always done, you will keep on getting what you have always got.

Your partner is incredibly powerless in this situation. Even if she were to sacrifice herself completely for you - what can she actually do to improve your condition? You are asking her to put you first all the time - and putting someone first all the time is incredibly unhealthy and leads to the sort of burnout she is now experiencing.

Please, seek some structured help - and try to love her enough to allow her some time to recharge.

I can only speak here of my own experience with learning how to manage when my fear of abandonment kicked into overdrive in the past...

I understand how desperate BPD can make a person feel and how urgent the need feels at the time to have the person close.

The thing is though, even if she was able to offer this level of support as often as you want her to (and it does sound as though she does want to support you but no one person can give that level of attention and energy without severely compromising their own wellbeing) - it still isn't going to help you to move forward.

The only way to move forward is to carry on with therapy, medication if needs be, and developing coping strategies to get you through the times you feel desperate.

I get this may seem horribly frightening and difficult if not nigh on impossible...but each time you are able to use a coping strategy to manage on your own when you feel low, you take one more step towards freedom.

In the end, the way to manage this situation is to make a commitment to start finding ways to offer yourself the support and attention you need. Even starting small - managing to self-soothe for a few minutes - will help. These are the strategies you need to start developing to support counselling or CBT or other forms of therapy to help you in your daily life.

Find little things that comfort and occupy you - at my worst just listening to music or a TV show while I played a simple game (like Tetris) helped.

No, it's not the love and hugs and time in conversation a partner offers - but it is a small step to making it through. But I would strongly advise you not to discount how powerful using these little coping methods can be over time.

Once you can make it through the really bad phases, you're really getting there. It seems to me that your expectation is that when you are feeling at your worst this is the time your partner should especially be there for you. Actually, it's far more healing in the long run for those to be the times you hyper-focus on putting into place coping tools. It doesn't have to be for days on end - start small - a few hours.

This is the way I built up my coping tools. Now, several years on, I've learned that actually abandoning myself was far more damaging than being abandoned by anyone else. And the way to not abandon me any longer was to learn how to care for and nurture me. Even when it felt like what I needed was for the other person to come and take care of me.

It was a long hard road, but it was so so worth it. I wish you luck.

With regard to medication and whether it's working or not,I know the bottom line is that you want to feel well,not depressed.But in our family the one taking the meds will say they aren't working,they feel just as bad - we can tell if they are taking the meds or not,by how they behave and relate to us,they are helping.Not enough maybe,but there are many medication options.
Your perception gets distorted and you need professional input and support,the people who love you can't do all of that.
And your partner is a person too,you are expecting her to be able to behave in exactly the way you need,but however much she wants to support you she will have needs of her own,she will get tired,stressed,sad,perhaps even have anxiety or depression herself.She will also need support from friends.