A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:I need advice as am completely stuck.I'm in a long term lesbian relationship that for the past year has been incredibly difficult. When I first met my partner she was my ideal woman. Literally the moment I met her I fancied her. She was like the epitome of cool and we got together a month or so after meeting. She was funny and mature and level headed. She also spoiled me with gifts and dinners. We had a good relationship and had spoken about settling down together and getting a dog. After 2 years together we got engaged and we were happy. Through out our relationship I was always aware she had issues with depression but was on medication and was seemingly managing so it never caused too much trouble. Then about a year ago everything fell apart. She stopped her meds believing she was better. I tried to tell her I thought she should put other things in place first like a more active lifestyle and a better diet, but she didn't listen and stopped the meds cold. She changed within a week in to someone I did not know. I cannot even begin to describe all the crazy things she did but I am not using the term crazy loosely here. She proper lost the plot. She got in with a bad crowd of people, stopped trying at work, quit her job, drank too much, gained weight, became really lazy, stopped working out, everything just stopped. She didn't even look like herself anymore. Her skin was grey and she was always just sitting with a vacant look on her face. She began to behave badly towards me too. Every time I tried to help her - encouraging her to go on walks, getting her out the house, etc, she just threw it back in my face. I was aware the whole time it was because she was ill and refusing help, but that didn't make any of it any easier to stomach. During this time, she hacked my emails convinced I was having an affair (I wasn't), lied to my face about numerous things, and even blamed me for her depression. As much and I never stopped loving her or caring for her, I fell out of love with her. I felt I almost had to, to enable me to support her and care for her in a way that protected myself at the same time. Her family were shit at helping, her so called friends just made things worse, and so it was left to me. I was her carer. I took the full force of her illness and in the process probably made myself ill too. My own mental health became fragile. It took a long time, but she is finally on the mend. We moved house, she's finally looking for work, she's going to the gym regularly and is on new and better meds and seeking therapy. For the first time in a long time I feel we have made progress. She's gotten rid of the bad people who were around her and started to make better friendships too. I feel I might actually get my cool girlfriend back and that our life together may resume. But now that I am starting to see the old her again, I'm worried about how I get back to where we were.After having to support her for so long, I see her a certain way now. It's almost clinical. I am sexually attracted to her but the thought of doing anything sexual feels borderline inappropriate. Whilst she was ill I closed myself off to her as she needed me to be strong so I stopped sharing my problems and feelings with her. I'm not sure how to do that again. I feel I've grown and matured as a person massively in the last year and may not be the same person I was before her depression got bad. It's changed the way I view people, especially members of her family who now just make me angry. I feel they just left her. They even had a go at me once for my apparent selfish lifestyle not putting her first. That makes me angrier than anything else to be honest as they never even lifted a finger. I know I need to deal with that too. At her worst, my trust in her was severely compromised. I get it was the illness but I am only human and when someone lies to you over and over again, you stop trusting them. I want to trust her again but am not sure how.Now that she's better I feel there's this giant awkward gap between us. How do I fix it and let myself be in a relationship with her again after all this? I don't feel we know each other anymore.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 November 2013): Her appalling behavior may have been due to her illness but that doesn't lessen the impact of the harm she did to you. Don't let yourself feel guilty for feeling the way you do, because she was abusive plain and simple, regardless of the cause. I would watch her very carefully for a very long time before letting my guard down, if I were you. If this means that your relationship is not one of intimates but more of an arms length family relationship then that is what it should be. Intimacy can only develop from a place of trust and safety and right now you have neither and for good reason. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that since your relationship is labeled as an intimate/romantic/partnership that therefore you need to behave as if you have feelings which you don't. It may be necessary to take a step back and re evaluate what kind of relationship you actually do have now. She needs to learn that she has destroyed your trust in her and the burden is on her to rebuild it and that you do NOT owe her anything. You don't owe her your trust or confidence. I hope you don't shield her from the truth of your feelings. She needs to know the consequences of her terrible and irresponsible decision to go off her meds cold turkey then maybe she will stick to it this time or do the responsible thing of consulting her doctor before going off her meds so it can be done properly. She is lucky the medical and physiological consequences were not cardiac arrest or organ failure or something.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 November 2013): You've done more than most people ever could or would and for that my hats off to you. Your feelings now are totally normal.The truth is that the relationship HAS changed. You are not going back to the way things were because things have already changed. You cannot and shouldn't strive to erase the past and pretend it didn't happen. So I think you need to look at it as starting over with a new person. It is uncertain if you can ever fall in love and trust this new person but that's how it is. You won't know until you go through the process and see what happens. I would suggest that you just give it time and see how it goes. Sorry if that sounds wishy washy. You don't know if she will stay sane and healthy or if a year from now or 3 years from now she goes off her meds and becomes all toxic and psycho again. If she does stay healthy you also need to give yourself time to feel howeber you will feel. And she needs to give you that time too and not rush you into letting your guard down around her. It remains to be seen if she will respect your feelings to this extent. This limbo stage may last for several years. It remains to be seen if both of you can tolerate that and maintain healthy boundaries that will allow a new relationship to form. If at any time you feel you cannot or don't want to deal with the roller coaster anymore, you have every right to end the relationship. It sounds like you are or were co-dependent. That's mentally unhealthy for you because it makes you subject yourself to psychological harm. Self preservation is healthy and necessary to function properly, for example being present for other people in your life too and not having nothing left for the other people in your life because this one person has drained all your energy. It sounds like you did eventually go into basic survival mode to survive the relationship but at what cost? Has it done damage to you? Do you now have emotional scars? You need to take care of yourself so that of she were to go off the deep end again you don't get taken down with her.
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A
female
reader, llifton  +, writes (21 November 2013):
 I have been through what you're going through. First off, let me say props to you for sticking around. it's incredibly difficult and you must love her very much.
My gf suffered depression as well as other things on top of it. Some days were amazing. We were the perfect couple that would make you sick. We would laugh and be affectionate. Other days she was so severely depressed that I couldn't get her out of bed. Other days she would just be incredibly anxious and others she would be pissed off. I never knew if I was going to get my sweet, loving gf or the one that was angry and impossible to be around.
Unless you've been the significant other of a person with mental illness, it is so difficult to understand the effect it has on YOU. Yes, it's incredibly hard for the person suffering but the one who tries to love the one suffering winds up damaged and hurt badly in the end, as well. And what you said rings tragically true - YOU also wind up suffering your own kind of mental illness and anguish in the process.
Is it possible to get back on track? Yes. But both of you have to be extremely dedicated to doing it. The first line of business would have to be to communicate with your gf just what this last year has done to you. She needs to know. not to make her feel guilty, but because it's a necessity to healing. She needs to understand that under NO circumstance can she quit taking her meds again. That is a condition of your relationship. If she can't make that a condition then you leave now. That's the biggest promise to you she needs to make.
You are not her therapist. That's the quickest, surest way to make your relationship unhealthy. Your job is to be a lover, partner, and friend. she has a therapist for a reason. She needs to see her therapist every week and make sure her meds are the proper ones and working best for her. And she needs to make sure she's taking the right dosage etc.
As time goes on, you will learn to trust her again and know once and for all that your cool gf is back. Because that's who she is underneath it all. Without the depression eating at her, she's that badass chick you know and love. But the depression takes over and makes her someone she's not. Try not to see her as how she was then. See her for the woman you fell in love with.
Your gf may not have even noticed how bad she got or how drastic the change. I know my gf couldn't tell when she was suffering through really bad times like I could. I would point out to her that she had been sleeping all day and hyper anxious and moody more so that week or two and she would be oblivious. I could always notice her changes way more than she could. That may be the case for your gf, too. She may not realize just how bad it got. Which is another reason why it's imperative you make sure you tell her how hard it was for you and just how bad it got. Because otherwise, she may be under the assumption that one day she can quit again.
Take it one day at a time. I know it's hard. But remember the woman you came to know and love. You're fighting for her. But also don't sacrifice your own mental health for the sake of hers. If she's unwilling to do her part, you have no choice but to leave.
I wish you the best of luck. Feel free to inbox me if you ever need.
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A
female
reader, Euphoric29  +, writes (21 November 2013):
Dear OP,
First of all, wow, you actually managed to stay around such a depressed partner and help her through it all. That's not something everyone could do. I can totally understand why after months of almost being a nurse/therapist/mum to her, you don't feel like you can have the same love life again. And you probably can't go back to have it the same way before. I mean, attraction naturally gets a little weaker throughout the years, but a depression is really very unsexy.
My advice would be that you get some time for yourself. You don't have to baby sit your girlfriend, so now is the time to enjoy life, with her, alone or with other friends that you have. Really, spoil yourself!
The awkwardness will probably stay there for some time, maybe fade away as you gain back some of the trust in her. She doesn't know the "new you" probably, as she was too occupied with herself during her illness. Now you both need to have a fresh start and see if you can have a new kind of relationship.
Oh, and one more thing. Please, in a good moment, talk about what you both are going to do if she gets back in this depressed mood again. You don't have to go through this another time! Make a contract that she needs to stay on the meds, that if depressed, she needs to seek therapy (or even go to a clinic). Talk about your limits and also, what she might need from you. And what she can't ask from you. For instance, you don't have to put up with her rudeness, if she becomes rude, you've got the right to leave the room and not care about her for a few hours.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (21 November 2013):
 I think it's almost impossible to rebuild trust after something like that, illness or no illness. But I would try and maybe find a couples counselor and work on getting tools for BOTH of you to rebuild that trust.
The thing is, I'm guessing you are sorta waiting for the other shoe to drop. When will she turn on me again? Will she try and stop meds again, what if her dose ends up being too low or ineffective, what if, what if? That is absolutely normal. It's a survival instinct, I would say. Because we all have limits to how much we will tolerate from a partner. No matter how much we love them.
Have you talked to her about how you feel? I understand that you might feel she is still rather fragile, but what about you? Does she know that you don't feel like you can trust her any further then you can toss her? Start with small things when it comes to sharing emotions and feelings with her, but let her know that YOU also feel vulnerable.
As for her family. Maybe they have just dealt with the "sick" version of your GF for so long that they can't handle it any more. If she was as toxic to YOU as you describe, do you think she was any nicer to her own family? They know she is sick (or was sick) but that is not always a valid excuse for how some people behave and treat people they claim they love. And then you add in that, this is "mental illness" something MANY people don't want to talk about or be associated with. - They want to wash their hands and say I don't know how she got this way, it's NOT our "fault". So cut her family some slack. But if they don't treat you right feel free ti cut them out of your life as much as you possibly can.
And last but not least, ASK her how you both can get back to where you were or even better, how you two now get to a better place then ever. Let her take SOME of the responsibility for what happened too, it wasn't ALL her illness. The illness just made it "easier" to do.
So, talk to her.
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