TL;DR: I am thinking of ending things with my boyfriend, who is very depressed, which in turn is affecting my mental health. I still love him.
So, I have been in a LDR with a guy that I met while i was studying in Beijing last year. We fell crazy in love and when it was time for me to go back home we decided to keep it going long distance. So, fast forward to around 3 months ago. His father gets very sick and unfortunately passes away after a couple of months of being in the hospital.
My boyfriend has a history of depression and before his father passed away he had stopped taking his meds (he did not tell me about this until recently) I had planned to come on may and spend 3 weeks with him in China and then have a short trip to Japan before going back home. Since he was feeling devastated (something I attributed at the time to his father passing away) I decided to change my plans and flew to China a couple of months ago. For the most part, the last couple of months have been pretty amazing, other than the fact that he has been very depressed and being the only support of someone with major depression is very emotionally draining.
Now, its important to know that mental health in China is years behind many western countries (which are still years behind having actually good quality psychiatric care) so my boyfriend has had a really hard time understanding what his illness is, why it came about and what he can do to start improving. In the local psychiatric hospital an appointment last for about 5 minutes and according to his appointed doctor, he does not need any kind of therapy, other than medication, which I mightily disagree with.
I dont really know if that was the correct way to go, but being pretty much alone and speaking very little mandarin I have tried to throw at him any kind of resources that might help him overcome his illness, by himself, with my support. For a little while, this seemed to help, which my selfish self saw as me doing something good for him. Depression of course, is not like that, and soon he went back to how he was before I arrived. For the last month I wake him up, I remind him to take his meds every day, I go to the supermarket, remind him to pay bills, encourage him to get a job, etc. I now he is in a mental state in which none of this is easy and I do not blame him for it, but as of late, this has made me feel extremely lonely, especially considering that I am in a foreign country, have no friends or any kind of support network myself and cant really rely on him for emotional support at this moment.
What really started scaring me last week was my sudden gloominess and increasingly irritable mood that I have started having. I have a history of depression and anxiety. I was suicidal for a long time and on a long list of meds (pristiq, xanax, quetiapine, ritalin) and I had to go through years of self determination, countless drugs, side effects, psychiatrists, psychologists, an extensive support network, breakdowns in the middle of school and the most chilling, nerve wrecking feeling of hopelessness and low worth that I felt for such a long time and I am in no way willing to risk feeling like that again, even for someone I love.
I understand in a way what this is leading me to and what I should do, but thinking about ending things with him just make me tear up inside and start crying a little. I still love him deeply and have never felt as conflicted in my life. The thought of going inside my bedroom and having a long talk where I politely inform that I cant see him anymore for my own sake just makes my heart ache for him.
To top it off, we still have our trip to Japan, which we have been planning for the last 6 months, in a couple of weeks, and I honestly dont know how to deal with all of this happening, while being in a place where I cant rely on anyone but myself.
While any advice would be deeply appreciated I really just needed to get this off my chest since I feel like I am going to explode. The only thing keeping me sane is my afternoon run, and that can only help so much.
[link] [comments]
from Relationships https://ift.tt/2G4gboR
No comments:
Post a Comment