Posted 9/10/2014 10:58 AM (GMT 0)
My ex partner had a breakdown in November 2013 (he had huge stress), after which he was in an agitated state for a couple of months. He left me during that time, very suddenly, blaming me for his breakdown even though the reasons he gave did not make much sense (and he was denying he was even having a breakdown!).
After he left, he expected to feel better but instead he felt worse. He got very severe depression and he finally admitted he needed help - so I helped him to see a doctor and got him into treatment. He got some counselling, but only short term (12 sessions) which he feels was enough, and he is using Celexa. The meds stabilise him (he stops crying and feeling suicidal and he can work) but since he started them he became unrecognisable in his personality.
He is in a zombie-like state and is emotionless and very cold and unfeeling. It is a complete detachment where he says he feels "fake happy" all the time with no other emotions at all.
We are 10 months on from when this started and he has now lost an enormous amount of weight and is still deeply depressed. I have tried and tried to reach him, but he mostly pushes me away.
He has come back to me a few times. When he comes off the medication he calls me in tears saying he is sorry, that he loved me very much but that he got lost. Then he starts them again because he can't cope with the depression and within 7 days on the pills he is like a stranger who ignores me.
He refuses to get more therapy or to change or adjust medication. He refuses to let me help him. He refuses to do really anything. He says seeing me is too hard for him.
As I said, I have ridden the rollercoaster for 10 months now, and I stayed living up by him even though it's a 10 hour trip to my friends and family in the hope that he would get better and come home - but he never did and I am lonely, in a lot of pain all the time and feel like I can't keep hoping.
I know no one can really help me, but if anyone with depression has any comments on my situation they might give me some comfort. This week is very hard as I am looking at jobs in the new place, and after so long hoping, letting go of someone I love so much is really hard - as well as letting go of the place we called home for so long.
If anyone can tell me any of these things...it might help me to find some sort of peace inside myself...
1. Since he got depressed he has said some horrible and hurtful things to me. Is there a chance he did not truly mean all these things? Some of them haunt me and I find it hard to sleep.
2. He often contradicts himself, can depression make you truly completely confused about how you feel?
3. Does the fact that his love for me went away so suddenly mean that it was never that strong to begin with? If he truly loved me, would it not fight it's way through?
4. Does me leaving and going "home" to my family make me a bad person? I feel like I am abandoning the person I love most in the world, but he doesn't want me around so I feel hopeless.
5. Through this he has been very selfish and has not cared about my physical / financial wellbeing even though we lived together for years before this. Does this mean he does not care about me...or could it be depression?
I just really want to leave with my conscience and memories in tact. I want to be able to remember the man that proposed to me a few months before he got sick and feel like that was real and that he did care about me and love me as deeply as I believed. I want to believe he is a good person who is very ill but I am losing faith. Some of the stuff he has said and done since have been so horrible.
I just feel lost.