Help Telling someone I'm depressed!!!!

Hi! I've never posted anything on a message board before so please be gentle with me.  

 

I need help telling my boyfriend that I have depression and anxiety. I don't know what to say because I'm really scared of his reaction. I truly care about this person, but feel if I don't tell him then I'll eventually lose him. He knows that I have major anxiety, but not about the depression. Lately my symptoms have been really acting up - can't constraint at work, paranoid about losing him and what he thinks about me since I've been getting mad and upset at him for minor little reasons, what people think about me, if people are having a good time while hanging with me, my self-esteem is very low, crying all the time, trusting people, super tired all the time, and too defensive. I know he really cares about me, but I feel my symptoms might push him away if I don’t tell him. I'm scared he's going to judge me and afraid that he won’t want to be with me because of my disorders.  I’m just looking for some advice. Please help!!

Hi Cloudydays,

Elisha's spot on with the advice. I'm going to say my usual thing: if it's too hard to say the thing out loud, write a letter to your boyfriend (also good for making sure that you say what you want to say, and can add reassurances of how much your bf means to you).

I'm also fairly new here, and can 100% vouch for the posters here: they've been nothing but lovely and supportive (this board and the Anxiety-Panic and Bipolar boards), and I honestly don't think I'd have got through the last week quite so "in tact" without them. Lots of gentle, lots of really sound advice, and (quite unespectedly) lots of laughs!

All best to you Cloudydays, and welcome.

Rosie

Hi Cloudydays,

Welcome to the healing well forum, I hope this site provides you with the help and support you need.

Telling my boyfriend about my anxiety/depression was very hard but I knew I had to tell him and hen I did I think he was relieved because he finally knew why I'd been behaving like I had. I went throigh a phase of being very snappy and irritable and when I told him what i was going through, he understood why I had been like that. Now he is very supportive and always there if I need to talk.
The thought of telling him was worse than actually doing it and hopefully your boyfriend will be as understanding.
If he finds it hard to understand anxiety and depression, get him to read up about it so he knows how he can support you. The worst thing my boyfriend feels is not being able to do the right thing to help and me and not being able to take it all away. He has looked anxiety up and read about it so he understands more about what I am going through.

Its better to be able to go through this with somebody than go through it alone. Of course you always have people here at healing well to give you advice and listen to you.
Take care and also if you havent already, see your doctor to get some help with your anxiety and depression. Since taking an antidepressant, I have felt more able to cope with things.
Keep in touch,

Victoria

WELL THE GUY I'VE BEEN DATING FOR 3 YRS HAS SEEN ME HAVE ANX & DEPRESSION TWICE. LAST YEAR HE BACKED OFF. HE HAS BACKED OFF AGAIN AT THIS TIME . WE R STILL TALKING ,HE KNOWS I'M ON MEDS BUT AT THE SAME TIME HE CAN'T TAKE MY MOOD SWINGS AND CRYING AND I JUST CAN'T HELP IT . MY DEPRESSION IS MORE OF A PROBLEM FOR HIM THAN THE ANXIETY. HOPEFULLY THIS CYMBALTA WILL HURRY AND WORK . ITS BEEN 9 DAYS . STILL ON THE ZOLOFT AT 150MG, AND KLONOPIN.

I felt the same way about telling my partner that I was depressed and going on meds. I thought he would think less of me and wouldn't want any part of being with someone who is depressed. Especially since he is the opposite - outgoing, lots of friends, happy with his life, loves his job, has hobbies and goals. I'm the total opposite, low self esteem, quiet, have lost interest in things I used to enjoy, no motivation, am bored in my job, don't see the purpose in life. I obsessed about how I was going to tell him that I was taking meds, but luckily the time was right one evening. He really can't understand what depression is really like, no one can unless they have personally lived it. He seemed to be supportive but the only advice he could offer was that I should get back into exercising and running, that going for a run will be enough to lift me out of it.

Well for a first-time post you did an excellent job.
Hon, in reading your words i genuinely believe it would be good for you to learn more about depression.
Like, depression will sometimes manifest as anger or irritation; did you know that? Ever get in a bad mood and you don't know why (i hate when that happens); that's Depression.
I read about one study, where they had different groups of people sitting at different tables, and i forget what they asked the people to do. But the point is: it's been physicaly proven that Depression disrupts your ability to concentrate or to think clearly. There's a lot of aspects to Depression that most people don't know about.

Depression has cost me friends, and also potential friendships. That's not to scare you it's simply the truth; and if we know the truth then we're prepared, some things will still hurt but it won't hurt as bad.
How you tell someone depends on their personality; you find something they like and find a way to....connect it to what they like, kind of like a story. Or you can simply be straight forward and logical if that's how their mind works: I have an affliction, this is what it is, this is what it looks like.
I had a really nice doctor, and sometimes i knew he was going to ask me how i am and i was too depressed to describe it. So i'd bring a poem i'd already written about being depressed. And when he asked me, i just handed him the paper.
It's not about whether he liked poetry or not (i don't know), but i know that in some of my work i have described what it's like when i'm depressed, and anyone who reads it can understand it.
(A long time later i found out he kept all my poetry; and one day he was asked to speak at this big medical conference, he took some of my work with him and he read it there -i thought that was way cool)

Another time, i knew a girl and she wasn't an artist but i guess sometimes she just felt like drawing. She showed me this really simple drawing, just regular pencil on paper; and the sketch showed a young woman with long hair sitting on the ground with her knees bent, her arms folded on top of her knees and her head resting on her arms. She was sitting on the flat surface of a tall, skinny spire of rock -and there was nothing else around her, no other rock or cliffs, nothing else in the picture. It was awesome -i looked at that and thought: that's exactly what it feels like when i'm depressed.

Don't think it's a test that you're going to pass or fail, 'cause it's not. There's going to be people who will stick by you, and there's going to be people who won't. That's just reality.


Poet