Anger

Hey everyone, I haven't been posting much recently. Treatment has been hard and life has been harder.

Lately my anger has gotten out of control. I am in a relationship with somebody, we have been dating for 7 months. She is great. She is training to be a therapist and is incredibly in touch with her emotions and wants to confront everything right away. I am not nearly as in touch with my emotions and spend much of my time depressed, disconnected from my body and my life, anxious, in fight-or-flight mode (about 80% of the time I am awake and even when I am asleep). We have been having issues almost since the start of the relationship. Mostly from me not communicating well. When we have tried to communicate often times things will go extremely poorly. She will say things and point out things and try to get me to look at myself and I don't take criticism well (even though she doesn't mean it is a criticism, she just wants things to be better). The second she says something like that or expresses that she is angry at me or frustrated or something I will oftentimes just shut down and start talking like a robot and not feel compassion or love or anything. I just completely shut down. There have been a couple of times where we've pushed through that and I've broken through and started crying and being compassionate (after hours of excruciating talking/yelling) and so she has seen that and seen that I can push through so now if I don't do it she says I am choosing to be shut down and choosing not to love her, etc. etc. I feel like I have learned to avoid trying to communicate about anything because 95% of the time that I try and do that something goes wrong and we end up in a crisis. This conversation now seems to happen like once a day or maybe a little bit less. Things are so bad all the time and now if I am shut down and saying I love her or saying I am sorry (but not sounding like I love her or I am sorry or not showing that to her) she says I am lying because my words don't line up with my actions. It has gotten to the point now where we have had these conversations so many times that I just get angry now and by angry I mean really angry. I will be driving to work shrieking at the top of my lungs, pounding the steering wheel with my fists. When we get in arguments and we are both screaming I will scream about how I hate this relationship and how I can't do it anymore. I don't like who I am with all of this anger and this is carrying over into my life outside of the relationship and it is scary and I don't know what to do. My girlfriend is saying that if I don't go get help for my anger and if something doesn't change soon that we will no longer be in a relationship.

Has anybody else had any experience with anger like this? I know anger is a common symptom of lyme. I know that stress often sets off herxes or at least makes symptoms worse (and that has been a huge point of contention with us, when things get hard I say that I can't do this because of how I am feeling and she is saying that I am using lyme as an excuse to not have to deal with things or look at myself and says that she thinks the lyme is purely psychological because when I am at work I can be around other people in not stressful situations and not feel as terrible or like I want to die and shut down and cry, but when we get in a bad situation I can avoid it because of how I am feeling).

Sorry this post is kind of scattered but I feel so bad and trapped and like I am never getting better. I have been in treatment for 14 months and I am not even close to better even though initially my doctor said it should be probably about 6 months total (I know there is no way to ever know that). My life is just full of stress now and my girlfriend and I often aren't getting enough sleep either because one of us has to get up early for work or because we are up until 3am fighting and then start fighting when we wake up too (an she doesn't sleep when we are fighting, which is almost all of the time). I don't know what to do anymore. I guess I just want somebody to listen to me.

We started going to couple's therapy together. In there my girlfriend has felt really hurt that she thinks I only bring up and remember certain things and that I manipulate her and our therapist and she says that I am abusive and treat her the worst out of anybody that she has ever been with and she has been with people who have broken her fingers before in a fight. If she read this post I feel like she would say that I am misrepresenting the situation and trying to get support and manipulating strangers on the internet to get justification for my actions (but that is me putting words in her mouth I don't know if she actually feels that way or not).

I just want to be better.

I'm so sorry, Bryguy. Relationships are hard enough, but toss in Lyme disease and they can be extremely hard! I'm married and had those issues.

Honestly, it sounds like your GF needs to understand a bit more about these infections and how they affect us - we can't always be as responsive as others would like us to be. Anger, anxiety, depression, depersonalization, and derealization can all make it very hard on relationships.

If you have any anxiety or depression issues, I would encourage you to get medications or supplements/herbs to help you deal with those. If you are dealing with the depersonalization or the derealization (sounds like you might be?), then that just takes time and healing and she will have to be understanding of that part. But you can kind of meet in the middle on many things.

Hopefully, these links will provide you with at least some ideas - maybe you can get her to sit down and read these links and then watch the movie too?

Under Our Skin (Lyme Disease documentary):​
www.hulu.com/watch/268761


​ Lyme Spouse - support for your loved ones:
/www.facebook.com/LymeSpouse

So you know someone with Chronic Lyme disease:
www.tiredoflyme.com/so-you-have-a-friend-or-family-member-with-chronic-lyme-disease.html#.U3dTc3bbS1t​


​"Dear Family of a Lyme Disease patient ​"
/www.lymedisease.org/lymedad/?print=print

top-ten-things-you-can-do-for-someone-with-lyme
cancerfactscentral.org/top-ten-things-you-can-do-for-someone-with-lyme/


10 Things To Remember If You Love A Person Who Have Lyme Disease
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-things-know-when-someone-your-life-has-lyme-disease-annie-dance

I think couple's therapy is good, but you should be seeing a Lyme literate therapist so that they truly understand your issues. A therapist can't understand how much these infections can interfere with our thinking or our ability to communicate, much less how we suffer with depersonalization and other things unless they have had this training. Depending on where you are located, I may even have a listing of a Lyme literate therapist. You can send me an email if you would like to find out.

I was married, and divorced now. I guess I've had lyme about 18 years. Lyme probably caused my divorce. but at the time, it was not diagnosed. I just knew I didn't feel well. As long as you know you have Lyme that should be a big help. You can outsmart your problem. I wish I knew. My ex wife just thought I had a bad and depressed personality.

I'm sorry you're going through this, lymeassassin. While I understand your girlfriend's need/desire to talk this through and confront the issues...it sounds like it's ongoing - daily...which is too much.


As Traveler said she needs to have a little more understanding about these infections and how they affect our mood and how we communicate.

Also, your Lyme Dr. said 6 months and you'd be well? Maybe if it was caught early...but most people take longer than 6 months.

Thank you very much for your offer Traveler. I passed the offer along to my (now-ex) girlfriend and she was considering it. That was incredibly generous of you and I think would have been very helpful. Unfortunately as of a couple of days ago we are no longer in a relationship. It doesn't feel real and hasn't really sunk in yet. Life feels too hard most days.

I'm so very sorry, Bryguy. Hang in there. This is an incredibly stressful event, so please do take really good care of yourself, as well as increased detoxing. Stress is a big issue when we are this ill.

And the offer still stands if you wish to talk or if I can be of help in other ways.

I have huge anger crud. What helps me are the tools on this website. Great communication tools. www.conscious.us. What helps me most is to develop a system of when I am not able to communicate well, even if I have to wave my little yellow piece of paper (system we devised). Then when I feel in a grounded space, we schedule a time to have a conversation and use various techniques. I've found for myself, couples counseling often made it worse, but each couple seems to find their path.

If I were in your situation, I'd take Lithium Orotate 5mg 3 times a day to help stabilize the fluctuation of neurotransmitters.