Hey guys. I recently joined PC, and I'm looking for advice. My story is (link removed until I have 10 posts, but its the only thread the depression section by me). There are a lot of relevant things in that post, but I will repeat the ones that are directly related to my relationship here.

Hello everyone, I'm Zac. I'm a 19 year old male and I have depression. I've been depressed for about 2 years now, although I only started seeing a psychiatrist right before Christmas 2009. Here is my story, in bullet form, because I think its easier to organize things that way.

• Altercation with father, mentioned in linked post in the intro
• I missed a few weeks of school, and came back. The first day I came back, I was so upset at what had happened and what was ahead of me, when I met up with my then girlfriend and I couldn't contain my emotions, I cried, and just said I couldn't do today. We went to her father (who was a teacher at our school) he took us to the office and after explaining the situation to my counselor got permission from my dad and the school for her to take me home. We got to my house and probably had the most intimate moment of my life, and that kinda helped a bit going forward.
• I got through summer and eventually was off to a state university, about 2-3 hours away from our hometown. My then girlfriend went there, and my best friend moved down there despite taking local online courses at a local Community College, to be closer to his then girlfriend.
• I started off ok, I never really got to know my roommates (we all had separate rooms, and I've always been more of a few close knit friends kind of guy). My girlfriend and I's physical relationship was at its peak, and our mental relationship was about where it was at High School.
• Slowly as the semester went on, I stopped having the motivation to do stuff. I didn't go and hang out with my girlfriend at events, or gatherings, preferring to be alone with her. Often times this would lead to sexual interactions, which was good and fine for the most part, as we had been rather slow and careful in building that into our relationship.
• Depression sinks in (better explained in the linked post), though I didn't identify it as "depression"
• Eventually my Girlfriend was feeling like all I ever wanted to do was be secluded, and felt like every time we met I was all about sex. I think I did this because of the day she brought me back home from high school, because that moment made me feel so much better, and closer to her. She started not wanting to do anything sexual. I was much more persistent than I should have been. I always wanted to talk about it. eventually we did things less and less, and also hung out a little less often, but not a ton, though I rarely went out with her.
• Over the Xmas break we kinda made a pact that I would try to improve, both in our relationship with being persistent about sex,and with school and such. I went to my counselor and kinda talked about me having a hard time being motivated. she told me what I needed to do to keep my state scholarship. I ended up needing to retake most of my classes.
• The next semester started and it started off solid. My relationship with my Girlfriend improved, both sexually, but much more importantly mentally. I also started trying to be adamant about assignments, being more organized. We had a long weekend a month or so in, so I went back home. I came down wicked sick, fevers of 100+ and went back to school feeling pritty terrible.
• Being sick brought me back into the depressive feelings
• My relationship with my girlfriend plummeted as well. She tried helping me by researching jobs and she did so much to help me help myself about school, and organization, and getting a place to live for the next year, and a job. I kept putting down her advice, or not having the drive to get any of it done. Our sexual relations ceased to exist, and she would just get frustrated with me. It was obvious she still cared about me, but she couldn't help me.
• I eventually broke down. After realizing that I had no chance to salvage my grades, I came and broke down to her again, saying explaining my lack or drive and no solution. I'm the kind of person who doesn't like breaking commitments, or disappointing people so when she suggested that I just stop, and go home, and try for square one before the semester ended, I suddenly realized that was the only answer. I called my parents the next day, and within the week, my buddy and I packed everything and was ready to go.
• During that last week, my girlfriend and I's relationship was in a weird place. I felt a bit better because I thought the change of scenery would help. She still didn't want any sexual relations, but even things that weren't explicitly sexual were kind of tense.
• I eventually left, and my girlfriend and I didn't talk that much, as I was sleeping/recovering a lot, and she had finals. Before the school year ended I went back to town with my family to return my dorm key, and I spent the night with my girlfriend. It was real awkward, to the point where I could kinda tell she was a bit weirded out at affection, even non-sexual. It wasn't totally blatant, but it sure didn't feel like the kind of interaction between 2 people who had at that point been dating for more than 4 years and hadn't seen each other in a month.
• School was over, I think I eventually got my job back at my old job before I left for school at a fast food joint. I wasn't getting very many hours. My girlfriend and I hung out a few times, one time in particular we went bike riding at some bike trails, something she had been wanting to do for some time. I was really frustrated because I had to use my dads beach cruiser, which isn't very good for mountain biking. My girlfriends bike didn't even have breaks, and she had sandles on.
• One of the next few times we hung out, we were in my room. I had kinda made up my mind to try to bring things to a better relationship. So I was trying to be romantic, without being overly sexual. I went in to kiss her, and she kept turning away. I eventually asked her what was wrong, and she eventually said that even though she hadn't planned on mentioning anything, that she didn't want to be together anymore. I don't really remember much about that day, other than me crying harder than I have ever cried in my life (imagine a panic attack on top of crying uncontrollably) and then falling asleep (I had stayed up all night the night before because my sleep schedule had gone to hell), before waking up, and her eventually leaving.
• I was really in denial for a long time about the break up, I didn't want to believe it, especially because I was starting to feel on the right track, and I KNEW something had been bothering her for a while, and I was too late to stop it.
• This is skipping forward for a bit but at this point there were 2 different things I had gathered about the breakup that kind of evolved over time. 1)My state of being (which about 3-4 months after the breakup I realized was depression) when I was at school was very emotionally draining on her. She felt like she wasn't getting 2) She wanted the opportunity to eventually experience dating other people because I was the only one she had ever dated (for the record the she was also he only person I have ever dated). This part bothered me the most, but I will revisit this later.
• Got new job, mulled every day at work over her, about 3 months after breakup
• Got fired for excessive tardiness (better explained in previous post)
• Went to a psychiatrist about 2-3 weeks ago, got prescribed anti-depressants
• After Christmas I talked with my Ex about different things. She kinda expanded on how she felt saying that, she did feel relieved last semester not having to deal with my draining her and feels free. She talked about not wanting to date anyone right now because she wanted to feel freedoms and experience new things, and when she was dating me she had to worry about so much more than herself. I tried to explain to her that she was being smothered by me because of my depression. She said that I had always been kind of anti-social, and that she wants to do things like go to party's and clubs (I suppose this is a good time to mention we were an interracial couple, I'm white and she is black, not that its very relevant) or go out fishing, things which I wasn't really into. She said she didn't want me to change these things for her I told her that I eventually had to try new things anyways.
• We also talked about her wanting the freedom to try to experience dating new people, and although she said she wasn't talking about anytime or anyone in particular, or even that it would happen. She also has been insistent about us becoming better friends first before thinking about a romantic relationship although as she has said "you have as good of a shot, probably better than anyone else trying to date me". I said that its really hard, because I feel like if I get better, and can show her that, but she wants to date someone else for the experience, but with the possibility of coming back to me if the experience isn't what she wants later is a very difficult situation for me. I want her back more than anything in the world right now. I'm not going to pursue anyone else until I know it wont work with us, and I no longer love her. I feel that we broke up because of something out of my control, but if she would rather wait to find someone else just to see what that experience is like rather than at the very least SEE if she could feel romantically about me again once I was better, than I would have a very hard time staying her friend. I made a metaphor that I'm not like clothing, you can't try me on to see if I fit, try on some more people later, then come back to me in the end. No matter how much I cared about her, I would have a hard time letting my morals have that happen. She tried to say the analogy was poor, because in the same analogy, how could she know if there was something that fit perfect if I was all she tried.
• So I instead brought up an incident where I went to great length to get homecoming tickets to another school (where all our middle school friends went to) even though the dance was on the same day as our homecoming game (we were in the band together, so we were required to go). I knew she wanted to do this very badly even though I wasn't a big dance guy and the timing would be tight. Our game got delayed by rain, and we couldn't end up going, and I was terribly upset because I had put so much work into it and it had fallen through, when I had felt all along that it wouldn't be worth the trouble. I had called her that night really upset explaining what I was upset with her about. She asked me that night if I was breaking up with her. My reply was "of course not, I just want us to get this solved" [our plans had a knack for being last minute and I had to do most of the planning, and they fell through a lot]). I said imagine I broke up with you that night, the issue was something I was bothered with you about, but not bad enough to break up about (bad at planning and keeping plans) , but was accentuated by something out of your control (lightning storm). If I had broke up and then said "I'm going to try to date other people to experience more things", but if I can't I will give you another shot. This was similar to how we ACTUALLY broke up. She was bothered by something about me but not bad enough to break up about (my slight anti-socialness and dislike for dancing in public), but was accentuated by something out of my control (depression) and now you are saying the same thing to me. She said she understood, and would kind of go with it, but she wouldn't do so without saying she was "convinced" or coerced.
• We hung out a day later, she just came over and we watched a movie. She's normally a rather outgoing touchey feely person, not only with me when we were dating, but just with close friends, guys and girls alike. Ever since we've been done dating, besides the occasional, fairly brief hug ,our time together feels its like we're acquaintances stuck together in an elevator, rather than friends or people who dated for 4.5 years. Part of it is i'm used to being able to put my arm around her for so long, but part of it is her awkwardness I think.
• Afterwards I sent her a long long long list of questions about our relationship, why we broke up, and how she feels going into the future of our relationship. I'll hear back from her soon, but she is doing volunteer work starting this morning for a week and isn't sure if she will have internet access.
• About 4 hours before I got this far into writing this gargantuan story I woke her up with a phone call because I was having a mini panic attack (I had a full fledged one when one of my buddies came over to my other friends house for his birthday with his girlfriend and spent the night, and I was kinda overwhelmed that night as we all went to sleep and they went to sleep together, I was thinking about how I cant do stuff like that anymore and I had a silent panic/crying attack where I had trouble breathing. Not pleasant) We talked some, and I tried to explain how sorry I was for all I put her through, because I had never really said it, and tried to stress that I am getting help. We talked and she said that one of the main things that made her not want a romantic relationship with me is because she still has a hard time enjoying being around or talking with me because its always so negative feeling, or we're talking negatively about how I feel sad we aren't together. She was tired and said that there was still some more to it that she had explained in the questions, but she wasn't done with them yet. I did ask her if that would at least get us on the right path towards that type of relationship, and she said, yea, thats a part of it. I then asked if the "more to it" was something that I could bear any influence on, and she said its hard to explain, but she thinks so. This has made me feel a lot better, and I think that if I'm just more positive and try to enjoy myself with her, it maybe hopefully in the long run could end up with us being back together. I'm not trying to get my hopes too high, and understand it could take a while. But that has at least given me some assurance of a direction.

Ok a lot of that is copy/pasted from my other points, skimming over the details that don't directly relate to our relationship. I really want to be with her again, but if we figure out for sure we wont work, I'd like to be able to be friends without resenting her for "trying me on". I know its a long read, but I feel like in order to have a good plan going forward, the people helping me should have access to as much info as I can remember.

Thanks and good luck with this whopper of a post, you'll need it.

-Bias