[Penelopie]

Hi,

my boyfriend has quite a serious case of depression and is on a waiting list for a psychiatrist at the moment. I met him six months ago on holiday and didn't realise until i had feelings for him that he was depressed as i don't think he quite new at the time why he was so low. he struggles to tell me the main things that he thinks of that cause him pain but has told me that a major part is due to his ex girlfriend but also his work, he's a police officer. He says he was depressed during his relationship with her but because he didn't know neither did she and a major problem was that he couldn't talk about any problems or if she was angry with him he'd just seize up and couldn't talk. He says she was very controlling and when he found it hard to talk shed shout at him and was very unreasonable. in the end he just cut contact one day without even finishing things properly, he just did it over the phone during an argument and they never spoke after that. he wrote her a letter a couple of months after explaining that he was sorry and he couldn't be with her and he was ill ect but she never even acknowledged shed received the letter which i think he found very hard.
he is very low and quite often can't even cuddle me as he says he just finds it hard to love but he does love me a lot and says that I'm so different to his ex because i really care for him, which i do. He has nightmares a lot and they are about her, about the break up and he feels horrendous pain specifcally the pain of losing someone. about three months into the relationship i saw that one of the last searches on his Facebook was her, whom he's not friends with anymore and i was very upset and felt betrayed. he explained that its not because he wants to be with her its just a lot of his depression stems from that relationship and he doesn't know why he dose it. anyway he promised he wouldn't do it again, i asked him a few weeks ago if he had done it again and he promised me he hadn't. Then he was out a few days later and i was on his i pad and tapped on the search bar and her name was one of the most searched names on his Facebook.
When he got home i asked him about it and he just seized up and couldn't talk to me. i asked him if he wished it had worked out with her and if wants her back to which he replied "no because she's not good for me and theres a reason i finished with her". i asked why is he looking and he said he feels like he's looking for an answer to the pain he feels but says he really loves me and wants us to be together but its hard for him to love sometimes, which i understand as my dad was depressed for five years. He's promised me he won't look again and has deleted his Facebook so he won't be reminded of her as it causes him to think of painful things. I don't know if he just feels guilty about the way he ended it or because he wishes he'd been able to save the relationship. she has a boyfriend now and would never get back with my boyfriend and I'm worried because he know that he's telling me he doesn't want to be with her. I don't want him to be with me just because he's trying cure the pain of losing her and doesn't want to be on his own.
I respect his privacy and he respects mine but I'm starting to feel like i can't trust him after he's lied to me and to protect myself to get the truth i feel i need to check up on him which i don't want to do. i love him so the depression is something i can deal with as iv lived wth someone that has it so I'm aware but i don't want to be second best and just a comfort for him. I don't want to get hurt is my main problem but i don't know if he's being truthful or if he even knows what he feels. I do everything i can for him to try and help ease the pain, looking for psychotherapists or talking through things, but I'm also in the last year of a degree as a mature student and its tough. i just don't want to be taken for granted if its not me he really wants.

has been in his situation and can help me understand?

[dexter]

Hi Penelopie it sounds like your boyfriend is depressed but looking in the wrong place for a solution. He needs to know that help is available in the form of therapy and treatment that can help him with his depression other than going back and looking at old pictures which isn't healthy and isn't working. He has to want to do this though. Personally I think it is OK if he won't talk to you about it but he has to talk about it to someone and that's what a trained professional is for. Eventually he will have to trust you enough to be open about it if he wants a relationship with you but before that happens he has to trust in someone who can provide some real help to him.

Are you able to guide him toward finding a therapist, convince him to seek help for the pain?

[ShineYourLight]

ITS KIND OF SAD. you cant really help people heal there pain. You can only be of support. Only the person who is going through it can help himself! But like I said be the best support you can be!!!!

[Penelopie]

thanks for your response,

my boyfriend knows he is depressed, he also has OCD and anxiety, he is on 20mg of cictalopram but he wants to up it to 40mg as it isn't working and is making going to work painful, but he's worried as he doesn't want to become addicted to a high dosage which hell have to come off at some point in the future. he started seeing a psychotherapist but he had a bad spell due to leaving his tablets at home on a weekend away and cancelled his remaining sessions with her as he felt so down he said nothing was working and there was no point. things got pretty bad and so his doctor referred him to a psychiatrist where he was staged at a level 2 and put on a waiting list for treatment. He gets free counselling through work and has started the process of arranging it as he has just started back at work after 9 months off and finding it very hard and stressful.
i support him as much as i can, iv spent the last 6 months since i met him trying to help him and convince him to contact all the right sources to help and solely we are getting there, but i know its a long road ahead.
the problem is the whole depression seems to be about his past relationship and the pain of losing someone (her) which worries me as i don't know if its just that their relationship was so stressful she seems to be the cause of his problems now or because he's still in love with her and distraught because his illness wrecked their relationship as neither of them new. i know he feels guilty about lots of things which i understand but he says all they did was argue and she wouldn't let him do anything as she didnt trust him and because he was ill but didn't know it the angry way she dealt with things shouting etc forced him to break up with her and not in a nice way, just ignored her as he couldn't cope with her. so i don't know if he just feels lots of guilt or is kind of obsessed with her and wishes things worked out (i know he wanted to marry her and buy a house etc) i know it sounds selfish but i don't to be with someone and put so much energy into someone who's heart really lies with someone else. iv had too many awful relationships and i just don't want be used to get over her.
i know he dose love me and care a lot for me and i want to help him as much as i can but not if in 6 months he realises I'm not for him. he can't seem to work out how he feels to even tell me.

[Penelopie]

i give him so much support as much as i can without making him feel like he's got something wrong with him, because i know he thinks his parents think that which is sad.
he is on citalopam but wants to double his dosage as he feels the meds arent working but he's worried and so am i that he will become reliant on them to be feel any kind of happiness, but as he is now back at work and riding it very hard and stressful it seems he needs to do something or he might end up having a break down at work. he is also on a waiting list for a psychiatrist as he had a few really bad spells where he wanted to book flights to the other side of the world to run away etc. and went into these weird bubbles were he couldn't speak to anyone and would say really odd things to me and not remember saying them after. he has terrible nightmares most nights and they are all about the same thing, his last relationship and how it ended. he says he feels the pain of losing someone he loves along with guilt etc.it seems to be one of the main problems and he is always looking for answers as to why it revolves around this one thing by looking on his ex girlfriends Facebook when he feels down. i don't know if its because he's in love with her and regrets ending it or if he feels guilty because his illness caused the relationship to fail. he says she was controlling and shouted at him all the time and ended up pushing him to break up with her because neither of them new at the time he was ill. n general he just feels emotionless and says he feels incapable of loving anyone and says he sometimes he feels nothing when cuddles his own mother, which as he is her only sone she is very upset by.
i feel like I'm in a relationship with him and his ex because she seems to be the route of most problems and quite often it makes me feel like I'm just here to help him get over her.

[danianndonaldson]

I can honestly say that I was in his position until about 3 months ago. It took me awhile to realize that I could not let myself feel guilty for breaking it off with someone that was making me feel depressed. I had to do what was best for me, but I still would look up his profile on facebook just to make sure he was doing okay without me. I would also lie to my current boyfriend about looking up my exes profile on facebook, mainly because I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. He will realize that he cannot be feeling guilty for doing what was best. It just takes time.

[Penelopie]

im not sure if he's doing it to make sure she's ok, he broke up with her in October 2014 so it's been a while and he has nightmares about the bad feelings he had during that break up. I'm just struggling to understand why as he didn't like talking about her to me so then it makes feel worried about our relationship and that then makes me upset and its stress he didn't need. I try to hide how it makes me feel but sometimes it's a bit much especially when hes feeling really low X X didn't want to come near me. I just want to understand so I can put my energy into supporting him and not making him feel guilty because I know guilt is one of the main issues here.

[Penelopie]

im not sure if he's doing it to make sure she's ok, he broke up with her in October 2014 so it's been a while and he has nightmares about the bad feelings he had during that break up. I'm just struggling to understand why as he didn't like talking about her to me so then it makes feel worried about our relationship and that then makes me upset and its stress he didn't need. I try to hide how it makes me feel but sometimes it's a bit much especially when hes feeling really low X X didn't want to come near me. I just want to understand so I can put my energy into supporting him and not making him feel guilty because I know guilt is one of the main issues here.