Depression, Communication, and Boyfriend

I need some advice, or at least support, when it comes to helping my boyfriend help me. I'm 21, and while I have not had an official dianosis yet due to circumstances out of my control (parental), I'm fairly certain I have some kind of depression or severe PMS (I haven't quite figured out if the timing of the depression always coincides with my period, because sometimes it just...doesnt.). I have a boyfriend of a year who has been wonderful so far in, as I think of it, 'dealing with me', but we tend to run up against a brick wall when I'm having a really bad night.

When I get really depressed, I get pretty uncommunicative and lethargic, but at the same time I am desperate not to be alone, and because I primarily am comfortable showing my true emotional state to my boyfriend and very few other people, he tends to bear the brunt of the balancing act that is required to 'talk' to me on a night when I 1. don't want to talk, 2. but want someone to be 'there', even if it's just on the phone. He lives and hour away and staying the night isn't an option, so it usually happens that we're on the phone and I get quiet, he tries to get me to talk, to laugh, anything, but I wont/don't have the energy, so after about an hour he gets frustrated (he has ADD too, so that just makes it harder for him to focus on wasting his time talking at me) and wants to go to sleep. I then proceed to get what I call a mini panic-attack, though I don't really know what it is. I get a sudden sweat and my heart rate jumps a little and I suddenly feel trapped and as though I will explode if I'm left alone. (Deep yogic breathing sometimes helps this, depending on the episode).

So I beg him to stay on the phone, and he usually does, though with increasing resistance. We either get to a point where I feel able to cope with being by myself and we both go to sleep, a point where I feel so guilty at keeping him up when he's tired that I play martyr and let him go to bed even though it costs me dearly on an emotional level, or we get to a point where he gets frustrated to the point of being pissed and hanging up.

Part of the problem is that he wants to 'fix' my depression and he cant; he has a very clinical mind, and the idea of something bothering me and upsetting me that he can't actively avert or prevent is nigh on unintelligeable to him. When he can't fix it, or thinks he isn't helping (i.e., when we sit on the phone for half an hour in silence, which is fine with me because to me it's companionship and knowing he's physically there, but for him is just stupid) he gets frustrated and wants to throw in the towel. But if he gives up, or shows signs of what to my depressed state sounds like giving up/abandoning the problem/me, I instantly feel ten times worse. I feel guilt, self-loathing, more guilt, and just plain depression.

But I really don't know what else to tell him. I can't pinpoint something and say 'here, this is what I need, can you do this for me?' and give him a tangible, acheivable goal, but in the meantime, I need him terribly (or feel like I do). Plus I just feel like it's utterly unfair of me to ask so much of him, and put him in such impossible situations. Any suggestions?

Hello MG,

The situation you are in is not uncommon on both counts, family whose idea it is that there is nothing wrong and you just need to "buck up" and a partner who is **** and thinks that by thought alone you can be "fixed".

You do need a diagnosis and only a doctor can give you that. You may be quite relieved at what your doctor can tell you which explains any behaviour and emotional issues you are dealing with and from whom you can gain proper help and support to move forward (though the boyfriend will claim kudos for that ), into a place of self managability.

I think all of us here at PC know what it is like to be in the pre-diagnosis stage and almost tearing ones hair out and . But we are all here because we went for help. There is nothing at all wrong with getting that help.

We are here to help and support each other, not everyone answers posts but those who do and those who read them feel a level of simpatico with the OP, so you have support that you are not aware of.

Please keep posting and please see a doctor so that you can start feeling better,

Rhiannon