My girlfriend and I are med students at the same school. We've been together for several months now. Our relationship is incredible most of the time, and we've both agreed that we can tentatively see a future together. However, she is struggling with depression and anxiety, and cannot bear to be alone. I had a really rough time with depression at one point in my life, so I try to be as understanding as possible.
But we text constantly, and if I don't text back quickly enough, she will get upset (but try to hide it). Often, she gets really sad at the end of our time together (when I leave, or ask her to leave so I can get stuff done) but tries to hide it. In past relationships, her neediness has caused problems, so she is hyper aware of being too needy and often quietly struggles without saying anything to me. When she's alone, she cries and has anxiety attacks and often texts me about it, but then feels bad for telling me about it because she worries she's being manipulative, and won't stop apologizing and basically feeling bad for feeling bad.
She's also needy physically, and this is a good example of the way that her anxiety can "spiral" and how it affects me. I am not into PDA. I like hand holding, but that's about it, unless we're in a really small group of close friends. Part of this is because we're gay, and even though I'm out, it's taking time to get used to the way that people react to us being affectionate. We've talked about our love languages, however, so I make an effort to be more physically affectionate. But when she drinks, she gets extremely affectionate and it makes me uncomfortable in front of other people. One time, she was drunk and all over me at a game night with friends, some of whom I didn't know well, and it was to the point where I couldn't even keep up with the game we were playing/hold my cards. We were holding up the whole game for everyone playing. She seemingly casually said "sorry if this is too much PDA" and when I kind of agreed "yeah, it's a bit much but it's okay!" she was immediately upset, but tried to hide it. Then she disappeared for a while and I found her crying in my friend's kitchen. I took her home and we had a really rough, long night of her crying about being too needy and how she's sorry that she got upset that I spoke up about being uncomfortable and she wants me to speak up more. But it ruined the night, and even after she sobered up, she was upset for the rest of the next day and I missed my workout class (which is the only thing keeping me sane during med school) because I was comforting her while she just kept apologizing over and over again.
We have really important, make-or-break exams coming up, so it's been a stressful and chaotic time for all. I've been spending most of my time in the library. For that reason, we haven't spent many nights together this past week. Otherwise, though, we spend multiple nights per week together and also see each other at school and also hang out for the majority of weekends. I thought I was doing pretty good - it's hard for me to give her this kind of time and attention because I'm introverted and really value my alone time. Ideally, I would have 3-4 nights of the week totally alone to reboot, but I was rarely, if ever, having more than 1-2 nights alone up until this week. She told me last night that for a while, she's been feeling like we don't spend enough time together. She said she knows it's needy and she needs to work on being able to be alone, so she doesn't want me to have to change. I told her that she's not needy, but that I worry about her not being able to be alone and I wish I could help.
She has several close friends (all other med students), and expressed the same sentiment to them - that they don't spend enough time with her, but that she feels like a burden because she gets extremely depressed when alone. I don't really know how much time they spend with her. I am trying my hardest to maintain boundaries, particularly when so much is riding on this upcoming exam, but it's not really working. For example, yesterday she was sad so I let her sit by me in the library while I studied, so as to avoid her being alone for a little longer. But the whole time we were there, she was texting me about how depressed she was, and at one point started crying and had to go for a walk. I feel so bad because there was nothing in particular wrong, she just felt awful, and that's how my depression felt, too. But I hardly studied and at that point, I might as well have been at her apartment with her comforting there, rather than spending time in the library without working at all.
I got up this morning to study and she just texted me all this morning, upset about how upset she was last night in the library and after, and being really down on herself ("I'm 24 and can't be alone, what's wrong with me, why am I like this?"). She blew off her exercise class and has a thing with a friend today, but she says she wants to skip it basically because she's sad and awful and no one wants to be around her and she'll just ruin it. I told her that I love her and to let me know if I can do anything to help, but that I might not be texting back much for a few hours because I'm studying. And that her friend would be disappointed if she missed it and she wants her around because she loves her, even when she's not at 100%. She just said "sorry."
One thing that helped me when I was depressed was learning DBT / "distress tolerance" techniques. I've mentioned it to her and she's uninterested in the resources on this that I have. She has a therapist right now but doesn't like her and I am pretty inclined to think that it's not working that well. She also has very little money and shitty insurance. We're going to start rotations in july/august and we'll be more than 8 hours apart (driving) and she won't know anyone in the area and doesn't want to spend her limited money on therapy. But I desperately need her to learn how to self soothe, at least some of the time.
Am I just an asshole? I know I can't make her want to learn to be less dependent. But is there anything I can do to encourage it? Any way I can work on setting gentle boundaries? I am trying to be fair and supportive and a good girlfriend, but I also have to pass exams and deal with my own stress and anxiety (which, by the way, are at pretty high levels right now). I can't be her therapist. And I am trying to compromise where I can on my own preferences/needs, but I don't know if that's a sustainable solution.
tl;dr: my girlfriend is going through a lot and needs help that I can't give her. It's interfering with my career. How do I set reasonable boundaries?
edit: another question - how much time together is a "normal" amount? Am I just exceptionally introverted? If so, that's something I can work on. I feel that maybe my perspective is skewed because she and I are opposite ends of the spectrum?
Submitted April 27, 2019 at 09:36AM by hsnthrow http://bit.ly/2J1wlEW
No comments:
Post a Comment