Hey everyone. My bf's hypochondria is insanely draining.
When we first were together, I didn't realize he was a hypochondriac, so when he always thought he had some serious illness, or that he was always dying, it was insanely stressful. He had me take him to the hospital twice, at like 3 in the morning, for things that weren't even emergencies (but he thought he was dying). I've had to drive an entire 16 hour car trip by myself, because he thought his arm muscle was strained when it wasn't. Frequently he thinks he has some horrible issue, leaving him unable to help me with the dishes or the trash a good deal of the time. Leaving him unable to help me when I'm sick myself.
He's been more stressed out than usual lately, because he's unhappy with his job, and he's now taking on more hours just for more money. I told him he didn't need to take on more hours for a job he doesn't like, because I'd prefer him to be less stressed out, rather than to have more money. But he says he wants to do this.
But this week his hypochondria has been driving me insane.
On Monday he woke me up at like 1am to complain about his stomach. His stomach is genuinely in a lot of pain, he's not making it up. But it's not a medical emergency. He's already had it looked at twice, an ultra sound and some other kind of test. He woke me up again on Tuesday (by accident that time). And then on Wednesday, right when I came back from the gym and was super sweaty (at like 10pm) that's when he decided that he was thinking about going to the hospital. Could he have decided that before I needed a shower? I had to take a 1 minute long shower, and then spend the rest of the evening playing phone tag with whatever nurse was available, only for him to describe the symptoms, and for the nurse to tell him it was not an emergency.
On Monday I got 4 hours of sleep because of him. On Tuesday it was 5. Both days I had terrible headaches because of my lack of sleep, was feeling depressed, and I was only my period those days, so that didn't help. I can't take antidepressants because they interfere with my cancer meds, so I'm left trying to cope with depression I can't medicate, while dealing with a person who's in a constant state of crisis constantly wanting to be taken care of.
Anyways, when he canceled his doctor's appointment today, because he was feeling fine, and then suddenly wasn't feeling fine afterward, I got really angry. I told him that I would far prefer him to go to the doctor, than decide at 11pm at night that that's the time to expect me to drop everything and take him to the hospital, and lose yet more sleep after a week of no sleep and headaches.
Maybe it's hypochondria. Maybe he has something real like an ulcer or acid reflux. But his actions are still really stressful to me. Waking me up. Ruining my sleep. Demanding me to deal with something instead of letting me take a shower.
So I told him as much today. I told him I understood he couldn't control his hypochondria, and that I understood his pain was real to him. But I said I needed him to be more self aware about all this, that all this is affecting me, stressing me out, and that I would like it if he could handle this all in a way that took me into consideration, and caused me as little stress as he could manage (if that was at all possible). For example, trying other things before waking me up. Deciding to go to Patients First instead of waiting till night, and deciding that's the time to get me to cart him to the hospital.
He got really angry at me and basically implied that I was being really selfish while he was in lots of pain. Maybe I am. But he's in horrible amounts of pain at least like 30% of the time, and always for things that aren't real medical emergencies, or aren't even that big of a deal. So him expecting me to live my life in constant crisis mode and not have a partner who I can have a reciprocal situation with is a bit selfish too.
Anyways. Just venting. I don't really have a purpose in saying all this, aside from just getting it off my chest and commiserating with yall. Thanks. I know there's going to be a lot of people who say "break up with him, all this stress isn't worth it." But I haven't made that decision yet.
TL:DR; Feeling drained by my boyfriend's hypochondria, constantly throwing our lives into crisis mode over nothing.
Submitted December 05, 2019 at 12:13PM by zenmushroom https://ift.tt/369c4Fw
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