Hello, I am here to share my story with the hopes that somebody may have had a similar experience and might be able to provide me with guidance.
My name is Jim and I am 35 years old, I am an American living in England. I will do my best to keep this on topic and not about me but I certainly believe that trying to offer help to people is often times directly related to the person offering the help as well as the person receiving, blah blah blah, I have started already.
I have been dating my girlfriend for about 2 years now, we met online and for the first year lived a 2 hour train journey apart. for the first year we saw each other about twice a month, sometimes more, with that number becoming more frequent the closer to being together a year we got. It became apparent that she was unhappy with the situation and wanted to move in with me, I thought that would be nice and a good way to see how we get on living with each other, so we moved in with each other.
It was nice, we woke up next to each other, made all our meals with one another, she got to meet my friends and it was great, for me. She moved away from everything she knew, to a job that required 3 hours of total commuting time a day, and away from all of her friends. This had a huge impact on her life.
fast forward about three months, in this same situation. She started to self harm, to me this was something new but to her this was something that she had done for years from a very young age, to her early 20s at which point it went away from self harm, and she then developed an eating disorder. She was very unhappy with her job, the cutting was becoming very severe, and she was also contemplating suicide at this time, I came very close to calling NHS to come and get her many times and I felt like I could never leave her out of my sight. We talked things over and decided that the commute and her new job was too much and that she should look for a job nearby, something that was not as difficult and something that she enjoyed. She found something that she liked.
When she drinks she gets very angry, and despite the new job, she was still depressed and would yell and get angry with me for almost nothing, she threatened to leave and go back home and I said that maybe she should, we broke up for about 5 days before getting back together. I dont know if I just needed a small break, or if I was weak to get back together with her, but despite living together again she will never let it go that I told her to move out. The condition of her moving back it was that she agreed to seek help. She applied for CBT therapy with NHS and was put on a waiting list. I offered to pay for private counselling but she declined. She requested a book to read about CBT that I rushed out and got for her. Once she heard back from NHS she declined the offer for care because it was during work hours and she didnt want her colleagues to know about it, or at least that is what she told me. She has not read the book, and will not accept my offer for private care.
She know says that she will deal with it on her own and that she doesn't want me to mention counselling at all. She doesnt talk much, and is visibly sad most days. She cries alot. She will not tell her friends or family about this, and I am basically the only person, apart from who I tell when I need to talk, that knows about this.
She says now that she wants to start taking drugs again, she had a stint from age 16-18 of heavy drug use. This is obviously very worrying to me. She often talks about "not wanting to deal with it anymore", and "not wanting to feel anything"
She often asks me to hit her, or demean her sexually, which is something I am not comfortable with.
I go away often on business trips and she gets jealous and mad at my life, and says she will probably hurt herself when I am away.
I know this story is all over the place, but I dont know how to help her, or help myself. If anybody has any advice or a story to share, please contact me and let me know, I would even be willing to chat over the phone with anybody who reaches out. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
Hi Jim, your girlfriend does sound like she is going through depression. It shows itself in so many ways and different people have different " coping" strategies I guess. She does need to see someone though as this will really help her . Once she has started some treatment, and if she would go for the CBT she will see that there is light somewhere at the end of the tunnel. She feels out of sorts I guess and depression really does make people feel down and worthless, its indescribable actually. You're a good guy to be helping her. Keep trying. Tell her about the benefits of getting help, how things might seem not so bad, remind her that she can be happy as well. I wish you both lots of luck. Don't give up.