Hello Leemilera and welcome to the forums ☺️
I’m sorry that you’re experiencing this. Relationships and love are such complicated things. As much as we wish for certainty we can never find black and white answers with such complex emotions. Both depression and anxiety can affect many areas of our lives, and unfortunately our relationships is one of them. They can affect how we feel about the situation, our partner and ourselves. It can be very confusing.
Depression can make it difficult to feel positive emotions about anything. It can cause indifference or a negative, hopeless view of our lives and our place in the world. I know for me when I’m struggling with depression I find it hard to find joy or peace in anything, including my relationships. I feel an emptiness spread over everything. I start to feel lost and don’t know what I want anymore and withdraw from the things that previously bought me joy.
Anxiety also can affect many parts of our lives, particularly Generalised Anxiety Disorder. It can throw a blanket of anxiety over everything. One of the tricky things with anxiety is the more we worry about the thing that’s making us anxious, the more we feel anxious. It becomes a cycle. It’s really tough and can make us withdraw or avoid the situations that are causing the anxiety. Which may be what you’re feeling in wanting to run away from your boyfriend.
It’s true that these things could be affecting the way you feel about your relationship and the choices you’re making. I also think you need to trust your gut instinct though. Have you tried writing down your feelings around what’s going on? It can be so helpful in getting our thoughts out of our head so that they become less overwhelming. Experiencing anxiety and depression can make it hard to organise our thoughts. It can become hard to see logic, so I find writing really helps. If you think it would be useful you could also try to write a pros and cons list for staying in the relationship.
Also, would you consider seeing a psychologist to talk about some of your concerns? It can be a powerful thing to get support for our mental health, and to have an outsider’s view of what’s going on. A psychologist will help you to understand what you need/want and develop skills that can help. If you go to your GP you can ask for a Mental Health Care Plan that will entitle you to 10 free sessions with a psychologist each year. I think it could really help.
Take care.
Alexlisa
