My boyfriend has severe depression and I need support

[Stuckinmud]

Hi everyone. I'm feeling very lost with my situation. My boyfriend of 3.5 years has depression, and I'm not coping very well. He switches between sleeping all day AND night, to sleeping during the day but being up all night, so most of the time our sleeping patterns don't match and I rarely get to see him during the day. On the odd occasion he'll be able to wake up in the morning and do things during the day. We sleep in different rooms, however we do sometimes sleep together, but it has to be in his bed in the back room. He's taking 6 different antidepressants each day, he has body tremors in bed, sweats profusely in bed, gets irritable very easy, has no sex drive, doesn't cook or clean and expects me to go to the supermarket to buy food, otherwise he'll continuously buy take away food and get it delivered. It's a huge strain on me, and at times I just can't handle it. I have a disability and suffer from tiredness, depression and lack of motivation, just to name a few. His depression was improving recently after starting his 6th medication, but now it's just back to sleeping a lot again.Whenever he drinks, he does it to the point of passing out. Whenever he's awake, he just plays the xbox or watches Netflix in the back room. I feel lonely. He does have his good days, but they aren't often. He doesn't give me much affection, and often pushes me away, and he's quite critical of what I do and don't do. My mum and friends don't understand why I put up with this, and I know it's not my responsibility to look after his well-being, but he has actually done something about it and stuck to it since I've been with him. I've been encouraging him to never give up, and he's made the effort to go to Dr's appointments and tell them if he sees no improvement.I do love him very much, but it's very hard on me at times, and I've never experienced someone with this severe depression. I don't really know what I'm asking for, I just need support.

[Stuckinmud]

Thank you. I have been learning how to communicate with my boyfriend, as I do struggle with saying something the wrong way, with many people. So far I've been able to ask him if he sees me as a long term partner and having a future with me, and he said yes, he's not going anywhere. We are very honest with each other, so I'm very glad to hear him say that. I just need to figure out how to improve some of my other communication skills.

[Stuckinmud]

After a bit of time to try and get myself together, I've finally had an improvement in my mood, but I'm so scared that I will never be able to control my emotions. After the news of my friend's engagement, things have been a bit tense between a couple of friends and I. The friend who got engaged understands my feelings, however she did say a few days later that I acted extremely childish, and another friend of ours didn't seem too understanding of how I was feeling and talked quite aggressively to me, which made me recoil, because I began to feel angry and I will always distance myself if I feel that way, as I don't want to ever say something bad out of anger. So I haven't spoken to this friend since then and I don't feel so good about myself. I HATE myself. I don't know where to go from here.

[Helpmypartner]

Hi stuck, I’ve just read your entire thread and all the comments that were made to you. I can honestly say that to almost every detail of what u have said I am in the exactly same positions with my bf. Like exactly, word for word.

i don’t even know if u will see this or not as I’m not even sure how long ago this thread was posted

i wish I could offer advice to you, unfortunately I feel just as useless as u feel about the situation, all that I can offer is a genuine 100% understanding of your situation and I am free to listen to any of your concerns.

Hope you are well take care