Partner pushing me away becasue of her depression/social anxiety/stress

[JonnyR94]

Ive been dating this girl for close to 3/4 months. She suffers from depression and general anxiety disorder and made me aware that at times she needs to zone out completely even from herself.

Initially the first few weeks were great, she convinced me to date her and we hit it off like we were twins, We were intimate very quickly and you would have mistaken use for a couple.

Skip to a few week later she has one of these zone out sessions and me being unaware of what form this came in stepped my foot right in it by being insecure and assuming she wasnt interested and talking to others. She got really defensive but the day after apologised and understood my ignorance. After that we established that if I could put up with the fact shes putting her uni dissertation work first then she was fine talking to me and having me come over.

Since then its been fine, Ive accepted it all. We had not gone on any dates but I went over for the evening alot and the connection was definitely still there.

However lately she started to become avoidant and then had another zone out session but didnt inform me, I asked if she was okay and she said she was good. This led me to again revealing my insecurities and telling her it hurts me that she was just reading my messages and not replying after she said she was good.

From this she's suddenly decided to essentially remove me completely. She says she cant be dealing with having me around or talking to her because "I want more than she can give atm", to this I informed her If i wasnt getting what I wanted I would have walked however, she doesnt believe any of this and cant accept it.

Ive now been shut out for a few days no contact and its honestly hurting me, I have no appetite and I feel sick most of the day. I have been reading about depression on the internet and realised how much of an ignorant fool Ive been taking it all to heart when she cant control what she stresses over. I informed her that Im here for her but knowing that she may never pop up is painful. \

Im not going to give up on her at all I just need to find a way to cope with it and hoped someone on here who is experiencing the same can talk.

[JessF]

Hello JonnyR94,

You sound very upset by being cut off by your girlfriend. From your perspective, you felt a great intimacy with her but interpreted her lack of communication with you sometimes (the ‘zone outs’) as a lack of interest in you.
In my experience, so much conflict in relationships comes from a conflict in needs. She has said she feels you want more than she is able to give.

Based on your post, this seems to be quite true: even knowing about depression, the “zone outs” seem to cause distress for you, and understandably so. It’s perfectly natural to expect that our romantic partners are interested and responsive to us, that there is a mutual balance there, especially in the early ‘honeymoon’ stages of a relationship. She is not able or willing to change her behaviour, and therefore has decided that this relationship is not working for her.

Putting depression aside for the moment, if you had a friend come to you feeling really down and say he had a new girlfriend who was avoidant and said that her uni work was the main priority in her life, what advice would you give him about taking that relationship forward?

[JonnyR94]

I tried to have this link in the post becasue this explains it literally the same healthcentral.com/depression/c/question/82180/56933/

And with the hypothetical scenario, well that would depend on the friend and how he felt about the girl. If he truly felt that the good outweighed the bad then I would tell him to be patient and to stick with it. I think its very hard to separate it from the depression aspect of it. By doing that it becomes just an issue of shes not that interested move on, which is why is wish this link wasnt removed as it explains it better.

Like I said we had the agreement that work came first, but suddenly the depression and work stress has hit hard and its resulted in me being pushed away. She's told me she cant deal with any social interaction, she only talks to her one friend on the same course with similar issue's (she barely talks to her parents). The stress of work and people has made her really ill and shes developed stomach problems from it so she doesnt eat much.

with regards to how i feel, I told her that ive had the opportunity to leave but havent becasue I dont want to. Not being able to talk to her is tough, but the thought of how we have been makes me overlook it all.

[JessF]

Hello Jonny, I went and had a look at that link and I have to say it is similar to many, many threads you will find here. I think it is important to separate out the depression aspect (and this is coming from someone who has depression) because I think it often clouds the real issues at play in a relationship.

There are certain behaviours that are just not workable in a relationship, and being pushed away and not having your emotional needs met is one of them. Now, it's true that depression is a mood disease and things will not always be on an even keel with that person, but it's actually up to the person with depression to be putting in some effort to manage their relationships and not just use it as an excuse to treat loved ones badly.

I don't see anything in your post that suggests she is willing to meet you halfway on this, in fact, she seems to be saying, "I can't meet your needs, therefore I can't see you any longer".

It's interesting that you say that without the depression, it would just be an issue of, 'she's not intersted, just move on'. The fact that she has depression doesn't actually change the situation for you, it just provides you with a reason to hang on in a situation where your needs aren't being met.

If she were willing to talk this through with you, then things may be different. But she isn't.

Those of us with depression live with it during the good times and the bad. If we accept the premise "she broke up with me because she is depressed", then we also have to accept the premise "she started a relationship with me because she is depressed". The depression hasn't changed, her perspective on how she can cope with this relationship has. Neither of those are things over which you have any control.

I'm sorry if this comes across as harsh, but I have read many threads like these, and my heart breaks when I see depression used as a red herring in a relationship situation that seems like a case of two people who are just not on the same page in life.