Dealing With Depression and the [Girl Thread]

k-maps

I love my girlfriend. In fact, she is heaven, and who the fuck would want to lose that? Unfortunately, I also suffered/continue to suffer from depression most of my adult life. Depression is a chronic impediment on my life, like diabetes or asthma. Only through very hard consistent work have I managed to somewhat overcome it, and carve out a decent life for myself. Recently I've had a terrible bout of uncontrollable depression due to self-neglect/shitty circumstances and it's beginning to take it's toll on our relationship. Optimally, I would work on making it more manageable as I have in the past but other obligations prevented me from doing so as of late.

Now that I finally have time to work on it again, I find myself in a tricky situation. The problem is, I'm a shitty person/boyfriend when I'm depressed. Not only am I no fun to be around, I tend to make other people around me miserable. There's nothing in the world I'd hate more than exposing my gf to that, and to avoid this situation I've been pushing her away recently. As you can imagine, the obvious consequences of that were that she felt unloved/neglected. While I hate doing this I also feel that exposing her to my ongoing depression would be worse.

Luckily, due to conflicting plans/shitty foresight on my part we're not going to be seeing each other for the next few weeks. While I still miss her a lot, I cherish the opportunity to exclusively work on my problems for a while. However, to deal with our time apart she expects that we communicate daily via IM/Email/phone. Even though it doesn't seem like much to ask on her part, I find it extremely difficult to keep up with given my current mental state. She's been very good about hearing me out in the past(knew I was a little fucked up when she met me), but I hate constantly relegating her to the role of my therapist. Furthermore, since the exacerbated bout of depression that's almost all I ever talk to her about anymore. To reiterate, I hate doing this, because it's really unattractive and also ultimately sucks her into my misery.

I guess my question is how can I best convey that I need more space without hurting her feelings? She got really offended when I flat out told her, arguing that she is already given me ample space us being states apart and all. She got over it eventually, but I still feel like an asshole for asking her this. I guess the better question is how can I explain that I'm dealing with depression while insulating her from the shitty influence it has on my personality?

TL;DR I love my gf, how do I prevent my depression from fucking our relationship up.

Fagatron

If you plan on being with her long term, and your depression is something that isn't going to go away, it needs to be something she is able to deal with.

If you can't be honest with her about what you are going through it is going to put more strain on your relationship until it breaks. If you have already told her you need space and she got offended, it sounds like she still wants to be there for you to me; let her do so.

If you depression is too much for her to bear than so be it, but it sounds like you have a girl that loves you that wants to be there for you and vice versa, good times and bad. Let her do that.

You're lucky to have somebody who cares about you so much, though it sounds like you already know that.

Good luck man.

AlyceInWonderland

Do you go to therapy already? Forgive me if I missed that in the OP. But if you don't go to therapy, I suggest doing so. Your therapist will be an outlet for everything instead of your girlfriend. You can then talk to your GF about your progress, or other non-depression related things. Not only that, but therapy will help you overcome depression as well, instead if you doing it completely by yourself. Are you on any medication?

also this:

If you depression is too much for her to bear than so be it, but it sounds like you have a girl that loves you that wants to be there for you and vice versa, good times and bad. Let her do that.

You're lucky to have somebody who cares about you so much, though it sounds like you already know that.

ceres

She's gotta see it sometime. Don't push her away, let her in on it because she needs to know.

TheHopelessGamer

I'm going to echo what others have said and suggest you both let her in on how you're actually feeling and go to therapy/get on medication. I firmly believe that there's nothing you can do for depression that's healthier than going to a therapist and taking proper medication.

k-maps

Yes, I've been in therapy on/off for like 3 years already. But only very recently I've had the luxury of finding both a helpful counselor(for the first time in my life), and one I can see fairly regularly. Unfortunately, she is leaving for a month as of next week...which needless to say is bad timing. Also, I've had a short stint with SSRIs, but stopped for what in retrospect seems like stupid reasons. I'm definitely looking into getting back on them with guidance from my therapist/psychiatrist. I know what I need to do, but life has gotten in the way of things and threw me into a spiral of self-destruction/neglect. I'm in a fairly stressful situation right now, having to find a new apartment, and deal with residual tasks stemming from me only moving to the states a few years ago(driver license, university bureaucratic nonsense etc.).

I have and am perfectly comfortable talking to my girlfriend about almost anything. This is a big reason for me that she is a keeper. We've openly discussed my depression several times since the beginning of our relationship but it has never been as monolithic as it is now. I just don't feel it's appropriate for me to discuss my shitty life every time we talk in a self-hating way while failing to feign interest in anything that is going on in her life. The baseline wherewithal required to have normal conversations is growing weak and so to cope I try to avoid them altogether.