New Girlfriend With Severe Depression

[bmcnicho]

We've only been dating a few weeks and she's already shared a lot of heavy personal stuff with me.  She has pretty severe anxiety and depression, and she worries a lot that I'm gonna break up with her, even though I give her lots of positive attention and compliments.  I found out that she self harmed today. She refuses to get help and is upset when I say she should.

She's already very attached to me, and some of the things she says make me uncomfortable, but it makes her sad when I suggest that things are going too fast.  She's also very energetic, and when we spend several hours together it gets pretty exhausting, but I can't really talk to her about that, because that's something she's insecure about.

I really like her for other reasons, she's very creative, very kind, and I feel comfortable enough to be very authentic around her.  It's just feels like way too much way too fast.  It seems like I have to be very strong and stable in order to help her, but I have issues in my own life to deal with too.

I know that if anything happened to her I'd blame myself.  I feel responsible for her even though we just met.  It's scary knowing that even being a little impatient with her or making a slightly negative comment could have a large effect on someone in that kind of mental state.  It seems like a state of selflessness is required here that's way beyond my level of development.

Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated 

[NoSelfSelf]

You cant help her get that in your head right now ! Shes manipulating you..

[Austin Actualizing]

I would try to smoothly get out and move on. 

[egoeimai]

@bmcnicho you never 'match' with a person that you don't share interests together. It's no doubt that you have those qualities in common. So that's no random. 

Accepting her situation and helping her would be a great deal for your relationship but if you are not capable/ready of doing it right now, just leave her soon. 

[Average Investor]

Easy way to get hooked on crazy in my experience. I'd run for the hills while you still have a chance. I'd say that she will eventually become very clingy and push you anyway. But if you think she needs help now imagine once you are with her for a year what it would be like. Dump all of your time and energy into her making very minimal gains. 

[bmcnicho]

@egoeimai I'd like to think I could be capable of that, I just don't know...I'd really have to confront my own selfishness

The consensus advice seems to be that I should end it, and I see why you all would say that.  The idea of that just makes me really sad, and it feels wrong...

[Average Investor]

@bmcnicho Why would you make yourself miserable to try to make someone feel better? I am sure other people around you promote you to be a nice guy and continue with it. You can skip our advise, but I would suggest you work on yourself as well. Because I was very weak, when I continued an abusive relationship for the same reasoning. 

I hope it works out for you either way. 

[CreamCat]

19 hours ago, bmcnicho said:

She has pretty severe anxiety and depression, and she worries a lot that I'm gonna break up with her

How is she going to handle divorce if she cannot even handle a break-up?

I hope your next girl friend was someone who's mentally stable and doesn't have emotional roller coaster rides.

Edited September 1, 2019 by CreamCat

[d0ornokey]

From my life experience, I'd say no 

Theres too much dysfunction and you can have a girl without that much dysfunction 

I know people that have had dysfunctional ones vs not

Her coping mechanisms will be really poor and it will most likely show up how later on and you'll be like fuck 

Really. dont stay bro. 

Edited September 1, 2019 by d0ornokey

[Lubomir]

You can't really help her from her problems bro. The only thing you can do is to support her.

And when she isnt helping yourself, guess what you're going to support

You're gonna only struggle with her. There's a chance, it's small, but it is there... when you brake-up with her, maybe she will get your words and will try to get better on her own, but maybe not.

Good luck

Edited September 8, 2019 by Lubomir

[Dlavjr]

I'd say just level with her and say if she's not willing to get help or even try to help herself, then you can't stay together. If she was getting help or trying to help herself then you could be there every step of the way but if not, it's not your responsibility to fix her or carry her. You're not a therapist, and she'll end up anchoring you down and leeching off you, whether that's her intent or not. I've been in a relationship like that before, I spent 2 1/2 years being as patient as I could even though at times she even said she'd kill herself if I was to leave. It only gets worse, because you can only take so much before all that negativity starts to wear you down. Give her the choice, give her that chance to make an effort to get better, but if she's not gonna put the work in why should you?

[Annoynymous]

@bmcnicho did she have previous relationships? If yes, how much time ago did she break up with her last bf?  

[Leo Gura]

I've been in that exact situation before.

It's gonna be really hard to make that work.

Usually serious depression, anxiety, and low self esteem are a sign of some deeper trauma which she is avoiding/denying. Often it could be sexual abuse, rape, death of mother or father, etc. Serious stuff. This tends to go hand in hand with alcohol and substance abuse. So watch out.

Such women get very needy, very clingy, very emotional, and they are almost impossible to help because they perceive suggestions to get help as an attack on their identity. As in, "Why don't you love me for who I am?!!!" A needy person is so desperate for love they cannot handle truth. The slightest suggestions for self-improvement trigger them. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy effect where their fear of being abandoned makes them so clingy that no healthy relationship is possible, thereby leading to abandonment, reinforcing the idea in their mind that they are unlovable. No serious communication is possible because such people cannot handle truthful communication. They want fantasy and sweet lies.

Such people need deep therapeutic help, enormous self-help work, and lots of spiritual development. Unfortunately they tend to refuse any such thing -- making their relationship impossible.

And finally when you try to end the relationship, there will be huge waterworks and the threat of suicide.

Try to see what you can do. Try introducing her to some basic self-help and self-esteem work. But also understand that this person has deep inner wounds which you probably cannot fix. Such wounds usually take 10-20 years to resolve, and that's IF the person is interested in working on herself.

Try to figure out what the root cause of her depression / anxiety is. Usually it's a traumatic childhood or teenage event. She is likely to hide such an event from you because she's scared that if you find out you will leave her. Such women often lie a lot to themselves and therefore will lie to you. It's part of her coping strategy to avoid deep truth or deep self-reflection.

In practice such women can only be in highly dysfunctional relationships until they do some serious self-help work.

If she has serious low self-esteem, chances are high she's got a history of abusive relationships. Try to dig into her history to get a sense of what you're dealing with. It could be some dark stuff.

Don't blame yourself. Some women are just like this and cannot be helped until they seek help for themselves.

[Bill W]

@Leo Gura Great post above. I've had two such relationships. I'm also far from perfect myself and have a lot of my own shit to work on but what Leo said is so true. It's hard enough to change problematic and toxic elements of yourself even IF you are honest with yourself and willing to do the work, so if you are not honest or willing to try and be honest and don't want to do the work, then forget it. You've got no chance. Just speaking out loud as liked Leo's post. This might not be too relevant to the OP sorry. 

[Pernani]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I've been in that exact situation before.

It's gonna be really hard to make that work.

Usually serious depression, anxiety, and low self esteem are a sign of some deeper trauma which she is avoiding/denying. Often it could be sexual abuse, rape, death of mother or father, etc. Serious stuff. This tends to go hand in hand with alcohol and substance abuse. So watch out.

Such women get very needy, very clingy, very emotional, and they are almost impossible to help because they perceive suggestions to get help as an attack on their identity. As in, "Why don't you love me for who I am?!!!" A needy person is so desperate for love they cannot handle truth. The slightest suggestions for self-improvement trigger them. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy effect where their fear of being abandoned makes them so clingy that no healthy relationship is possible, thereby leading to abandonment, reinforcing the idea in their mind that they are unlovable. No serious communication is possible because such people cannot handle truthful communication. They want fantasy and sweet lies.

Such people need deep therapeutic help, enormous self-help work, and lots of spiritual development. Unfortunately they tend to refuse any such thing -- making their relationship impossible.

And finally when you try to end the relationship, there will be huge waterworks and the threat of suicide.

Try to see what you can do. Try introducing her to some basic self-help and self-esteem work. But also understand that this person has deep inner wounds which you probably cannot fix. Such wounds usually take 10-20 years to resolve, and that's IF the person is interested in working on herself.

Try to figure out what the root cause of her depression / anxiety is. Usually it's a traumatic childhood or teenage event. She is likely to hide such an event from you because she's scared that if you find out you will leave her. Such women often lie a lot to themselves and therefore will lie to you. It's part of her coping strategy to avoid deep truth or deep self-reflection.

In practice such women can only be in highly dysfunctional relationships until they do some serious self-help work.

If she has serious low self-esteem, chances are high she's got a history of abusive relationships. Try to dig into her history to get a sense of what you're dealing with. It could be some dark stuff.

Don't blame yourself. Some women are just like this and cannot be helped until they seek help for themselves.

Sounds exactly like my ex, damn that shit gets ugly real quick

[MsNobody]

@bmcnicho you will have to confront your own selfishness or you would have to let go of your self respect? 

My story is very similar to hers but I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself, I also had boyfriends in need of help. The problem with those people is that they lack self love, so it doesn’t matter how much love you give her, she will always need more cause she doesn’t have her own source of love within her (self love). You will end up getting hurt and in a way “feeding” her dependence, which is far from helping her and actually making things even more difficult. She is not your responsibility, don’t forget god created us all with perfection, everything she is going through is preparing her to be her best self.

So the only thing you can do is work on yourself. If you accept staying in this relationship you will end up creating more traumas for yourself, and like you said you also have your stuff to deal with. 

Good luck ?

[Knock]

Paraprashing Nathaniel Branden; We stay with others who are at the same level of self-esteem as each other.

Either one of 2 things will happen is there is going to be any future between the two of you:

- She will have to raise her self-esteem 

- You will have to lower your self-esteem

I don't know about you, but putting my future in someone else's hands doesn't make me fell like I am living a powerful life.

[FabulousKitchen]

 

Lisa A Romano is honestly one of my favorite life coaches on youtube. The way she articulates emotional hurdles is comforting, because I feel less alone when I listen. What you're going through is unfortunately normal in many relationships because a vast portion of the population is unconscious to ancestral codependency. Let alone the stigmas surrounding mental health and difficulty care-taking due to lack of general knowledge (stigma creates a cycle that only exacerbates mental health epidemic, which makes problems harder to solve). It helps me to listen to life coaches on youtube because they truly understand the scope of trauma psychology in relationships. I have a whole playlist on youtube, so for there is like 110 videos with different content creators. I left a toxic relationship, and self-help videos are my saving-grace when it comes to re-learning my independence. Please be careful, try not to see your partner as a project or someone you can heal. She needs to heal herself, I think it's honorable that you're helping her or at least being there for her. However, mental illness needs to be taken very seriously in relationship dynamics (I learned the hard way). Codependency between people needs to be reassessed consistently to avoid any unhealthy attachments or abusive dynamics. Your feelings matter, you are sovereign @bmcnicho.

Healthy detachment is difficult in a relationship where the person makes you feel guilty for expressing your needs. Healthy detachment is not supposed to be conflated with abandonment. If your partner suffers from abandonment trauma, I strongly urge you to seek professional help. Trauma healing between individuals is something that might need to be mediated with a counselor. 

Edited September 12, 2019 by FabulousKitchen
Needs more disclaimer

[LordFall]

Exactly what @Leo Gura said. I've been in that situation before AND the girl was willing to actually put the effort in it and research her problems and go to therapy with and without me and it was still a struggle and didn't work out. This is the recipe for an EXTREMELY co-dependent relationship.

You only have a sliver of hope if she can realize that her behaviors are issues and is willing to work it out. If not, 0% chance to make it work. Not even 1%.

I would personally get out now before she gets even more invested and Leo is right, you will get threats of suicide when you distance yourself then. Fix your own issues to the point that you don't attract or are immediately aware of people with severe issues before too much investment sink in.

You will grow regardless but IMO, choose a more quality growing experience. I'm sure she is a quality person and all this doesn't remove her positive attributes but in having a successful, healthy relationship; positive attributes don't outweigh negative ones. 

 

 

[Average Investor]

@Leo Gura This should be pinned in this section. This is exactly what I had went through in my last 2 year relationship and it was a hell of a struggle. This response described it down to the T.