Hello everyone,
I hate disappointing people, and I disappoint everyone around me with my depression. I am a 22-year-old girl. I graduated college last May, and I have a competitive and fulfilling job that will lead into a promising career. I make good money and live with my parents in an upper-middle class neighborhood. My parents are loving and caring and my childhood had been relatively normal and happy. I’ve always done well in school and attended a tier 1 college, where I also did well. Everybody tells me there’s nothing in my life that warrants depression, and that makes me feel worse. It makes me feel guilty because everything is fine outside but I want to die on the inside.
I feel stupid and ashamed for admitting it but what triggered my depression was my boyfriend of almost two years. He betrayed me more than a year ago, and I haven’t been able to overcome it. He didn’t cheat on me, and he loves me very much now. He even found a therapist for me, but last week I threatened to jump off my building and he got so scared that he called the ambulance the next day and they took me away. i pretended to be normal and told them i wasnt an immediate danger to myself so they let me go. I yelled at my boyfriend, which i feel bad about now, but it was because he had distressed my parents so much. It stressed me out. My dad talked to him and he told us to not speak to each other. Whenever I panicked in the past, Â I would call him and he would try to calm me down. I had a big panic attack today and I went to his house. He wasnt home. I feel bad about going to his house and I just want to say I’m so sorry. I think he wants to put a restraining order on me. I hate the thought that he hates me. I hate me too.
I am haunted by the memories of what he did to me, although my therapist tells me it was not that bad, not real cheating and it meant so little to him. But I lost my trust in him and my whole life revolved around trying to cleanse myself of the mistrust. I tried to control his activities, make him perfect so I wouldnt worry anymore. But I always worried, found new things to worry about. I don’t know why. I am a masochist. When I couldnt talk to him, I’d cut myself. And when he made me angry, I’d cut myself too.
At the same time, I couldnt leave him because I was too attached to him, depended upon him for happiness. I loved him, of course, and I believed most of the time that he loved me. He changed and stayed devoted to me.
I just dont want him to hate me. Wherever you are, Larry, I’m sorry for everything. I wish I didnt exist so I couldnt hurt you anymore. I wish I was gone so I couldnt hurt us. My life is almost perfect. But its that “almost” that I can’t get over. It’s not perfect. There’s a shitstain. I did everything wrong and I cant control my anger and my fits. I deserve to have a restraining order slapped on me, but I know that I wont be able to tolerate it. I’m weak and alone and too stubborn to get better. My subconscious wants to kill me. I see faces of dead women when I sleep, mangled and horrible and gaunt. I’m too soft to go through this. I don’t want to be hated by you.
13 comments
larry will eventually forgive you. what is much more difficult is for you to forgive yourself.
at least that’s what i have to tell myself about why my wife left me last year. i actually had a “restraining order” placed on me and was forced out of my home and forbidden to speak to her, for months. not because i ever threatened her or was violent or would ever hurt her… but because i couldn’t accept the fact that she was leaving me. i wouldn’t accept that fact that she chose herself, others, and material things over me and out life together.
i did make mistakes. i did break her trust. and i cannot forgive myself. it’s partly why i am here. the other part is because i literally cannot exist without her, and i don’t want to be hated by her either. so the only way to make every happy in what’s left of my life, is to not have a life at all any more.
may i ask… what did larry do to break your trust?
and btw… i am sure you are intelligent enough to already know this, but being depressed isn’t always (in fact very rarely) a reflection of your external life. most of the time it is a struggle from within. happiness should never be measured by the framework your life is structured around, but rather the painting within.
thanks for sharing your story with me. i know how you feel. larry said before we stopped speaking that he’d be there when I was better again, but I keep failing him by trying to communicate with him. It’s so difficult because, like you, I dont want to anger him but i can’t be without him.
it was during the beginning of the relationship. larry said that he loved me two months in and i didnt believe him. he has been hurt many times in the past so he was afraid of being wrong about me. larry and my therapist explained to me that he coped with it very badly by allowing a girl to cook dinner with him in his apartment (we were long distance, so i didnt know) multiple times. he said he knew what he was doing was wrong, but was trying to make “emotional insurance” in case I left him. he’s said that it was the worst mistake of his life, and I think he genuinely regrets it. when the girl came back to try to get him to leave me, he told her off. he didnt cheat on me, but its the thought that he would do something to hurt me that feels like a betrayal.
how did you break your wifes trust? larry has expressed guilt like you do. i tortured him a lot about it, and his brother told me that he doesnt sleep much at night
You are obviously intelligent and it’s quite common for people of high intelligence to experience difficulty with adjusting in society. You also seem very driven. You probably “push” yourself to remain competitive.
Depression is often caused by repressed anxiety. Perhaps this “drive” that compels you to be competitive also causes your “fits”. I think you should try to accept who you are. You seem like quite the “catch”, if you asked me. I’m sure Larry will cool down and hopefully this experience can be used as a reason for Larry and yourself to explore these feelings in closer detail. By explaining yourself to Larry and by him accepting you, the good and the bad, you can begin to expend some of this pent up frustration and anxiety and hopefully have less effects from it. I wish you all the best and don’t worry, people almost always adapt quite efficiently, even to the poorest scenarios.
well, as someone who’s greatest fear in the world is being abandoned by those i truly love, what kind of bothers me about what you said is that larry said he would “be there for you when you were better again”… this is just my opinion on it, but someone who truly cares should be there all of the time, mo matter what. i realize it’s different when you are only dating, but in my case, marriage is supposed to be “for better or worse”… not, “for better or nevermind, it got too hard”. but that’s just me. i don’t really blame my wife for her actions, but i am extremely hurt by them.
my story is long and very complicated. if you really wish to know, i believe i had made a post about it a week or so ago. the gist of it is that i really messed up. i made some bad choices. my depression is such that when i become happy with my life, i seek to destroy it, because i do not feel deserving of that happiness. my wife made me extremely happy. she was my love, my best-friend and my everything. sadly, this means that her heart was collateral damage, so-to-speak.
i regret so much of what i had done… but i did not understand at all exactly why my mind would deliberately set out to tear apart my happiness. by the time i began to figure out my issues, it became too much for her to want to deal with anymore, so she left me.
the problem that brings me to the answer of suicide is that i will not accept a life without her. she means the world to me, and my world ceased to exist when she left me… i just can’t do it without her.
i know that my wife made her mistakes too. just as i am pretty sure neither you nor larry are completely blameless in what is bothering you now. but blame and fault are not important when it comes to this kind of thing. actions, responsibility, and consequences are what matters. i admit to my mistakes. i did some stupid and wrong things. but so did she. i can forgive her for her mistakes. but i cannot seem to forgive myself for mine.
Nolentwohundred, thank you for your wonderful compliments; it really makes this awful day seem a bit brighter.
I have often thought the same things: that my drive and “go-getter” attitude compels me to do things that make me unhappy in order to achieve a goal. Whenever I did badly on an exam, I’d put myself down and pressure myself to do better on the next one. I used anxiety as a tool to achieve my goals. When larry and i messed up, i just wanted to correct it so badly, so i put myself through hell in order to ensure future perfection. but i just made myself unhappy, and him too.
thank you for the advice and optimistic words. i will try to keep them in mind.
Jmvsic — A lot of advice I’ve been given lately is that I should not let my life hinge on one other person. You seem to care very much for your wife and I believe you when you say she’s the love of your life, but from what I’ve read and heard, even the love of your life cannot be your sole reason for existence. I am struggling with accepting this as well, even though larry is just my boyfriend. Somebody once told me that “if love is real, it won’t get away”. If your wife loves you and forgives you like you say, I’m sure you and she will be together again in the future. we are both trying to love ourselves, jmvsic. perhaps thats what we need to do in order to regain the ones we lost.
I think what larry means by “be there” is just that he’s waiting for me to love myself before we begin anew as a couple. he tried to “be there” — as in supporting me, but oftentimes he’d end up panicking too and not know how to comfort me even though he wanted to. oftentimes, the situation got worse before it got better. we are both young, and comfort is something he needs to learn how to do. my therapist said that she will help teach him, so i trust her.
@jmvsic n Spud: the heart cannot be restrained not to love and trust more, it just decides to build its world around someone. After losing my gf I can’t even remember days before I met her, I can’t even make out a day without her. My heart doesn’t want to let go. My mind tells me she is gone and never coming back but the heart just says there is no way I can live without her.
My heart doesn’t want to accept that what we had cannot be. And I agree with Jmvsc when he says “for better or worse”, whether gf or wife, bf or husband, they shud be there all the time. In my case I hurt her to many times and she could take it anymore, the worst thing is that she left by the time I had changed to be the greatest man. The thing is that I can’t forgive myself for driving her away and I don’t see myself forgiving her for abandoning me. I want to forget her existence but its so hard, the only woman I that’s on my mind its her and I really want to forget her because where she is at she doesn’t seem to think about me nor even miss me. Alas I feel lost and depressed about all this, I struggle with everyday, trying to get back on my feet.
WhyThis: you shouldnt be the “greatest man” for her; you should do it for yourself. She’ll love you when you love yourself, and even when she doesnt, you dont have to worry because you already love yourself and dont need her. whatever you did, just remind yourself that you will forget about it one day. my therapist told me that it’s not fair to ask someone to live solely for you — “for better or worse”, Wouldnt you be unhappy if your happiness caused her pain? you can’t live solely for one person either. it’s not real love if you are incapable of loving yourself first.
i guess it’s not fair for me to give advice because larry hasnt really left me. he still texts me goodnight and goes to therapy with me. still, i always imagine that he is gone, and although it hurts, i tell myself that i am not worth being loved if i cant love and respect myself first.
@spud – your positivity is to be admired. you obviously have strength of character and hope, despite the words you have written in your original post. i will also agree to the fact that your situation is seemingly better of than mine (and possibly WhyThis’s) my wife doesn’t text me, doesn’t email me, doesn’t call… she in fact already lives in a new apartment with her third or fourth new boyfriend she’s had in the last year since she decided it was over between us. an apartment that i even helped her move into, not realizing that she was moving in with another guy. our divorce wasn’t even final until a week ago, and she has been going from guy to guy to guy… now it seems she thinks she is “in love” with this newest one. after having been in love with me for over a decade, her heart switched off so easily and suddenly and now thinks of our last ten years together as a wast of her time and life.i would give anything to have what you have, a partner still interested, and willing to be there for you. this last year of my life has been the worst pain imaginable for me, not just because she’s left me, but also because she has hurt me so much with her words and actions.i admit to my mistakes and i regret them terribly. and as bad as they were, they happened VERY infrequently. i have a text from her dated sept. 19 2011, just a few weeks before she decided it was over. the text reads; “i love you so much! you are such a wonderful man and i am so lucky to have you as my husband”99% of the time i did the right thing. i was really good to her. making her happy was literally what brought me the greatest joy. i felt alive. i felt useful. i felt like part of something so unique and special. now, i hurt so much all of the time. i feel hated. i feel lost. i feel useless.i appreciate your optimism. you have a working foundation to rebuild your relationship with larry if both you & he work hard at it. it won’t be easy, but at least you have him still there for you, in one way or another.i have a plan for my death. i don’t want to die, but i honestly feel no other way will bring an end to this misery. i cannot follow through with my plan yet because of a promise i made to my wife to not leave her in financial ruin because of our mortgage. i am in the process of ruining my credit (what’s it matter if i’ll be dead soon anyway) in order to save her from the fallout of, according to her, “the worst mistake of her life”…sorry for the long reply. i have a lot to say, and not anyone to say it to. it is good though that you have hope. however i must be honest and tell you that hope is a dangerous thing to have. for me, it has both kept me alive and been slowly killing me every day for the last year. it’s good when it works out, but only serves to hurt you more when it doesn’t.
(i have a reply, but it is awaiting moderation. so spud, please read and approve/disapprove if you wish. thanks)
jmvsic — your story is truly heartbreaking; I can’t imagine how much pain I’d be in if the same happened to me. I commend you for keeping it together so long. But jmvsic, don’t you realize that you’re as wonderful and good a person as you perceive your wife to be? Someone, someday, will see that in you too.
also, i don’t want to say that your wife is a horrible individual because I honestly dont know what the history is, but she doesn’t deserve the devotion you give her, nor does she need it. You are a wonderful person for being so devoted to her, but if you start devoting yourself to you, she cannot possibly blame you for it. no one can. right now, you are using your wife to validate your own worth. Lots of people go through divorces, sometimes with the loves of their lives. I think you can do it too without destroying yourself.
one bit of advice that someone has given me is that depression and disappointment come into being when reality doesn’t match up with your expectations. i can see why you think hope is a dangerous thing. that’s why i think it’s important to think of hopeful things that are achievable — like accepting yourself and the reality of your situation. maybe then you can build and find yourself.
again, maybe it’s not my place to give you this advice. even without larry, i understand that i am, at least in most objective respects, a valuable member of society. i am also not an unattractive person and capable of finding a new mate. when i feel depressed, i forget about all these things. i feel detached from my body and the reality of my situation. i hurdle myself into a delusion of worthlessness because of the way larry treated me in the past. but my therapist has told me not to “take things so personally”. i need to grasp the reality of my situation as well.
My depression is very on and off. Sometimes I feel okay, but sometimes I go into violent fits where I am haunted by the past. I have to keep fighting though; one day if I fight enough I won’t be haunted anymore. Too many people will be sad if I die, including larry, so I cant do that even though I really want to sometimes.
thank you for your kindness. i am perfectly aware that she has many perfectly logical reasons to be angry with me… as i have reasons for being angry with her as well. however, i made a choice to not allow myself to dwell on that anger. however, it still hurts so much. i refuse myself to be and act angry towards her. i do not want my heart to turn cold from hate. i only love her.
sure, i get upset by her actions and her choices, but holding onto that anger will only turn me into a bitter person. i think the way she tends to handle anger is to ignore it, pretend it isn’t there until it eats away at her, and it turns to resentment and hatred. i saw her do that this entire last year. meanwhile, i refused to go down that same path. so i tried my best to feel that pain, and turn it into something positive. when i would be hurt by something she did or said, i would let the anger wash over me, and then do something like send her some flowers. my intention and belief was that i was telling her, “no matter how hard you push me away, i will always love you unconditionally.”
nothing she could say or do would ever cause me to love her less. i told her that many years ago and i meant it. if you’ve ever heard the phrase, those who try their hardest to push you away, often only really want to feel closer to you? i was practicing my own version of that. everyday it tears me apart to not have her in my life… not just that, but the fact that she chose to leave, especially when i needed her most, and (like WhyThis) right when i had finally understood my mistakes and problems, and was on the path to becoming a better husband, and person.
unlike a lot of people, i knew annie (that’s my wife’s name) and i were not perfect. things were not fine. but i had believed that it was just one of the low points that always and inevitably happens in every relationship. nothing is perfect forever, nor is it horrible forever. this time last year i was so motivated to the change that i wanted, and to be the person i knew i could be… and move forward WITH HER.
october 8th, 2011… she told me she was done trying. and she was done with me. i didn’t have my entire life centered around her and only her. i had other activities and such, but she was like the piece that made everything whole. with that big huge piece now missing from my life, i am unable to see the picture clearly. i am not who i want to be. i am not complete.
she was my everything… not only thing, but only thing that kept everything making sense in my world. now she hates me. now she is sooo much happier with everything in her life because i am no longer a part of it. i am genuinely glad that she is happy, but i just cannot accept the fact that she chooses to no longer share that happiness with me. it hurts. it will always hurt, regardless of whatever happens to me in the future. that is one reason i do not want a future. without her, it won;t be anything but incomplete.
sorry. i know i am a downer. it’s the only thing though that tends to make sense any more… the pain that is.