Let me start off by saying that I am glad a site like this exists. I have read through several threads on this site and it is mind blowing how many people are in a similar situation as I. Obviously we never wish this on anyone, but it is comforting to know that I am not the only one going through this. I'm here because I want to better support and understand girlfriend who suffers from Depression, PTSD, and Anxiety.
Here's a little background information.. As beautiful a story as it is, I will keep it short and sweet, mostly stating facts. I am here after all for help and advise, not for story time. We have known each other for a little over two years and became romantically involved about 8 months ago. She is the most amazing woman I have ever met in my life. I know that we hear that statement a lot, especially in the honeymoon phase of a relationship.. But I mean what I'm saying. I've never met anyone who understands, loves, and cares about me like she does. She is my partner, my other half, my soulmate.. We actually enjoy spending time with each other. We don't fight, we don't have arguments, we are able to talk nearly anything out. This is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.
She's a great woman, and a wonderful mother. Her and I are both divorced with children, she has a five year old son who lives with us and I have a four year old son and a six year old daughter that we have most weekends and holidays. My ex wife and I get along very well and are able to co-parent our kids very efficiently. Her ex husband lives out of state and has nearly zero interaction with his son.
My girlfriend has lived a very hard life. Her mother is a heroin addict and has never been consistently a part of her life. She was taken from her and put into foster care when she was six years old after her mother attempted to cut her leg off with a steak knife.. Her mother cleaned her act up and regained custody when she was 8 years old. Unfortunately, she got back on drugs and things began to spiral out of control again. She was neglected her and her two young siblings, my girlfriend became protector/provider for the two younger ones. At 9 her mother's boyfriend raped her with her mother's knowledge. She did nothing and allowed it to continue until age 11 when they were taken back into foster care. She and her siblings went from home to home until they were separated. Children services found her biological father's family and her aunt decided to adopt her. She lived with her aunt from 14 through the remainder of her childhood. I wish I could say it ends there but it doesn't..
At 18 her and her cousin took a trip to Texas to visit family. While they were there they stopped to visit a friend from high school who had just gotten back from active duty in Afghanistan. He expressed to them that he was depressed and suicidal, apparently his wife had cheated on him while he was overseas or something to that effect, and asked if she would stay for a week or so and offered to pay for her flight home. She agreed. The second her cousin left he took her cell phone, beat her, raped her, and locked her in his bedroom. This continued for almost 30 days until one of his friends heard someone screaming from inside a locked door. He found her and called the police. It took weeks in the hospital for her to physically recover. The guy that found her is her ex husband.. That's how they met. According to her, she felt like she owed him her life and they never really had much more than that. He was always gone and cheated constantly. He has never been there for their son nor was he ever there for her. They were married for four years and then divorced.
We met a little over a year later. I was in a band and playing a show at a local bar. During a break I walked over to a table of friends and started chatting it up. One of the girls was face timing with someone. I jokingly took the phone and said come down here and party with us!! The girl on the phone laughed and told me that she didn't like bars and didn't drink. I was kind of shocked, and strangely enough continued conversating with her for a few minutes. Breaks over, and I had to go.. After the show I checked my phone and saw that she had sent me a friend request on Facebook. I messaged her and that's kind of how it all started.
We talked every once in awhile. Nothing spectacular, just casual conversation and flirting. I ended up dating someone and lost contact with her for a few months. That relationship ended and we started to talk a bit more again. We face timed a lot. I would always try to get her to meet me somewhere for dinner. She would always smile and come up with an excuse. One day she finally said yes and I took her to Cincinatti. We walked the city, had dinner, and really got to know each other. I think we both fell in love that night. We spent a lot of time together after that. Things progressed in our relationship and everything was perfect!
We talk about the deepest subjects. Everythung just happens so naturally. After months of perfection, we decided to move in together last month! It was actually really funny how it happened. I was out of town for work for nearly all of December. We had been talking about moving in together for a month or so and had been looking at a few places. She fell in love with a place she looked at while I was away and I told her to go for it! When I got back into town she had everything already moved in. The day I came home we went to Indianapolis for a weekend getaway then came straight back and had Christmas at our new house with both of our families. Nothing could have felt more natural or right.
Things continued to go perfectly until about a week ago.. We have always had a more than healthy sex life. But about a week ago she had a episode while we were.. yeah. She completely freaked out and couldn't stop crying. I just held her and told her she was okay. She held onto me as tight as she could and cried herself to sleep. We talked about it when we woke up and she explained to me that she had a flashback and aplogized, said she felt embarrassed. Obviously I told her she had nothing to be embarrassed about and that it was okay. Things seemed to be alright..
Ever since that night things have completely changed. She went from being happy all the time and always wanting to be near me to being depressed and isolating herself. She doesn't ever want me to touch her, if I come near her without warning she starts shaking. Even when she lays with me you can tell she's uncomfortable. Occasionally she'll have moments where all seems to be well and we'll fall asleep cuddling. But when we wake up she'll jump if I move or touch her. The last 3 nights she hasn't even come to bed. She reassures me regularly that everything is okay. She tells me she loves me and that I'm perfect, she keeps saying that all she can feel is depression. She says she can't sleep. She stays up all night and sleeps during the day. Speaking of which she lost her job about a week into us living here. I'm sure that is just fuel to the fire when it comes to her depression.
The more I learn about depression and PTSD the more I realize there is nothing I can do to stop it or to help her. I'm here to get help for myself.. To better understand what she's feeling, to get through this with her. To remain patient and understanding. I have never been attacthed to anyone, I'm not usually a very emotional person. But this situation is messing me up. I hate seeing her go through this and I feel helpless. On top of that I feel so alone.. She can be laying right next to me and I feel like I'm by myself. Sometimes it's like talking to a wall. I don't feel loved at all. I feel like I'm being pushed away. I feel like I'm not good enough, I have so much insecurity that I never had before. She tells me that she loves me, she has explained to the best of her ability what she's going through but in the moment it still feels that way. Then I remember what she's going through and I feel guilty for feeling that way. I've cried over this, I don't cry over anything. I feel completely trapped and helpless. It's so overwhelming and I don't know what to do.
I love her and I love her son as if he were my own. He practically is. This is my family, and I would do anything for them. I feel that it's my responsibility to protect them and to make them happy and with her its like I can't do anything.
I'd like to better understand what I'm dealing with here. Ultimately I'd like to make things go back to the way they were before. I will do whatever it takes, even if I have to live with it for the rest of my life. My goal is to marry this woman. I can not stress enough how amazing of a person she is and how much respect I have for her. I just want to help, and I know I have to help myself to help her.. What do I do?
Here's a little background information.. As beautiful a story as it is, I will keep it short and sweet, mostly stating facts. I am here after all for help and advise, not for story time. We have known each other for a little over two years and became romantically involved about 8 months ago. She is the most amazing woman I have ever met in my life. I know that we hear that statement a lot, especially in the honeymoon phase of a relationship.. But I mean what I'm saying. I've never met anyone who understands, loves, and cares about me like she does. She is my partner, my other half, my soulmate.. We actually enjoy spending time with each other. We don't fight, we don't have arguments, we are able to talk nearly anything out. This is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.
She's a great woman, and a wonderful mother. Her and I are both divorced with children, she has a five year old son who lives with us and I have a four year old son and a six year old daughter that we have most weekends and holidays. My ex wife and I get along very well and are able to co-parent our kids very efficiently. Her ex husband lives out of state and has nearly zero interaction with his son.
My girlfriend has lived a very hard life. Her mother is a heroin addict and has never been consistently a part of her life. She was taken from her and put into foster care when she was six years old after her mother attempted to cut her leg off with a steak knife.. Her mother cleaned her act up and regained custody when she was 8 years old. Unfortunately, she got back on drugs and things began to spiral out of control again. She was neglected her and her two young siblings, my girlfriend became protector/provider for the two younger ones. At 9 her mother's boyfriend raped her with her mother's knowledge. She did nothing and allowed it to continue until age 11 when they were taken back into foster care. She and her siblings went from home to home until they were separated. Children services found her biological father's family and her aunt decided to adopt her. She lived with her aunt from 14 through the remainder of her childhood. I wish I could say it ends there but it doesn't..
At 18 her and her cousin took a trip to Texas to visit family. While they were there they stopped to visit a friend from high school who had just gotten back from active duty in Afghanistan. He expressed to them that he was depressed and suicidal, apparently his wife had cheated on him while he was overseas or something to that effect, and asked if she would stay for a week or so and offered to pay for her flight home. She agreed. The second her cousin left he took her cell phone, beat her, raped her, and locked her in his bedroom. This continued for almost 30 days until one of his friends heard someone screaming from inside a locked door. He found her and called the police. It took weeks in the hospital for her to physically recover. The guy that found her is her ex husband.. That's how they met. According to her, she felt like she owed him her life and they never really had much more than that. He was always gone and cheated constantly. He has never been there for their son nor was he ever there for her. They were married for four years and then divorced.
We met a little over a year later. I was in a band and playing a show at a local bar. During a break I walked over to a table of friends and started chatting it up. One of the girls was face timing with someone. I jokingly took the phone and said come down here and party with us!! The girl on the phone laughed and told me that she didn't like bars and didn't drink. I was kind of shocked, and strangely enough continued conversating with her for a few minutes. Breaks over, and I had to go.. After the show I checked my phone and saw that she had sent me a friend request on Facebook. I messaged her and that's kind of how it all started.
We talked every once in awhile. Nothing spectacular, just casual conversation and flirting. I ended up dating someone and lost contact with her for a few months. That relationship ended and we started to talk a bit more again. We face timed a lot. I would always try to get her to meet me somewhere for dinner. She would always smile and come up with an excuse. One day she finally said yes and I took her to Cincinatti. We walked the city, had dinner, and really got to know each other. I think we both fell in love that night. We spent a lot of time together after that. Things progressed in our relationship and everything was perfect!
We talk about the deepest subjects. Everythung just happens so naturally. After months of perfection, we decided to move in together last month! It was actually really funny how it happened. I was out of town for work for nearly all of December. We had been talking about moving in together for a month or so and had been looking at a few places. She fell in love with a place she looked at while I was away and I told her to go for it! When I got back into town she had everything already moved in. The day I came home we went to Indianapolis for a weekend getaway then came straight back and had Christmas at our new house with both of our families. Nothing could have felt more natural or right.
Things continued to go perfectly until about a week ago.. We have always had a more than healthy sex life. But about a week ago she had a episode while we were.. yeah. She completely freaked out and couldn't stop crying. I just held her and told her she was okay. She held onto me as tight as she could and cried herself to sleep. We talked about it when we woke up and she explained to me that she had a flashback and aplogized, said she felt embarrassed. Obviously I told her she had nothing to be embarrassed about and that it was okay. Things seemed to be alright..
Ever since that night things have completely changed. She went from being happy all the time and always wanting to be near me to being depressed and isolating herself. She doesn't ever want me to touch her, if I come near her without warning she starts shaking. Even when she lays with me you can tell she's uncomfortable. Occasionally she'll have moments where all seems to be well and we'll fall asleep cuddling. But when we wake up she'll jump if I move or touch her. The last 3 nights she hasn't even come to bed. She reassures me regularly that everything is okay. She tells me she loves me and that I'm perfect, she keeps saying that all she can feel is depression. She says she can't sleep. She stays up all night and sleeps during the day. Speaking of which she lost her job about a week into us living here. I'm sure that is just fuel to the fire when it comes to her depression.
The more I learn about depression and PTSD the more I realize there is nothing I can do to stop it or to help her. I'm here to get help for myself.. To better understand what she's feeling, to get through this with her. To remain patient and understanding. I have never been attacthed to anyone, I'm not usually a very emotional person. But this situation is messing me up. I hate seeing her go through this and I feel helpless. On top of that I feel so alone.. She can be laying right next to me and I feel like I'm by myself. Sometimes it's like talking to a wall. I don't feel loved at all. I feel like I'm being pushed away. I feel like I'm not good enough, I have so much insecurity that I never had before. She tells me that she loves me, she has explained to the best of her ability what she's going through but in the moment it still feels that way. Then I remember what she's going through and I feel guilty for feeling that way. I've cried over this, I don't cry over anything. I feel completely trapped and helpless. It's so overwhelming and I don't know what to do.
I love her and I love her son as if he were my own. He practically is. This is my family, and I would do anything for them. I feel that it's my responsibility to protect them and to make them happy and with her its like I can't do anything.
I'd like to better understand what I'm dealing with here. Ultimately I'd like to make things go back to the way they were before. I will do whatever it takes, even if I have to live with it for the rest of my life. My goal is to marry this woman. I can not stress enough how amazing of a person she is and how much respect I have for her. I just want to help, and I know I have to help myself to help her.. What do I do?
I'm off today so we stayed up all night just talking and watching movies together. I haven't seen her laugh that hard and look so happy in over a week.. It was great. 
