Relationship So becomes distant after every time we hang out

[LuckiLee]

And a few "F this sh*t's".
Lol. Too funny. Not funny.

((hugs))

 

[EveHarrington]

I’m kind of blown away at the behavior that supporters put up with. I mean I’m nowhere near that bad.....and yet I know I’m nowhere near ready to be in a relationship. I guess I just try to protect my loved ones more. *shrugs*

 

[Snowflakes]

. I guess I just try to protect my loved ones more.

That’s what my sufferer said as she kept pushing me away. I told her I didn’t need protecting, I just needed time to learn better coping skills :hug:

 

[Sweetpea76]

I always tell mine that it's not his job to protect me. I'm grown, and I can decide what I can and cannot deal with on my own.

 

[Freida]

.and yet I know I’m nowhere near ready to be in a relationship. I guess I just try to protect my loved ones more. *shrugs*

I was like this when he met me -- I didn't get diagnosed for another 14 years. We just thought I was hard to live with -- but he stuck around. I do think it made things easier on him when I got a diagnosis and started therapy - even though it made it worse at first. At least now he knows the reason for my behavior. I often wonder how things would have been different if I had gotten help years (decades) earlier.

I can decide what I can and cannot deal with on my own.

He's always been a believer in that. If he wasn't happy he could walk -- I wouldn't have stopped him. It was his choice to decide if he wanted to deal with me and my issues

 

[lostforgottensoul]

he says ‘I don’t feel anything for you’ sometimes he says ‘I just feel dead inside, I don’t feel much for anyone’
Is he symptomatic when he says this?

Yes! When I go numb (which I have zero control over) I literally feel nothing. Nothing bad and nothing good. Nothing at all!

Most days he seems very functional; works, socializes, works out, speaks to a lot of people, works on his projects.

Seems being the operative word. I work. I seem normal and functional but yet I went to work last week VERY sympathic and barley holding it together mentally. I am just VERY good at compartmentalizing and numbing off "boxes" of stuff in my mind (very good at hiding it and faking it). Actually, I am so good at that, that it's a big hinderance to therapy as i do this in therapy as well. I had to. I was raised in a cult, backwards to this real world and was thrown into this backwards world. I had to survive. It's actually not much different then a veteran being thrown back into civialian life from what I hear and how I understand it per my veteran father and many vets at the VA. You have to very quickly adapt to a backwards world from what you're used to.

How crap do you have to feel to be symptomatic, how many symptoms has to be apparent.

It's not about how many symptoms need to be present. Only 1 needs to be present. It's about not coping well. Not using good coping strageties well. Thus "sympthomatic".