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Relationship With Girlfriend For 3 Years, Separated For 3 Months

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Will6240

New Here
Hi,
I've been with my girlfriend for 3 years now. Throughout our relationship, she has always been on anti-depressants, and managed her depression rather well. We had a great 2.5 yrs together and then in June 2019 we moved in together for the first time as she was started a new job, and we also got a puppy at the same time.

In July, her dad suddenly died from a heart attack. As it happened abroad, her mum had to deal with the police and I ended up telling my partner the news. In the coming months we were all devastated, especially my partner, as her dad had been her rock throughout her whole life, helping her through some really tough times. However, we coped, and she went work as normal and got involved in sport in the new area that we lived in. Our relationship was fine, albeit with less intimacy, which I understood to be from the emotional toll of the bereavement. In October, a colleague of hers committed suicide (after an incident with a customer, that she was the only witness too), and she still feels responsible for what happened.

A couple of weeks after the suicide (in November), she broke down at work, and then asked me to give her some space as she was overwhelmed by everything, and didn't feel like she could handle other peoples emotions on top of her own. To give her some space, she asked me to move out temporarily. That was 3 months ago and I'm still out of the house.

We are in contact a little everyday, and I'm doing my best to leave her to it as best as I can, but the communication and affection in the relationship is barely there (from her side). She is avoiding anyone she knew before we moved place, as they remind her of her dad. She has also said that she replays the phone call we had when I broke the news to her about her dad, so I would guess that I'm a trigger to her.

She is hopefully starting some therapy soon, and we've both stated that we love each other and don't want to break before therapy sessions begin for her. But she has also said that she is scared because she might not be able to manage seeing me in the future, without being taken back to her dad's death...

Guess the questions I have are:
*is therapy likely to help her, regarding me being a trigger?
*is being out of the house for this long, and having minimal contact from the sufferer common?
*should I be worried that she withholds information from myself, her mum/sister and friends she had prior to her dads death?

Thoughts appreciated
Cheers
 
is being out of the house for this long, and having minimal contact from the sufferer common?

Answer is-No. I am not sure she has PTSD, though. It took much more than that for myself. If you said she was being treated for PTSD, I missed it.

*is therapy likely to help her, regarding me being a trigger?
You are not a trigger, just because you were there with her when her dad died. The father was abroad.

People die everyday. Maybe I'm too much of a sufferer in my answer,
 
Does your girlfriend have PTSD? Or just depression? Has she ever been in therapy?

She gets flashbacks and nightmares quite regularly. NHS referring her for PTSD therapy, just needs to do another initial screening
 
It sounds like she is isolating, which a lot of sufferers do. The sooner she gets into therapy the better. Your doing good with giving her, her space. I know it’s hard and to be honest scary. Has she reached out to you through text or is it you that does?
 
It sounds like she is isolating, which a lot of sufferers do. The sooner she gets into therapy the better. Your doing good with giving her, her space. I know it’s hard and to be honest scary. Has she reached out to you through text or is it you that does?

Yeah, fingers crossed some therapy starts soon. Contact is mostly me just checking seeing how she is, how our dog is, how her day is going etc. She always replies, and is sometimes fairly responsive to other questions, sometimes quite vague.

Talk about other things when we do see each other, but that's fairly limited at the moment. But she did reassure me that it's 'not that she didn't want to see me, just that she'd struggle to' so soon after the last time...a positive thing I guess?!
 
You seem to be good with giving her space and I know it’s hard. Take this time to focus on yourself. A lot of us supporters go to counselling ourselves as part of our self care. Learning to set boundaries and having someone support us with our feelings and needs. Relationship are hard to begin with, but add PTSD it gets even harder at times as you know. Learning to take care of yourself first helps with supporters burn out. I hope your reading around the forum, both forums supporters and suffers. There’s a lot of information. There’s a saying here,” take what you need and leave the rest. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and there’s no such thing as a dumb question. We are all here to learn and support each other. The more knowledge you have the better understanding you have of your girlfriend. For right now try and live in your friendship with her, don’t tell her how she should feel, just listen when she talks or if she talks. I understand it feels like she’s living in secrets.
When someone is symptomatic, their in fight, flight, freezes. No one feels safe when they’re in survival mode and it also sounds like she doing some avoidance, with not talking to anyone that’s connected with her father. You have to also remember she’s not just dealing with PTSD she’s also grieving and I understand your grieving too. Which you can also share here, because your not only grieving the loss of her father, your grieving the loss of her too. Part of processing is talking about your feelings. Sending support ?
 
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