Depression is Out of Hand

I’ve been depressed (this time) since about September. Back then, I thought I was going to FINALLY graduate college (after 8 years) this spring, having just enough time to get in all my credits if I worked my ass off, so I signed up to work my ass off! Then, my advisor found one more credit hour that throws off the whole plan. That was what triggered the depression. Now I’m working my ass off for nothing. Every time I get a big assignment, it gets worse, and I get at least one a week since I’m taking five classes. Now it’s so bad that I have trouble having any positive interactions with the people around me. I’m just so hopeless and miserable all the time. I have a hard time believing it could possibly ever change: that I could ever really graduate, that I could ever get a job, that I could ever be happy again. And it’s hurting the people around me. I’m in therapy and taking medication, but I’m just so far in the hole that that ladder isn’t tall enough for me to see the edge, let alone reach it.

My boyfriend confronted me about it yesterday. He said “It just feels dark and bitter, and it breaks my heart to see it swallow up the human manifestation of glitter your normal self is.” He also said:

“I get that today's events were taxing on you, but you can handle it. For your own sake, far more importantly than mine, you've gotta pull yourself together and figure this out. I know that's ignorantly more easily said than done, but if something doesn't change, I won't be able to take it, or stay.”

And I get it. I wouldn’t want him to let me make his life as miserable as his. I love him so much that I don’t want him to ever be unhappy, even if it means leaving me.

He’s the best thing to ever happen to me, though. I thought I would marry him and we would spend the rest of our lives together. I know that would make ME happy, but my mental health issues are chronic and they scare him. Even when I’m not being hurtful, just seeing me sad scares him. He’s so good at being supportive, but he said, “I know you’ve sworn up and down in the past that you’d never, but I can’t shut off the part of me that’s afraid you might harm yourself, and that thought terrifies me.”

Honestly? Right now, I’m kind of hoping he does break up with me so I know he’ll be okay. I can’t do it for him because it’s not up to me to decide what he will and won’t handle. But if he broke up with me, I wouldn’t have to worry about this anymore. I don’t see a way out, so it feels like this is inevitable anyway. I don’t honestly think he wants to break up with me. I think his best case scenario is I get better and we move on with the life we planned together. But I can’t seem to hope right now. I have trouble seeing a future where I’m happy again. I’ve been rehearsing our break up so it won’t hurt when it happens.