I’ve been dealing with fairly bad anxiety for years. It fluctuates a lot and I sometimes have months where I’ll be ok a lot of the time, and then I’ll fall into a rut of feeling depressed and shaky and not wanting to leave the house. My boyfriend has known about my mental health struggles since we met, and he’s had experience of depression too.

However, over the past year my anxiety has worsened, especially around social events. It’s usually right before leaving the house, and I’ll have a complete breakdown and end up cancelling my plans, and then be filled with self hatred for the rest of the day. I’ve cancelled on my boyfriend quite a few times now, and since we’re kind of long distance it isn’t like he can just come over to mine instead. He usually handles it well but I know it’s not fair on him and it makes me hate myself even more.

Tonight I cancelled on him again; I was meant to be going to one of his work events and his boss was expecting me. I felt horrible and apologised but I could tell he was annoyed. I feel as though it’s getting to the point where it’s going to start causing problems if I continue to do it, but this is something I’ve struggled with since I was a child and I don’t know how to fix it. So is it better for me to just break up with my boyfriend and prevent any further let-downs or stress? I love him but I know it isn’t fair on him and knowing I’m disappointing him makes it even harder on me. If anyone has experience of this from my boyfriends side then please also advise what your ideal remedy to the situation would have been.