Hey all,
I registered to this site months ago, though I avoided posting because it's been a process for me to accept that my girlfriend has many BPD traits and that the problems in my relationship are not solely my fault. We've been together about four years now and are engaged, though we are nowhere near actually getting married. I finished a masters' degree program a year ago, found a decent paying job, and got my own place. She moved in with me. Before she moved in, everything was amazing, but since we started living together our problems have been compounding on one another to the point where I do not know what to do.
For context, we share MANY things in common, including diagnoses of ADHD, major depression, and generalized anxiety disorder. We are both medicated for ADHD, and I have begun taking antidepressants since we moved in together. Even though we share several disorders, somehow our problems fall squarely on my shoulders... .the house is messy because I do not do my share, our relationship is getting worse because of my depression, our fights are circular because I anxiety spiral... .or so she says, and so I believe... .
But am I that dysfunctional? Is it truly me? I have family I speak to. I have friends, though I have noticed I have been isolating myself from them over the past year. I have friendly relationships with my co-workers. I have a job. I have college degrees. She comes from a history of abuse and does not speak to her family. She has no friends. She works, but makes very little money. I pay for the majority of our expenses. She is still working on her bachelor's. How can I be so dysfunctional, so broken, and sustain all this?
When she likes me, she tells me I am her favorite person and that I am wonderful and amazing. And when she hates me, I am horrible and depressed and the worst thing in the world. There is no in between. Love or hate. Jekyll and Hyde.
When she is Jekyll, she knows she has problems. She does see a therapist weekly. I have no idea how to address fully my feelings, because I do not want to awaken Hyde. When she is Hyde, all is wrong, the world is bad, she wants to die but won't because our pets need her (and I am too inept to care for them according to her). When she is Hyde, all is wrong and bad. Sometimes, I can get her to take her anxiety medication when she is Hyde and she snaps out of it. Sometimes not.
I miss her, the way she was, back when she was Jekyll all the time and we could speak together. I finally found a therapist who will take my insurance and I am meeting her tomorrow. For now, I don't know what to do. Hyde is lying on the floor in the hallway, refusing to speak with me because I made a mistake while cleaning the kitchen earlier. And I am here, reaching out to the void of the internet. I hoped I would not have to post here, and that my suspicions were wrong, but... .here I am.
