IntroductionHello, I am writing here to look for advice on how I should handle a rough time me and my girlfriend are going through.
About MyselfI should start by saying that, I myself suffer from mental illnesses as well, which has made this situation a lot more harder for me and her. I was neglected and abused by my dad until the age of 13 because I wasn't his biological son and this has lead to me having very bad issues with rejection and neglect from loved ones. i also suffer from paranoia, where I can not help but think someone is lying to me, has a double motive and/or is going to hurt me (emotionally), this results in me not being able to trust people, this lends itself to having very few loved ones and when I do have loved ones, my love for them is very intense. This combined with the effects of my dads abuse means that I struggle with self-worth when I am neglected or I let someone that i love down. I am from the UK, I am 17 and I am male (i dont know if that will help with the advice)
About my girlfriendShe, like me, was born into neglect from loved ones. She was raped at the age of 4 and 5 multiple times by her cousin and was abused by a ring of pedophiles online from the age of 8 to 13, they made her do such horrid things that I wouldn't even wish it on my worse enemy. She was bullied through-out her whole school life for self harming and suicide attempts. She has been raped by two of her ex-boyfriends. has had one of her ex-boyfriends prefer to watch porn over touch her, which has lead to her resenting porn and anyone who watches it. two ex-boyfriends offered to help kill herself. her dad is spineless and refuses to stand up to her mum, she is abusive in the same way my dad was to me. long story short, every man that has ever been in her life has been awful and has sexually abused her (other than her dad). she was originally misdiagnosed with depression due to her repeated suicide attempts and repeated self harm, eventually she was re-diagnosed with BPD. currently she is on medication, SONDATE XL 100mg and is in DBT. she is 18 and lives in the UK also.
The SituationAs a result of this abuse she has this mind-set that all men are predators and sex fiends, this effected the relationship at first, but i knew about everything very early on, so i made it my mission to show her that not all men are the same.
soon she trusted me, then it was amazing, no worries, a few disagreements here and there but we would spend 80% of our time together, but then the lock-down in the UK happened. she had to go back home, she doesn't live too far, about a 15 minute drive.
when she got home, she started to decorate her room, this meant that we didn't speak much for about 6 days. if you have joint the dots together, this didn't play too well on my mind, because i couldn't help but think she was ignoring me and didn't care about me. the nude photos stopped, the sexual conversations stopped the compliments stopped, everything, we went from sex every day to not even speaking, if you have joint the dots together again, this lead to me needing a release, so i watched porn, i felt so bad because i knew about how she felt about this and i said to her that i wouldnt watch it, i had to tell her, at first we spoke about it, she was upset but she said she was over it.
About two weeks past, she has finished her room and we are talking normally again, i start to fall into a depression as a result of being in lock-down, but this was normal for me, she was supportive everything seemed like it was alright, until some time last week. she is preferring to play on her PC than talk to me, she is missing our planned video calls, not wanting to watch our shows whilst on call anymore and just overall neglecting me. at this point i have fallen into a very deep depression, unable to sleep (as of now i have had 6 hours sleep in 6 days), unable to go 30 minutes without a thought of suicide, self harming, starving myself, not drinking and recently i hallucinated for the first time ever. eventually the tone of the messages changes, from long and far in-between but nice and positive still, to blunt and short. i asked her what was wrong, she said she didn't wanna tell me, this scared me because usually she will open up instantly, i never really have to ask.
eventually i get it out of her... she just exploded on the chat log, with wild accusations and saying that the porn thing still bothered her. she accused me of looking and complimenting other girls in-front of her and behind her back, of having my Instagram feed full of slutty girls and that i found them more attractive than her and was implying that i don't love her, that i only use her for sex etc... i saw red, i exploded, the wrong choice on careful reflection... eventually we both calmed down and spoke about she felt, it was difficult to hear, she said how she now cant help but see me as a predator that cant help themselves. being told all this made me very suicidal and i was on the edge of killing myself, i couldn't deal with disappointing her and the rejection that follows...
this all happened on the Tuesday, due to lack of sleep and emotional distress everything after this point is all blurred together.
we still wasn't speaking too much, she said she needed time to truly get over it, but we was speaking very sparsely, i was trying to keep the conversations up beat and positive, doing my best to make her happy, but because i am unhappy myself it was hard on me when she was giving the same effort back, this made me even more depressed, i felt like i couldn't go to her because it seemed like she didn't care anymore. i said to her that i cant handle this much longer and i explained how this is making me feel neglected like how my dad treated me, then she explained that she knows, she said that is why she kept it built up for so long, she knew if she told me that it would lead to an argument, then her being more distant and she didn't wanna do that to me, she wanted to wait until i had felt more stable so we could have a proper conversation.
as of today, we agreed its best for both of us if we both take a few days away from each other so we can both get our heads right. i know that what i did was normal, watching porn isn't a sin, but i regret that i promised her that, well because i know it sounds stupid but before her, i was addicted to porn, i was watching it minimum 3 times a day. i know we are young but i know for a fact she is the love of life, she is honestly an amazing person, i cant even put it into words, she makes me feel so safe because we are both damaged, so she knows the pain i am going through, so it makes this all that much harder. i don't really know what i want from this post, other than ideas on how to show her i care for her, whilst also giving her space and how to deal with this in the future. any advice is welcome. Thank you for reading (sorry if this is written poorly, like i said, i am very sleep deprived)
