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Anxiety or depression, I'm not sure.
Hello, I am 22, female and dating a 24 year old male. He and I have been together for a little over two years now so it's safe to say I know quite a bit about him as does he, though you can't really time stamp that kind of thing. However, I know that he can get into moods, very similar to me on my period so we pretty much know what we need to do when the other gets like that. I'm an open book so I'll cry to him about getting sad over a television commercial or something when I'm on my period, whereas him, not so much.
So, this past week he's been in a funk, he hasn't been talking much, he's been getting irritated at very small things....we were out yesterday to a local park for an event and he wanted to bring his dog but his dog had to be home by a certain time to take his seizure medicine, on our way to the event, there was a very large accident which caused all of the main route to be shut down so it tripled our time of getting there so he was just worried that the accident wouldn't be cleaned up in time so he timed it that if it weren't we would still have time to get his dog home. My parents were telling he and I what their plans were for the night and that kind of thing as we were leaving and he was just getting so frustrated that "nobody was helping him get home by 6" he felt like everyone was against him in getting his dog home so he face walked all the way to the car, I walked normally and then he got irritated with me in the car that I was walking too slowly, therefore I wasn't helping him complete his task of getting home in time either. So, I know I shouldn't have, but I got angry and I yelled that he's been in a mood all week, what is his issue. He still wouldn't tell me.
Meanwhile, this same time last week, I was asking him what his problems were and telling him that I would be there for him and he literally said "geez, get off my case, would you?" I got so hurt that I stopped caring, I didn't want to talk to him, I didn't want to even know what was making him that way anymore. So, like i said again, I asked him and he still didn't tell me so when we got back to his house, he asked if I was just going to wait outside and then we could do what we had planned which was to grab dinner and a couple drinks but I was just so, hurt I guess you could say, that I told him I was walking back to my house and that he can just stay at his house that night. He had texted me a couple hours later, ensuring my safety and then he asked if he could come over so we could talk about what happened. I told him no because I just wasn't in the mood to get yelled at again.
When he gets in these moods, he says things that he would either regret or things that I know he doesn't mean - like his brain thought was before his mouth and that's when he yelled at me to get off his case because he said he felt like I was "interrogating him" and he felt "extremely overwhelmed". But then I told him that I don't like that when he gets in these moods, he takes it out on everyone so he'll just be short and very sassy to my mom and I do not appreciate anyone talking to my mom in a negative tone so I brought that up to him too like "hey, i know you wanted to get lucky home and my mom didn't know that you were on such a time restraint, she just wanted to let you know they were going to a concert and that we would have the house to ourselves until really late" because all while she was talking to him, he was sighing and giving one word answers and looking very unenthused. She cooks extra dinner for him every night, she lets him take showers at my house when he needs to, she is just the last person that he needs to be giving attitude to, when I made it abundantly clear that no matter how bad my mood is or how bad I feel, I would never disrespect his mom and his response was "yeah, well you aren't at my house half as much as I'm at yours".
So, it's the next day - we had gotten invited to go see a Grateful Dead cover band, something that he was excited to do before this whole thing went down, so I texted him to remind him, I'm really still not in the mood to see him yet but we are together and I thought that if I saw him, we could just talk and get everything out, I don't know. But he texted me back that he was going to pass, he was out hiking with his dog, something that we used to do with both of our dogs together.
I know it isn't a lot and I know I'm painting him out to be this awful person but he really isn't, he gets in these moods not as frequently as I do (my period, mostly). He is very sweet 97% of the time, for our two year anniversary, he planned us a whole trip to Niagara Falls and then we continued to road trip all the way through Canada. For my birthday, he wrote me this whole big letter about all the things he loves about me. When my car battery died, he jumped me and even took me to four different places so I could price match batteries and then even drove me all the way back to the first store because it wound up being the cheapest. He has never, ever hit me, never even got anywhere close to it or anything similar. We just have big arguments that last for a few days and then everything is fine after we talk about it. But lately, I've just been thinking he is dealing with something and he isn't telling me. My mom said she really believes that he has a mild form of anxiety, she'd had it for about 30 years so she really is keen on that kind of thing. His mom even said to my mom after we got back from Canada that she is shocked he drove the entire way because she really thought that his "anxious thoughts" would cause him to not want to drive further anymore. I just need help so I know how to help but I'm not even sure how I can help him if he won't ever talk to me about anything. I just feel so stuck. Please don't just tell me to leave him, I know that I get into moods that turn me into a raging bitch sometimes and he has dealt with every single one of my tantrums and yelling matches about things so I just want to be there for him and see if there's anything I can do.
Thank you.
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First of all, non of us can diagnose him as we are not doctors. I had anxiety, I have had very short bout of depression a couple of times in life and know how that feels too. So just by my experiences, it doesn't sound like just anxiety or depression. It may be neither, or it may be one with a diagnosis of something else like 'distorted thinking' or some kind of personality disorder or even some kind of mental illness in there.
Before you think I don't know what I am talking about, I saw some comparisons in your bf to my ex husband.When the ex was your ages, he wasn't too bad yet, he had the episodes and we fought sometimes. But as the years went on and he didn't get evaluated and treated by a doctor, he kept getting worse and the attacks against me 'verbally' grew and he picked fights more and more often.
Here's a comparison I saw: "nobody was helping him get home by 6" I may be wrong but the BF sounds like he had a plan in his mind with the dog thing and had expectations for the way he wanted his day unfolding. So when things did not go as he envisioned in his thoughts, he got upset and felt everyone else was to blame. Most anxieties, depression and other disorders start with distorted cognition which also means thoughts. I have read “When Panic Attacks”
by David D. Burns
Males tend to not want to show any weaknesses. So if they have something they know isn't right, they will do whatever they have to to cover up, never admit, and refuse to go see a doctor because until diagnosed, they can keep pretending there is nothing wrong and others are the ones causing all the problems. I was blamed a lot by my ex when we were married for things I did not even do to cause him stress. Here's an example: He did not like where I had chosen to keep cup, mugs, dishes, foods in our cupboards. It had been that way for years and Now? he was finally complaining?
So I asked him what he thought would be better as it wasn't logical enough for him. I was willing to do whatever to keep the peace and keep him happy.
His reply was angry yelling, that I was the wife and that was my domain and I should figure it out. So I rearranged cupboards and showed him. He called me a child and stupid for not being able to put something as simple as cupboard storage in a logical order. He said I was the one causing all the issues here. So I decided to go along with it, using his description of me. "Yeah, maybe it's not coming to me,, the best plan, so tell me what you want me to do and I will do it. That took several days to convince him to tell me. Finally he broke down cus he was angry and frustrated and told me exactly what he wanted. I did it that day. I worked full time as he did but had it done by time he got home from work and was so excited that I would now have peace and he would be in a good mood again. He took one look at the arrangement of cupboards and laid into me with all sort of insults, yelling, even though I had done exactly what he wanted. That is when I finally realized that no matter what I or anyone else did when it concerned him, we were damned if we do and damned if we don't. In other words, there was no pleasing him, ever. this was how he acted after about 15 years together.
I shared my story to show how some people who have issues that are not being treated by a professional can be extremely hard to please. It goes beyond that to disrespectful treatment of all other people. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and he isn't doing that with your Mom, or you. I don't care how bad your PMS is, you can get treatment for that too. Don't let that be what you use as an excuse that each of you have issues, so you feel better about the things he does.
Going back to the dog. I do not understand why he could not take the medicine with him for the dog just in case he didn't get home in time. Unless the medication requires refrigeration, there is no reason why he could not think ahead and plan for anything not going as he planned.
Another comparison comes with this statement:
When he gets in these moods, he says things that he would either regret or things that I know he doesn't mean'
When I was your age, I felt exactly the same so I can't blame you there. However now that I am older and remarried, I know that I was thinking incorrectly on that. No matter what a person has happen to them, they still have control over their tongue, their emotions and how they treat others.
Lets take pain for example. If he was in great pain, and lashed out at you during that pain, you'd excuse his behavior because it was the extreme pain that caused him to lash out, Right? It's sounds good. I remember coming home with a migraine and the daughter rushing up to chatter at me and tell me about her day. I was in extreme pain. So was it ok if I lashed out at my kid? We always have a choice to do things the right way or wrong way. I reacted in the right way. "Hon, I am in great pain right now and need to lie down. Please do not try to keep talking to me right now. Because if you do, I might just yell at you cus of how I feel and I don't want to do that. I know you are eager to talk to me, so I will let you know as soon as I feel slightly better so I can handle listening to you." The daughter understood and all was well. Heres another recent one. My 2nd husband went with me to emergency cus he thought it was appendix but it was a kidney stone and those are excruciating pain. I did not expect him to be his best and perhaps be short with me as I asked him lots of questions, how he was because I love and care about him. He never once raised his voice at me and even thanked me for all I was doing for him. He could have snapped and said I was interrogating him, but he made a choice, even though he was in extreme pain and you could see it in his face, to treat me respectfully because whatever issue he was dealing with, should not be connected to how he treats me.
So as far as I can see, there is a big gap between how the bf could be to vs how he acts right now.
I recommend that he see a professional to determine what is going on for him. There are four basic ways that cause a person to have anxiety if that is one of his issues and 3 of those do not require medication because the majority of issues when it comes to our emotions and how we act are caused by distorted thinking. So I also recommend seeing a Dr. who is trained to spot and handle the other 3 causes without medication but with CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. Anxiety doesn't usually cause a person to lash out and disrespect others so a Dr. would have to keep looking to see what else there may be if anything. He may refuse to seek help saying he is fine. My ex did that. Thats why after staying 30 yrs, I decided it was time to leave. I am not saying you have to. You need to decide if you plan to stay and see nothing improve and things get slowly worse over the years if he refuses help saying theres nothing wrong with him. You need to be able to put up with it as is, without it ever getting better cus it won't without some kind of counseling or CBT or medication, whatever the need is. Since you wrote in, you are concerned enough about it. Either he gets help and gets better or resign yourself to living with it like this for ever. It is easy to look at time and say, I can handle this not improving for another year, maybe 5 years. But when I asked myself if I could handle my ex for the next 10 years or til the end of my life, without any improvement, I broke down and cried. i knew I could not handle it. Maybe your tolerance level is way higher than mine.
Now as for yourself personally, if most your anger or irritability is related to your cycle, I'd like for you to look over this link.
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
A natural Dr. is talking of alternative to helping women with PMS. So if you are not as bad off as that and the woman in his example is cured by her next cycle, I don't see why any of his ideas won't help you as well. You need to scroll past the video, that's just an ad, and read on. Even if you don't always have your emotional issues around a cycle, and it occurs other times, going by his list may still help, especially if its lack of crucial supplements, or diet related.
Good luck dear.
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Dear Anxiety or Depression,
Anxiety can make us all go crazy sometimes, and leads to depression and that out of control feeling. In my experience, anxiety is often caused by stress. Stress comes in all shapes and sizes, but it is how we deal with stress that can leave us with a bad taste in our relationships.
The first thing I would do is look at how you deal with stress. Yelling at each other is not the answer and it is not how you are supposed to treat the ones you love.
I used to be like this. I have been there and done that. It ruined my life in so many ways until I learned how to change things that affected my ability to handle stress.
The next thing I suggest is looking at your diets. Foods have a way of creating an imbalance in our brain chemistry. This can cloud our ability to handle and manage our moods. Look at the ingredients in the foods you are consuming and check for things like polysorbate 80, vitamin A palmitate and even sugar.
There are so many foods that affect moods I cannot list them all. The food industry has been corrupted and our food sources are clogging our judgements and our abilities to cope with life.
Visit this site, know your blood type and change your diets. That is the first step to being able to handle stress and control your moods. If either of you are depressed, which happens when you have problems with moods that cause you to yell, changing your diet will help as well.
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
The next step is to be aware enough that when you get into a mood, you can choose not to let it control you. Stop, take a breath and tell yourself you will be all right. Remind yourself that when you get into a mood, and feel like yelling, you are hurting yourself and others.
I challenge you and your boyfriend to eat for your blood types for at least the next 2 months. If you are serious about helping him, then you will do this with him. Both of you need to heal from the things that have already happened, that starts with a change of diet and a change in awareness.
If the moods are still present after changing your diets, then it is time to seek professional medical help for anxiety and depression. They come together.
Good luck and let me know how you are both doing. You can e-mail me anytime.
Best wishes,
Gigglz
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I am not a doctor so I cannot make diagnosis. Your boyfriend sounds a lot like I was before I was diagnosed and treated for clinical depression. Depression cause pain (anguish) pain causes anxiety; it’s a circular thing. To work at curing you first have to try and break the cycle which is why many psychiatrists recommend a short term treatment with antidepressant medication.
The hard part about getting your boyfriend to seek help for possible depression is that he first has to admit he is depressed and then he must want to get help. If he is like me he does not feel he is depressed for he may have been this way for some time and his depression feels normal to him. It slowly built up on me the first time and it was my son who was studying to be a paramedic who saw it and made a phone call to a professor who happened to be a clinical psychologist. We spoke on the phone and then I became his patient and after about four months I felt better.
You sound like the two of you are close enough that you might be able to talk him into going for a physical. He will need a complete physical to rule out and organic reason for how he feels anyway. You know him well enough I believe that you can say something like you want to make sure there is nothing causing how he has been acting lately and if it is just stress the doctor can help him. Ask him to let you call the doctor to schedule the appointment. When you call to schedule the appointment tell them that you would like to schedule a complete physical including being evaluated for depression. He has been acting moody lately and this is not like him.
Hopefully if his doctor tells him he is depressed he will go for the treatment he recommends. Otherwise all you can offer is understanding and support.
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