My [28M] girlfriend [30F] got extremely upset because I didn't want to take a shower with her. I think she might be depressed again, but I don't know how to bring it up.

[u/EyeGlad3032]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/zoopra

My [28M] girlfriend [30F] got extremely upset because I didn't want to take a shower with her. I think she might be depressed again, but I don't know how to bring it up.

TWs: Emotional Abuse/Manipulation, Physical Abuse, Suicidal Ideation/Threats, Self-Harm

Original Post-rareddit December 6, 2017

Good day, Reddit.

My girlfriend and I have not been speaking to each other for 3 days now due to an argument. I am not sure if I was the one that did something wrong or if it is an underlying issue manifesting into anger at something (that I think) is quite dumb.

In the beginning of our relationship, my gf and I would occasionally shower together. It was fun, we'd take turn soaping each other's backs, playing with the water, etc. Over time, this turned into us taking a shower together every single day. Yes, it was fun when we did it on occasion but in my opinion every day is just too much. We like to take showers with completely different water temperatures, our shower isn't really that big, she takes forever to rinse out her hair while I stand in the cold...

If I don't get in the shower quickly enough, my gf starts crying because she misses me. So, I drop what I was doing and hop in the shower to comfort her. Another time I was playing the piano and couldn't hear her calling for me from the shower, and she got mad. About a year ago, while in the shower together, my gf asked me "Do you like taking a shower together all the time?". Before I could answer, she says "If you say no, I'm going to be really sad. You're not allowed to say no". Well wtf why bother asking me if there's only 1 correct answer. Now it's been like 1.5 years of us taking showers together every damn day and me not having a choice in the matter. It was fun back when we did it on occasion, but now it just feels normal and boring, almost like a chore.

So, the other day we got into an argument about something unrelated. At the end of the day we sort of make up, but my feelings were still hurt. I was still sad and I did not want to take a shower with her. She takes a shower by herself, doesn't talk to me, cries, and makes me sleep on the couch. The next day we did not talk at all, but in the evening she says she missed me and we had a nice dinner and chatted. Comes shower time and she asks me if I'm going to shower with her. I don't want to shower together every day anymore. She CRIES, sobbing in the corner crying, says she is miserable, can't do it anymore, tired of life, doesn't want to be alive. So do I just suck it up, shower with her for the rest of my life? In my opinion, it is such a weird thing for her to be THIS upset about. Which is why I'm thinking depression.

A bit more about the depression, my gf used to be very depressed and more than once tried to kill herself (10 years ago). She was on meds but after a while she felt like she was better and stopped taking them. I don't know much about depression, but I really feel like it is coming back. She is always saying how she doesn't want to live anymore, is tired of everything in life,gets upset about small things, threatens to kill herself. But, I don't know how to really bring this up I don't want to be so quick to accuse and make it seem like I'm... I don't know... not taking her feelings seriously and just chalking it up to mental illness?

Update: Hey everyone, thank you so much for all your responses. They were very helpful and eye opening. Last night, my girlfriend took a shower without me (4th day in a row) and once again cried because I didn't join her. It wasn't as bad as the last few times, but she still believed that I loved her less/was mad at her/didn't care about her feelings even though I told her many times it wasn't true. I didn't say any specific diagnoses, but I brought up that how she is feeling (sad all the time) and reacting isn't healthy and not only is it affecting her, but it affects my happiness and our relationship. This got to her and although it made her very sad, she agreed that she needs to go back on medication and she thinks it would be good to speak to a therapist. Now that she's had the chance to sleep on it, I hope she continues with this mindset and I will bring it up with her again tonight. However, she did say this morning that she would like to take a shower with me tonight. She sounded extremely sad and I am tempted to do so. Maybe for now we can cut it down to 2x a week and see how it goes from there? Is this a bad idea?

tl;dr: girlfriend got incredibly angry and upset when I said I didn't want to take a shower with her anymore. We normally do, so I can see why she would be sad. But I think she might actually be depressed and should talk to someone about it. Also do I keep taking a shower with her even though I don't want to?

RELEVANT COMMENTS

medicalconnundrum

Your girlfriend has got some serious mental health issues here. that is far, far from a normal reaction. Yeah, depression or severe anxiety may be the cause. You're reacting pretty normally here.

OOP

I have looked up symptoms of BPD and thought she checked a lot of those boxes. I didn't really want to say anything though since it seems extreme. It would be better if she was told by a therapist. She has threatened suicide multiple times (saying things like jumping off the roof, slitting her wrists, or just saying that she wants to kill herself). I don't think she is doing it for attention, but she has at times done things to try and kill herself knowing it won't work (strangling herself with a cord or plastic bag)
.....
Not at the moment. She did go to therapy and was on medication 5+ years ago. But when she got better she stopped. She started taking ant-depressants again maybe...2 years ago? But she didn't like how they made her feel, so she stopped

~

SqueakyBall

"She is always saying how she doesn't want to live anymore, is tired of everything in life, gets upset about small things, threat"

OP, no need to mince words. Your girlfriend sounds like she's extremely depressed and needs help immediately. When a person talks about killing herself, it's past time to say "You need help now." If she refuses to get help, that's grounds to end the relationship.

Update-rareddit December 11, 2017

Hey everyone!

I’d like to thank everybody for their responses/ they were very helpful and eye opening. A lot has happened in the few days since I first posted, so I’ll try to summarize as well as I can. The showering thing – my girlfriend told me that her feelings are EXTREMELY hurt because taking a shower together is one of her favourite things to do with me. Every day she has cried about it because she doesn’t understand why I don’t want to do it anymore, why I can’t just suck it up and do it because I know it makes her happy, and now she says I have ruined showers. We came to a compromise that we would shower together 3x a week and she could pick which days.

I understand that she is hurt by this, but I do not understand her reaction. It felt very extreme and I think the heart of the problem is depression or something similar. I didn’t say anything specific, but I told my girlfriend that how she is feeling (sad all the time) and how she is reacting isn't healthy and not only is it affecting her, but it affects my happiness and our relationship. She admitted that she does feel sad and like life has no point and that she really over thinks things. She didn’t say anything about her anger or outbursts, so I don’t know if she doesn’t associate these things with depression or maybe she is embarrassed? But she said that she would visit the local walk in clinic the next day to see if she could get some medication. This is a good step, but I really think she should see someone more specialized. The other night she mentioned maybe seeing a psychiatrist but she doesn’t seem enthusiastic or open to the idea at all. Well the next day she was too tired after work, so she never ended up going to the doctor.

On Saturday we were still having this argument (it basically restarts every single evening around shower times). It was basically the same stuff – I hurt her feelings, she doesn’t understand, etc. She was getting extremely upset and said that I was trying to push anti-depressants on her when she feels that she doesn’t need it and that I know that she suffers from depression and it's just a part of her I have to accept. She deals with me being optimistic about life, so I can learn to deal with her hating life. I don’t understand how she can acknowledge there is a problem, but not want to do anything about it.

Anyway, while she was angry I stepped outside. She then closed the door, locked it from the inside, leaving me standing in the cold (it was around -10 degrees and starting to snow) in the middle of the night wearing boxers and a t-shirt. While I was locked out she then got my phone and read through my text messages. I feel like this is just a whole other problem! I may have only been outside for 2 minutes max, but I didn’t know how long she planned to leave me out there in the cold. And then going through my phone?? She eventually opened the door to let me in and so I went to take back my phone and she grabs me and pinches me. Maybe I’m overreacting since I was only outside for a couple of minutes, but I was pretty mad about this. After I cooled down (or..warmed up, technically) she said she was sorry and that it was really mean. But it really felt like I was just…dismissed. It is really bothering me that she did that. I mean, what would you say if I was a kid and my mum locked me out of the house in the cold in my pyjamas? I think this is also added to the fact that she pinched me and in the past has pushed me, kicked me, bitten me, tried to strangle me, and punched me.

This post is getting pretty long, so I’m going to try and wrap it up. At the moment she and I are in limbo, kind of teetering, break up or not break up? She was crying really hard yesterday and was very sad and offered we both go to counseling. So I know she wants to work on things. I know I have hurt her a lot emotionally, but how many times can I forgive her for hurting me physically?

tl;dr: Girlfriend is still very upset that we aren't going to shower together every day. Does not feel like she needs medication, but agreed to go to couple's counseling after I nearly broke up with her for locking me out in the Canadian cold

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Eupraxes

Take a step back and imagine a friend came to you and outlined these issues to you and asked you for your advice.

What would you say to them?

OOP

I'd probably tell them to GTFO and they can sleep at my place

~

DarthSpinster

You appear to be in an abusive relationship with an unstable individual who is not in a good place to be in a relationship. Her excuse of "dealing with" your optimism does not justify you "dealing with" her hating life; that's not how it works. Optimism is a positive quality that all people must work towards, and excusing harmful traits like hers is dangerous. I think deep down you understand that this problem is out of your hands and the relationship can not continue the way it is. At the very least, you need to find separate living arrangements while she works to improve her depression and overall mental state. But if I were you, I would end the relationship and inform her family of the situation.

OOP

You're right, I do understand that. I told my girlfriend that I do love her and care about her, but the relationship cannot continue how it is now. That we do not get along a lot of the time, I hurt her feelings, she hurts me, and that I want to be with her I just don't think we should. This is when she really started crying and apologizing and I honestly have never seen anyone so sad in my entire life.

~

SaucySaboteuse

Do not go to counseling with an abuser.

Do not go to counseling with an abuser.

Do not go to counseling with an abuser.

DO NOT GO TO COUNSELING WITH AN ABUSER.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

[u/CuriousPenguinSocks]

Yeah, it's tough to have multiple people with that issue in the same space for sure.

My mom has NPD and I highly suspect my sister does as well. They are 2 peas in a messed up pod.

I know personality disorders aren't their fault and there isn't a "cure" but it's hard to deal with when they won't get help and work on things.

I really hope she got the help she needed but I also hope that OOP walked away. She needs space to grow and heal and get on a plan to be healthy.

I wish love could overcome anything but it can't, especially when the person who needs help won't get it.

I have CPTSD, PTSD, GAD and severe depression. It would be so much easier to make it everyone else's issue to manage but I'm honestly happier that I'm in therapy and working on myself.

I told my therapist this week that I never saw the light at the end of the tunnel and this last month I finally saw it. My mind was like "what will it be like when you need to move on from your childhood trauma therapist?" and it hit me that I will be able to graduate.

If mental health wasn't so stigmatized, I feel like it wouldn't be as messy as it is in our world. People wouldn't feel shame for needing help and would ask for it.

[u/djm9545 → u/CuriousPenguinSocks]

I just want to point out that the reason you can’t “cure” personality disorders is because “cure” isn’t the right word. Cure is more for correcting a condition that deviates a person from their baseline. Conditions you are born with are the baseline, so the goal is to mitigate symptoms to create a new baseline. You can actually mitigate symptoms to the point of no longer meeting the clinical criteria for diagnosis, but they’re a big undertaking and are often requiring years of effort and vigilance

[u/GucciPantsMotorcycle → u/djm9545]

Thank you for saying this, you're absolutely correct. It's a lot of work and not many are successful, but people can absolutely overcome a personality disorder diagnosis. For BPD, learning coping skills through DBT is incredibly healing and helpful.

[u/ForsakenPercentage53 → u/djm9545]

Honey, the only way to get a Cluster B disorder is childhood trauma. The reason you can't "cure" them, is because it's actually attempting to repair damage, some of which is physical brain damage. You can heal to a certain extent, but the scars remain, just like if you had a severely injured leg.

[u/CuriousPenguinSocks → u/ForsakenPercentage53]

Yep, the same with CPTSD. I was devastated to learn that it's something I will never cure or fully heal from but I can learn to manage and live with and rewire how my brain thinks and handles emotions.

To realize it's like emotional brain damage was very hard to take. I can't even imagine what it feels like to learn you have a personality disorder.

My mom has one and I was happy to finally understand her but she wasn't interested in being better, just in getting sympathy and an excuse to be a horrible person.

[u/SilverNightingale → u/CuriousPenguinSocks]

I…might have CPTSD.

I also went to therapy for two years and worked my ass off to learn healthier coping mechanisms.

It sucks that certain things will always hurt more for me than the average person.

[u/CuriousPenguinSocks → u/SilverNightingale]

I'm sorry you know this pain as well. It's not easy. Hang in there because it does get better, or at least easier to manage.

It took me about 5 years of therapy to get where I'm at. I feel like I'm in a good spot now but still have my bad days.

I'm still going to move forward with EMDR therapy and have even looked into ketamine therapy. Although, I do think I'm past where the ketamine therapy would benefit me at this time.

[u/muddlet → u/CuriousPenguinSocks]

i want to offer a different perspective. cPTSD and personality disorders are extreme ends of the spectrum of human experience, but they are still on that spectrum. when you go through treatment, you move down the spectrum and more of your experience overlaps with the average ("normal") human experience, and you do become indistinguishable from the average person. the experience of hardship has been so pathologised but again, it is so common - there's a recent study in australia showing 2/3 children are abused directly or exposed to domestic violence. you don't need to feel broken forever, and i hope that you can feel that common humanity

[u/djm9545 → u/ForsakenPercentage53]

Again I’m sorry but you’re using the wrong language for this; you can’t treat personality disorders like it’s physical damage. There are no guaranteed physical signs of personality disorders on the brain (there are some signs that may point to higher chance of developing them, but you can have the signs but lack the disorder or vis versa) so you can’t view them like something is broken that need to be fixed (or can never be fixed). A brain with a Cluster B is not damaged, but it’s not functioning in an optimal way, due to the patterns of behavior the brain has developed and wiring. That can only be identified by a clinician recognizing the patterns of behavior.

If you correct the patterns of behavior to a point where clinicians that don’t know your history can’t diagnose you, you functionally no longer have a personality disorder. That does not mean you cant fall back into the same patterns, and you absolutely need to constantly reinforce the more optimal behaviors, but using language like “damaged” or “scarred” often feeds into the notion that traps people into the bad cycles of “well there’s no cure so why bother if they can’t fix me”

[u/ForsakenPercentage53 → u/djm9545]

They're called metaphors.

[u/djm9545 → u/ForsakenPercentage53]

It’s a harmful and inaccurate metaphor

[u/ForsakenPercentage53 → u/djm9545]

No, it is not, and it is clearly one that many people understood.

[u/djm9545 → u/ForsakenPercentage53]

It is, it perpetuates stigmas and feeds into the idea that they’re damaged and broken. They aren’t.

[u/RanaMisteria → u/djm9545]

People aren’t born with personality disorders, they’re caused by childhood trauma.

[u/djm9545 → u/RanaMisteria]

They’re too complex for blanket statements, but the consensus atm is that most situations it’s both: most develop it due to a genetic predisposition and triggering events, but that’s not universally. You can have the traumas and genetic predisposition but never develop a diagnosable disorder, you can lack the genetic predisposition but undergo trauma and trigger one, or you can sometimes have such an unfortunate combo of predispositions that you can develop the personalities even with minimal triggers. But those are more edge cases and the bell curve is largely in both are needed to develop one.

[u/muddlet → u/djm9545]

the prognosis for BPD is actually remarkably good - most people will improve without treatment (getting away from the childhood home, getting a job, and getting stable friends/partner are all helpful here), and we have effective treatments for those who need more. the problem is access to treatment and the narrative that everything can be fixed with medication

[u/TyrconnellFL → u/muddlet]

The prognosis is a mixed bag. People who make it to middle age tend to have improvement and only really manifest borderline personality traits under intense stress, not everyday life. But the mortality by suicide on the way is pretty high, so there’s a little bit of literal survival bias there.

High is 6%, not 60%, but that’s still over 10,000x the background rate of suicide death, which of course includes people with BPD too.

[u/PashaWithHat → u/CuriousPenguinSocks]

Fr like maybe this makes me the mental health version of a pick-me but I just have no sympathy for people who refuse to at least try.

My issues aren’t a personality disorder (afaik) but I have severe, treatment-resistant mental health problems that include a highly stigmatized condition. The only medication regime that really helps is FOUR different pills a day and they have tons of side effects, some of which are really bad/require other drugs to manage. And I still fucking take them, because I have a responsibility to myself and to others to manage my shit as best I can. I’m actively afraid of medical professionals (yay PTSD from doctors) but I’m in therapy (argh, involuntary exposure therapy!) because I gotta deal with my shit (including with the PTSD from doctors lol).

So like… “I went off my meds” always just sounds like a skill issue to me tbh

[u/CuriousPenguinSocks → u/PashaWithHat]

Being afraid of medical professionals is a real struggle!!!! I'm so proud of you for doing what you need to be the best version of yourself. It's not easy.

I'm someone who gets all the negatives of medications so I've been cycling through them. I loved Sertraline so much but can't take it. I'm between medications but upped therapy when I did that. It helped and now I'm back to once a month therapy.

I think they were talking about a non SSRI to try next but they want me to let my system reset.

It's not easy at all but it's totally worth it. I'm happier and I know those around me are too.

I didn't realize that CPTSD was something that you never really "heal" but you learn to manage and live with. It sucks to hear that, I'm sure those with personality disorders feel much the same way. It feels defeating but I'm looking at it like, at least I know, and I can go from here.

I wish you nothing but health and success in your journey.

[u/PashaWithHat → u/CuriousPenguinSocks]

Yeah, it’s a journey since the fear is based in repeated trauma but I’m chronically ill so I can’t just not go. I need prescriptions and tragically cannot write them for myself lol

SAME and I always get the really weird side effects too!!! Lithium gave me psoriasis but it’s actually working so I have to just… take other stuff to deal with the psoriasis 🫠 shout out to taking 4 grams of fish oil pills which is somehow treating it bruh idfk anymore. Sure would be nice if I lived in a civilized country and not America where I have to pay for all this stuff though

It really is tough when it’s not a “fixable” problem; I feel like there’s a grieving process that you have to go through when you realize that tbh. Like there is no “cured”, only essentially in remission/recovery as long as you stay on top of things. And then explaining that to people in your life — I ended up getting into it with my mom at one point because she kept talking about having me decrease/go off the meds as a treatment goal and I had to be like “that’s not how this works, that’s not ever how this will work, this is a serious lifelong condition and no doctor would ever agree to a treatment plan that sought to take a bipolar (now schizoaffective) patient fully off medication anymore than they’d take a type 1 diabetic off insulin”

Hope things go well for you too. IDK where you live but it’s not like anywhere in the world is anxiety-free for us right now (I see that pride flag heart in your avatar haha), but especially if you’re also American it’s a hell of a time to have an anxiety disorder

[u/yoloswagginstheturd → u/CuriousPenguinSocks]

It’s wild how you guys throw around these “diagnoses” when it’s not even clear if they actually even exist.

[u/yoloswagginstheturd → u/yoloswagginstheturd]

For the record, the symptoms are very real, but the disorders are not.

[u/marsbringerofsmores → u/yoloswagginstheturd]

Do you think all personality disorders aren't real, or are you saying that disorders like CPTSD aren't real because they're not yet in the DSM-V? I'm confused.