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A message rolls in. They don’t blame me, he’s not been behaving sensibly but it wasn’t on purpose, he didn’t mean to, he’s severely depressed.
So that’s what it is, he is depressed?
So he lied to me, manipulated my reality, made me feel like I was losing my mind (and I probably was or am), neglected me emotionally (usually around the times when he knew I needed support), sabotaged any opportunity for growth or happiness, continued to take advantage of me sexually, emotionally, financially…
…but it wasn’t deliberate? Because he’s depressed?
It’s this kind of talk that makes me feel like I am a bad person, like I’m demonising him and looking for things that aren’t there. He used to say I catastrophised situations. At the same time it makes me feel like the depression I’ve been experiencing isn’t valid because of the severity of his actions in comparison to mine.
Even my counsellor has told me that depression affects everybody in different ways.
This is when my inner voice tells me something is off, that I smell BS, this doesn’t feel right. And then the other part of me thinks, you’re just being a silly girl and inconsiderate and selfish, he’s been going through a terrible time and you’re on the internet writing these things about him.
It feels like a tug of war inside my head right now!
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I have the same, he – no we – think he has bipolar, I think he is a n********t and he does suffer with depression, gets stressed, needs a lot of attention but that is no excuse for the bullying vile behavior xx they want you to feel guilty that’s what i think anyway…..it’s not you, it’s never you x*x
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I don’t doubt that he’s depressed, I just struggle to see how depression could have caused him to treat me that way. I suppose it doesn’t really matter what caused it, it’s happened and I feel this way. It’s just really frustrating that for the longest time he’s been passing off his responsibility, and when I received that message it said that the depression, not him, led to all of this. That’s so confusing and upsetting because it means I don’t know what was him.
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Okay, now you KNOW he manipulated things, you KNOW he lied to you, you KNOW all he cares about is himself. He’s attempting to belittle and minimise your depression by saying that his is bigger and worse. Childish ‘my dads bigger than your dad’ rubbish.
It is typical abusive behaviour that it’s never his fault. If he’s managed to get his family to buy into that BS then quite frankly that’s their issue to deal with.
You need this man, and his family, out of your life completely. You have nothing to gain by maintaining contact with any of them.
You’re not crazy, you’re a survivor. xx
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Hi EeyoreNoMore. What you’ve said really hits the nail on the head; I just felt selfish for thinking / feeling it. My mental health has deteriorated since being with him, I’d get into some terrible states, but I sort of feel like it doesn’t mean anything if he’s claiming his behaviour is due to his depression.
One of the biggest challenges, even now it seems, has been to give space to my wellbeing whilst at the same time trying not to make him feel bad or worsen his condition if, for example, I reacted upset to something he’d done.
Due to the way he’s “accounted” for this situation it seems like people are tip-toeing around him and don’t want to upset him. This kind of behaviour has been ongoing for a really long time and has often left me with no choice but to suppress how I feel; essentially to have no reaction to him.
Reacting poorly to someone who seems broken and severely depressed, not in their right minds, makes me look unreasonable and toxic. I’ve always felt that he’s tried to make me out that way.
When I received that message, they said at the end that there’s nothing more to say. Well, fine. Maybe for them. xx
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I was depressed when i met my ex i was on medication but when i moved in with him .he said i did not need them ..you just need to be happy . My ex was also on medication which he stopped he had epelipsy. He said he did not do cintrol jelously or arguments. Now i know why .. he was the one with major issues not me . I still feel he might try blame me .as the abuser .but ive gained that much knowledge now let him try .. he be screwed if he trys to
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My, now ex, partner had depresssion too, we both agreed it might be something else like bi-polar. All I did was be there for him, live life HIS way, his rules, his way or now way, he even admitted that. Looking back though, every time I gave him too much space I’d get bombarded with texts and ‘lets go do something’ ‘Lets go on a trip’ bla bla. We’d do that, have a brilliant time then come home and he would be all depressed again and controlling by making plans, then not doing them, ignoring me (my phone wasn’t on etc), insulting me and my child, why can’t I just do things properly – his way – cos my way is completely wrong. What a lot of utter nonsense but I didn’t see that at the time.
Then I was thinking what if I ever meet someone else? It’s all going to have to be on my terms, so does that make me like him? No it doesn’t because a good relationship is respecting one another. That’s the one thing I said to him at the start, I cannot stand disrespect. So he played on that and I fell for it. Lesson learned – the violent way!
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You need to cut off contact with his family too.
He’s now gaslighting them -acting like the victim. Yes, he might be depressed, but depression doesn’t turn you into a gaslighter and manipulator. The lack of a healthy conscience does.
You need to move on from him as much as you are able, and contact with his family will prevent that from happening x
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Hi everyone, thank you for your replies. x
As I write this I’m feeling in a very low and dark place. I’ve been told in a tough love kind of way to quit communication with his family as it makes me look worse, like I’m mentally unstable. I understand this, I do. Tonight I just feel too ashamed and upset, but I will take those steps. I know it’s the right thing to do. Deep down, I still believe in all the lies he told me, the good ones, the ones that gave me hope despite everything else. And I’ve just fallen for it, I’m holding onto something that isn’t real, I wish I didn’t.
Iamfree and Dragonfly, reading your replies makes me think there’s a lot of overlap between abusive behaviour and mental illness. This has prompted me to read about the distinctions and I’m surprised at how many people have posted on the internet trying to distinguish between them, especially when mental illness is debilitating. I agree with you, a loving relationship should be based on mutual respect, openness and honesty. He was aware of how much I’ve been scarred by lying behaviour in the past and yet has done this.
Serenity, I agree. There’s definitely elements of his attitude / personality that are at play here. I sense that his family are tentative and perhaps even afraid. I feel terrible now for putting my concerns on them, it was a rubbish thing of me to do xx
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P please take care of yourself.
Your focus should be on You & your recovery.
Your head is full of ‘them’ their dysfunctional family issues, (they need to face that ugliness they’ve created NOT you..you can’t fix them..I also tried, like many many others, sorry to say..but it’s a dead end)It’s very unhealthy & negative for you, while trying make your own healthy steps towards freedom recovery & healthy relationships.
Women on here care & are posting reality checks, to support you & us all to remind ourselves of NC – however painful.
To share..
In the end I thought to myself What do I expect to happen? If I stay? Things to suddenly improve??
…I knew in my heart of hearts that I was fooling myself…in reality it would have been me returning to a worsening abusive situation with no future filled with fear and desperate to find answers…which are impossible to find!
We don’t think like abusers..we deserve a life, a happy life with lots of great things in it.
Keep safe we are with you in spirit!Hugs
XC-
Hey Cuppa. Today I feel more resolved to take care of myself. I need to remind myself that is what he’s doing, and I agree, trying to deal with other people’s ways of coping is a dead end. So I’m just leaving them to it now. It hurts a lot, more than I can put into words. It feels like I’m missing from myself.
Last night I was thinking how the kindest thing I can do for myself is to just have something to do, something to be proud of that is mine. Because I don’t feel like I have anything right now…the things I worked for and was working towards with him have gone nowhere.Hugs! xx
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I love this forum so much. From now on I resolve to pop in here whenever I’m struggling. It stops me from thinking I must be crazy, because you all validate my feelings. It’s rotten that we’ve all had to go through this but amazing that we can support each other. I too believe that my ex has been depressed for years, undiagnosed because he could never admit or accept it, so he suppressed and shut off everything except anger, and that was all we saw. I tried so hard to be loving and understanding and supportive but at the end of the day, something (depression or whatever else) might explain behaviour, but it never excuses it or makes it acceptable. I’m the bad guy with some folk too who only see his perspective, but I know I did everything I possibly could to help him and to save the relationship, and I’ve not doubted my decision to leave for one single second since I made it (and it took me a loooong time to do that) and I’ve never regretted it either. It’s really hard, but it’s so much better since I got out. He may not have been doing any of it deliberately but I tried, over and over, to explain the impact of his behaviour, and he just didn’t hear me.
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Hello IWillSurvive,
I think it can be so difficult to persevere with someone who isn’t taking responsibility for their own issues. It just wears you down. Sometimes he mentioned depression; I was aware of it and tried to help but I couldn’t do it for him. There were times I took on the role of therapist and tried getting him to explore his feelings, to see what was there, but he said nothing is there, he didn’t know what it is / was. It was a dead end every single time, and it makes you feel hopeless, knowing they’re like that but won’t get better because they don’t even know what the issue is.
I also tried countless times to explain how he was affecting me. The bizarre thing is that he was quite good at acknowledging the situation, but this was frustrating in the end because he’d just recite to me what had happened (after I “made” him see what had happened). He wouldn’t go deeper than that, like he wouldn’t reflect on it? And nothing would change.
He either listens to me and doesn’t care, or he is aware of how it affects me and distorts the situation so he doesn’t have to be aware of it (maybe they’re the same thing!). xx
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…wow reading through this reinforces my resolve to never set eyes on him again.
It triggers my anxiety regarding how he would distort what I would say, talk about us, we like he was deciding/thinking for me…delivering my opinion through his mouth!
I would say…what are you on about? I don’t think that or when I made a statement, my opinion he would answer it.
I’d say hang on…it’s not a question! It’s a statement my statement of what I think and feel.It’s obvious he was devaluing my words and twisting the focus back to …his own way, which equals control!
So it was a NO win situ, leaving me even more confused!Until he got really angry & just started screaming …because I shut down, deliberately, as self protection, …to intimidate me & make me scared.
Hope this makes sense!
Cx
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