I Feel Bad My Boyfriend Has to Deal with My Anxiety and Depression

Most people who suffer from a mental illness know it's everything but easy. I suffer from anxiety and depression and now I feel like it's taking a toll on my boyfriend.

I have severe anxiety and I might be slightly paranoid. I grew to love him so much that I worry he one day might just realize how much of a disaster I am. Sometimes I get upset and I can't understand why, then the next minute I cry and he'll ask me why and I'll freak out and not be able to explain to him what's going on because I don't seem to understand what's going on myself.

My boyfriend says that I'm very paranoid but it's not my fault. When anxiety decides to pay a visit it speaks, to me and all that runs through my brain is questions; questions that I don't want to be asking myself. I'll begin to wonder if he's cheating on me, I'll start to worry about what he's doing, I'll ask myself why isn't he texting me back fast, and I'll begin to think about all the prettier girls who want him now. After all that runs through my head, I'll then basically interrogate him and ask him all these questions and he'll get mad.

My boyfriend tells me that anxiety is no excuse for me to be paranoid and randomly cry and shut him out but it's something I cannot help. The other day I was upset and freaked out and all I wanted to do was be alone in my room, but at the same time I wanted to be with him, I wanted him to hug me and reassure me that he loves me, but he didn't. So I got even more upset and wouldn't tell him why because I didn't want to sound pathetic, so he texted me this long paragraph telling me that he wasn't able to do it anymore and that I'm causing him too much stress and that he didn't know what else to do because I shut him out when I get like that. Sometimes I wonder if he's better off without me. The thought makes me sad.

I don't know if this is my anxiety talking or if this is really how it is, but I feel like after I opened up to him and let him see how bad my anxiety really was, he began to change. He became more distant, he's not open with his feelings. It's almost like if he's all of a sudden apathetic. I feel like he hides things from me, I start to wonder at times, is he with me only because he feels bad? Or does he truly love me? I'm hard to love but I try to make it easy.

I write poems and the poems that I write are very sad and depressing and I tell him that I write based off other people's feelings, I'm afraid that if I tell him that it's really how I feel, it'll push him away and he might leave me, but then again, that also might be the anxiety thinking.

This also might just be me but it worries me a lot the fact that he doesn't ever get jealous when I'm around other guys, in my head that's just because he doesn't care. I often ask him why he can't love me, he says that he does love me, but then says that I push him away with the way that I act... which to him is paranoid.

I tend to go on walks around 2 am because it's when it's mostly quiet out and the dark sky brings peace to my heart... but of course it worries him a lot for me to be walking around obviously trying to walk the anxiety away so I try not too.

I remind him that I love him everyday all day, even though he doesn't remind me much, he says that I should that he loves me that he doesn't need to remind me much. But me? I need a lot of reassurance, I need to be reminded that I'm beautiful or I'll forget, I need to be reminded of how much I am loved especially by my boyfriend, because I'll start to believe that he really doesn't love me... he doesn't understand how my brain operates and it stresses him out, he's so distant now and tells me that all I want from him is for him to change but in reality, I just want him to reassure me that he's here for me no matter what and that he will love me always for who I am and that I have nothing to worry about but sometimes for someone who's considered normal, that might be hard to do.