odelisque

I love my boyfriend but I just don't know what to do when he gets sad. It happens mostly everyday. He'll be happy and then all of a sudden his mood will change. I try to talk with him but often he doesn't want to talk about whatever is bothering him.When I ask him whats wrong I mostly get "I don't know" or "nothing" or "I just have a lot on my mind". I'm always left feeling like it is somehow my fault and I'm powerless to help him.

I know that he has dated many girls who have cheated on him. He was engaged five months ago to his girlfriend of 3 years but she left him for another guy. These girls never spent time with him, even the ones he lived with, they abused him physically and verbally, spat on him, one gave him a concussion. He says he just wanted to make them happy so he never did anything about it. He always just took it. He tells me he has never been treated like a real person before and that this is a big change for him. He doesn't believe that I am with him, he constantly asks if i am going to leave him, if I am going to hurt him.

This is where I think a lot of his problems come from but then I learned that he also has a history of drug abuse. He did cocaine and ecstasy (6 hits a day at one point). I assume he also smoked pot and I know he drank often. I am aware that taking E can cause emotional problems but to what extent and how permanent the effects are I don't know.

What I really want to know is how to help someone you love when they say to you "baby I'm dying" and you think it's a joke until the tenth time and you say "please stop it. I don't like it when you say things like that. Why do you always say it?" and they say they'll stop but it doesn't stop, it just gets re-phrased. "what if I died?" until finally they say " you know, I was always afraid to shoot myself. I was afraid the bullet would miss and I'd be crippled and have to live like that." then he tells me about the time he tried to hang himself, but his dad came home. His neck was scarred for a year after that. And the other time he tried sleeping pills and failed and so now his doctor won't prescribe them even though he suffers from insomnia. (He can only sleep when I am with him, because he says he feels safe.)

I just want him to be happy. I want to know what I can do to make it easier for him to get better. He says this is the happiest he's ever been. He says he doesn't know if he will ever be ok and asks if I will leave him if he can't get better. I just want to know if there is anything I can do to help him or if therapy and medication is our only option.

DarkCougar

Well if there's one thing I've learned, is that people who have been mentally and physically abused often don't trust others very well, and more often don't trust others at all. And so, when it comes to emotional problems they, even though he might love you very much, doesn't have the power to trust another human being enough to truly tell you how he feels. And therefor resorts to phrases like ''I don't know'' or ''Nothing''. It is most likely him pondering about his past that makes him sad at that time. I doubt it's your fault.

To me, he sounds like a good person caught in a buck-load of bad situations. Of course, his mistake was never stopping his former girlfriends in their (awful) acts.. but from his point of view, merely looking for love and understanding, nobody can really blame him. However, taking this in mind, I take it that he is terribly insecure about relationships in general. But the fact that he still reaches out for love, sounds like a very positive thing to me. I've known others that were too damaged, and too weak to look for love once more. Insomnia alone is already a very strong depression generator, and having been a insomniac myself I can tell it plays on your mood quite allot. It could explain why his mood changes so rapidly.

I think by saying things like ''I'm dying'' and ''What if I were dead'' he is trying to get reinsurance that you're not going to leave him in the end. But having heard a bit about his past, this is very normal. Over time he will figure out for himself that he can trust you, and will learn that you'll be there for him. These kind of scars don't disappear in merely a few weeks, months or even years.

Just stand by him, and let him know he can talk to you if he needs to. If he doesn't want to talk about it, he might appreciate the fact that he could. I guess other then that I wouldn't know how else to help him directly. I'm sorry.