Brain (possible triggering)

[madi]

Long story short, I’ve battled depression since I was very young. I go through these cycles, and I always manage to pull through them. All I have to do is buckle down for a few weeks.
If I shut down, shut out, and just plough on ahead – I make it. It’s not a fun few weeks, but it runs its course and things balance out. People around me get to experience me as a moody bitch but I don’t do any lasting damage to their wellbeing.
But my partner just keeps on pushing “open up.” “Let me in!” “Let me help!”
So I DO open up. I destroy my own mind, and his.
Instead of just being in a shit mood for a few weeks, I do lasting damage to the man I love. I’ve irrevocably damaged the way he sees me. I’ve put the fear of god into him. I’ve made him feel responsible for things he isn’t responsible for. I’ve made myself feel more guilty, and I’ve made myself feel so, so very ashamed.

It doesn’t make me feel better. It amplifies everything I’m feeling. Instead of being able to shut down and go to sleep, I won’t sleep for three days. Instead of having moments of anger and panic that make me want to destroy myself, that feeling of destruction is brought to the forefront and DOESN’T STOP.

All I want to do is shut down. It protects me, and it protects him.

But he just refuses to let me shut him out. I’m shutting him out for a damned good reason. I don’t want to feel this. I know that what I’m feeling isn’t ME. I know that it’ll pass if I just shut down, and maybe kill what I can’t shut down with vodka. Give me 3 weeks, and I’ll be ok again.
Give me 5, and I’ll be able to be happy.
Am I repressing shit? Probably, and I really badly don’t care. It might not be the healthiest path to take, but it’s a path that works. I shut down, the chemicals in my head get back to normal levels, life goes on.

But no. He takes me not letting me in as a personal insult. He tells me that if I don’t let him in I’ll push him away, with the heavy implication that it will destroy our relationship.
So I let him in. He freaks out. I freak out. Now everything feels 1000 times worse.
Then he tells me, after letting him in has unleashed monumental destruction on both of us, that I “have” to let his parents in.

I DON’T WANT TO.

I’m having a minor operation in the next week or so. All I want to do is get a taxi to the hospital, have it done, and then get a taxi back when I can come home. I cannot state strongly enough how much I do not want to see anybody. I cannot state strongly enough how I just want to do this on my own. I cannot state strongly enough how having people involved, taking away what littler power I have in this situation is going to make the whole thing more painful, and more stressful than it has to be.
I’m not sure if the surgery is what’s tripped this rough patch into full blown melt down, or if it’s just incredibly badly timed. But it is in the middle of a really, REALLY bad patch.
And frankly, I’m going to be flying through this particular bad patch by the skin of my teeth. I have a massive phobia of surgery, the timing literally could not get any worse for work, I’m taking on double responsibilities at work because my boss will be away, and there is no one to cover for me while I’m away, my sister’s children have just been put into foster care, and my mother is blaming me because I can’t take them. It’s an absolutely horrible few weeks in my life.

But I can get through it if I’m allowed to let my natural defences do their thing. If I’m allowed to take shelter behind these barriers – just this one last time, I can make it.
I am not ready for these barriers to come down. Even if everything in my life was roses, I would struggle to cope with my defences being removed. No, I don’t really know or understand what they’re defending me against… But I’m pretty sure that’s kind of the point of them. So I don’t have to face shit. So I can just do what needs to be done in life without my brain melting onto the carpet.

But no. He insists they have to. “For my own good,” I have to do something I would really massively struggle to do during my best moments, during my absolute worst moments.

I cannot work on whatever emotional issue he thinks I have to work on right now. All I need is to be left alone for a bit. All I need is to be allowed this one control over my life for the next few weeks.
Once I’ve faced this phobia, once my work load has gone back to normal, once the pain of being blamed for what’s happening to my nephews has had time to register and process… Then I can deal. Then I can work through whatever I need to. Then I might live through my defences being ripped away from me by someone thinking it’s for my own good.
But NOT now. I NEED my survival mode right now, and all he wants to do is take that survival mode away.

He refuses to get his licence, so he can’t pick me up from the hospital. They won’t let me drive myself home. He’s taken it as a personal insult and attack that I want to get a taxi.
So he wants his mother there. He’s put it as “It’s really unfair to him to not let his mother support us.” Because “What about him?”

I get that being asked to be left to my own devices for a few weeks is a really horrible thing to ask him to do. I get that I’m making him feel powerless to help. I get that he doesn’t like that I shut him out.

But I never ask for anything. I’m happy to go along with what works for him, and what he needs.

But I can’t this time.

I need to get through this MY way. And I need him to just suck it up and let me without taking it as a personal insult.