# Afraid for my boyfriend, how do I help?



## MakaVidel (Jan 17, 2016)

My boyfriend has been struggling with something for years now, and the best guess we could come up with was a dissociation disorder, and I've narrowed it down to DP and DR. There has been no diagnosis or treatment yet, and I know that's something he's going to need to get for himself. We've been together for nearly a year and a half now, and he lives on the other side of the country.

Symptoms that either he has told me or that I've noticed myself include emotionless moments ("spacing out"), especially after an argument or disappointment in himself; his prioritizing goes down the drain, no understanding of the importance of certain things; lacking good judgement of time; sometimes he'll say his head feels weird; he hates himself, and says he always has. I saw someone mention that in a post on this website, and it sounded way too familiar to me. He can't help himself, and trying to encourage him or motivate him by telling him the truth of the seriousness of the situation only makes him hate himself more. He has no self-confidence and is a walking disaster of a self-fulfilled prophecy. He recently lost his job (i believe) in part due to his disorder, and now I believe that his disorder may be preventing him from picking up on a new job opportunity that has come his way. I don't know if this detail is really playing an important part in the disorder, but he has told me in the past that doctors told him that he was born without part of his brain, specifically the part that regulates emotion. This isn't actually a rare occurrence, people live normal lives like this all the time. The human brain is amazing, it compensates for its losses so beautifully; but I'm afraid that maybe part of this is that his brain isn't compensating for its loss enough. When I did research on these disorders, I read that people with it can have emotional difficulty, sometimes having emotions that don't make sense at the time of their occurrence. I can vouch that this has definitely happened.

Being who I am in his life, someone who is (at least in spirit) with him a lot of the time and very involved in his life, it can be really difficult to deal with sometimes. I have no idea what the world looks/feels like for him, so there's no way for me to relate. A lot of the things he struggles with seem to me to be simple things adults can just get done, problems that can be solved with simple logic, arguments that to me seem tiny and I get over (especially after having been resolved) where he turns them into mountains that can never be surmounted, even when the problem has been resolved already.

Up until now, my boyfriend has been living a more or less normal life with his (probable) disorder, but now there are things at stake. To start, I might not see him again, at least not for a very long time, but that's such a minor problem compared with his loss of income and more recently thoughts of suicide due to absolutely no existence of self-worth. Push is coming to shove and I really need to know how I can help him.

He has no money or insurance to pay for treatment, so either I need to know about a free resource for him to go to for treatment or I need to be able to help him myself. Please help.


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## handshaker (Jan 5, 2016)

Hi,

Okay a few pointers to help me understand the situation

1. Has he seen a professional/doctor at any point?

2. Does he currently take any drugs?

3. Does he have a history of mental illness in the family?

4. Is he eating/sleeping enough?

5. Does he talk to any other person about all of this, i.e. a friend?


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## MakaVidel (Jan 17, 2016)

1. He has talked to doctors in the past, but they all said he was fine, and it was years before I knew him or either of us started identifying this as DP/DR.

2. He doesn't do any drugs, barely even drinks.

3. I don't think his family has a history of mental illness.

4. He eats A LOT, though the diet isn't strictly speaking healthy. He's been having trouble sleeping lately, and he's never really gotten much sleep. Like, ever. And it would be something difficult to persuade him to going to bed earlier, but I can try. He's a huge gamer and tends to stay up late doing that.

5. He has a very close friend he talks to about pretty much everything, I'm sure he's talked to her about this at least as much as he's talked about it with me, especially since he believes she understands his perspective a lot better than I do, which is probably true. I'm much more of an optimist than he is, which is why I'm doing research and looking for help and he is not.

Thank you, by the way. =)


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2016)

Hi, Thanks for utilizing our site for this. Hopefully I can be of some help.

First and foremost, you being by your boyfriend's side is more than a lot of members on here have, so I have to commend you for that and say he is a lucky person.

I would honestly say his best bet is to see a PDOC, (psychiatric doctor) to get a feel for what is going on, there's no way we can diagnose on here, and even if we could we wouldn't legally.

Please let us know if there's any other questions you have, you're in the right place


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## socky_b81 (Jan 27, 2016)

I agree that he needs to seek professional help. His history of not being able to sleep and that he is a could be directly related to whatever he is not dealing with that is causing the anxiety and DR/DP.

Support him however you can. He will get through this with support and action on his part.


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## MakaVidel (Jan 17, 2016)

What I know of his sleeping history is this:

With one of his jobs he had the graveyard shift, which I don't really think I need to explain how the screws with a person's sleep. With his other jobs, they were regular first shift jobs that he would have to get up early for, but he would generally stay up late playing videogames with his friends. He has a lot of friends online, some who could afford and are in the habit of staying up to ungodly times of night, and he feels the need to appease them when they ask for time with him. Also, he just really loves videogames. He's completely fine and nonchalant with only five or six hours of sleep even though it ALWAYS results in him feeling like crap. If he's having fun with someone (including me) he will refuse to leave and go to sleep even if it means he only gets two hours of sleep. There have been days when I would tell him he should go to bed, but he refuses to get off of skype with me. This habit of his resulted in him sleeping in and missing work, and he got fired because he didn't call in sick or anything. He's been without a job for over a month and a half now, and not really showing signs of getting one. Also, his sleep is completely erratic. There are days when he is nocturnal, and there hasn't been a recent day where he has gotten a good night's sleep at night. I don't even know how he's keeping track of what day it is at this point. He wants to fix it, though. One of the things that is preventing him from fixing it is that he doesn't silence his phone when he goes to sleep, and then his friends text or call him to get on the PlayStation, and he does it! Like he wasn't doing something important like SLEEPING! He just can't tell them no! Anyway, I told him how I feel about it and suggested that he silence his phone when he gets tired. His friends (and I) can survive for the 8-10 hours he will (or should) be asleep.

I'm going to try to update his progress on this thread. I doubt any of you will really follow it, but maybe if I find some friends on here, you will. I at least want to see the progress for myself and get any advice for any problems or events that come up through this progress. Once he gets back on a normal sleep schedule, he wants to try to work out on a regular basis, and I think I might be good motivation. When he hears that I'm working out on a regular basis, he tends to feel like he should do the same, and he's always wanted to have a work out routine. So there are problems and there are hopes. Support is always appreciated.

And thank you for the welcome. =)


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## socky_b81 (Jan 27, 2016)

Sleep is more important than we now. I remember too as a teenager, maybe around 15, where I was going through a similar DP/DR situation but no one Kew back then what it was and I couldn't explain it very clearly. I would get sacked in to video games for hours. I made me focus on that only. Once the game was over I would quickly be reminded about the awful feeling I was experiencing.

Jump ahead 20 years and I'm going through and would similar DR/DP situation at present. Just kinda hit me but I'm sure the warning signs were there. I find that I am focusing on what is in front of me at the exact time--pay attention to the colours and shapes of everything around you, notice signs, cars, people, smells, how things feel. It's so easy to get sucked back into your own mind and thoughts.

Having someone to talk to helps. And personally I find journalling helps to determine what I was avoiding/ignoring that caused these problems to get here.

Keep motivating him to be active physically and mentally.


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## MakaVidel (Jan 17, 2016)

Going through tough times right now. He can't bring himself to care about work or life. He used to, but I think he had motivation back then. The motivation was to see me again and move up here, but those things seem like a long way off and I think that because of our problems it's lost its charm a bit. He needs renewed motivation or a new goal in life to care about it again. I just hope that if we bring happiness back into the relationship, that might help a bit. I know I can't be his only goal, but he has to have one and I want to provide something for him again. I don't like seeing him unhappy, especially if it's because of me. Once I made him happy when "happy" was a strange word to him, and now it's a little hard to reach again. i don't think we've ever felt more disconnected from each other, but I think maybe some of the reason is because we've both been lost and he's still very lost and unhappy and his understandably dismal attitude about his failures just permeates everything in his life. I don't want this to be the end for us. I think I can still help him, I just need to be there to listen and make him laugh and suggest solutions without nagging. I feel like there is a point where he will find the motivation or need to get back to life, whether it's when he feels happy again or when he reaches rock bottom. If he reaches rock bottom I just hope I'm still there to help him up. Wish us luck.


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## MakaVidel (Jan 17, 2016)

Well, he broke up with me last night. Things have been getting a lot harder and there have been a lot of obstacles to fixing things and it just didn't happen. I think he made the right choice. I hope that maybe he can focus more on himself now and figure out his life. I told him I would still be here for him as a friend, and I hope that's enough.


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