Hi everyone, I'm new here and I'm actually new to all this caregiver world and I'm quite lost and happy to be able to talk about with someone, even if just virtually.
Since a couple of years I'm together with this guy that has depression and social anxiety. He told me just recently and ask me to not tell anyone, ever! Anyway, was already long time that I understood something was rather off with him. He has very strong mood switch, and he often told me he cannot control it. We did a lot of transformational work since when we first met, and he improved enormously, mostly in regard of: being able to deal with other people, communicate earlier when he is not happy about something and generally have a bit more balance in life. That saying, these progress are still not even close to what is ok for me, our life is still very unbalance, we had those big drama every 2/3 weeks, he is still without job and struggle to push him self to look for one. He struggles to do most of little stuff in life like go to dentist, taxes,... and when I offer my help he says he is grown up man, and he should be able to do those stuff alone otherwise he is a failure. Is very difficult for me to see him depress and unhappy and not being able to do anything to help.
Anyway, what I wanted to ask here is related to the last drama situation we had: Yesterday morning I woke up and I heard that he is already awake and already slumming doors and not acting very chill. I was very unhappy to realize it was one of THAT days since already the day before he was very irritable, and we avoid a big fight just because I was very careful, I left a lot of space to him and let him doing his stuff. Still, we went to sleep not in a really great mood so waking up and discover that was another day of weird silence, not talking and coldness... Was the last thing I wanted to know. So, I go to him and with very normal tone, I ask him what's up and why he is in a bad mood. He says he is not. I said he obviously is since he slams doors at 6.30am. I leave the room and... THE CHAOS! He starts to slam doors, throw stuff on the floor, ... He is packing his stuff to go back to his home, I ask what's going on and to stop breaking all my stuff.
He gets even more angry and start to scream really aggressively in my face. He screams me to shut up.
I go in the other room and tell him to leave. He leaves. Now, not the first time those kinds of situations happen. Maybe is the first time that I manage to stay very calm and not freak out and scream on him as well. I know that he would not hurt me because we already got to the point where we were almost hitting each other, and we both stop. We then talk about it and agree that if it would have happen again we would have broke up. And since a year it didn't happen anymore to that level. But I cannot stop thinking that maybe one day... when he will be even more stress from work and other stuff, maybe one day he would not be able to stop and leave and something awful will happen. But even if nothing more than screaming will ever happen... I don't want to have such situations my life. He is not him self in those moments. He is one of the sweetest and caring person I have ever met, but when he snap like that.. is like if he is not himself anymore! And there is nothing I can say or do to make him reason again. We need to wait some days. Now, as anyone has experience of depress people being VERY IRRITABLE and ANGRY?
What's the best way to deal with that, on the moment and after it?
Also right now we don't live together and we can just take some days apart. But what if we are travelling? Or if we will live together? I don't want to accept those behaviors in our relationship and we already talk about that they are not acceptable. But I don't know how much make sense to impose this to him if is something he cannot control.
Also, if turn out that he don't want/cannot change and this situation is not good for me, we need to break up.. how is possible to break up with someone with depression? Wouldn't this make them even more depress till they hit a dangerous spot?? Thank you for any tips or feedbacks!