Maxed Out

I haven't written about it, because frankly I don't know how to present it, whether from my point of view (which I have been told over and over that it is WRONG) or from the correct point of view from friends and family (which doesn't make me feel any better) or the secret insecurity I've been harboring the past couple of days.

So I'm writing my thoughts as they come. Welcome to my mumbo-jumbo brain.

Christopher has been depressed. Not in the ways I claim to be circumstantially depressed every now and then, but medically, clinically, brain-not-chemically-firing depressed. We've been locked in a pattern for the past two months where he mentally and emotionally slips away, I'll call him out on it, and then he swears everything is fine and he puts on a show that I'm not even sure he believes. And then the effort he's been making will peter out and it begins again.

My grandmother got really sick in January. My family was speaking of her in weeks and months as opposed to years. Whats-his-face lashed out at me and temporarily halted my world. I wanted to lean on my boyfriend, but he wasn't there. He wasn't answering the phone calls nor making any phone calls. He was sleeping all day and awake all night. We stopped spending the night together because of his sleep schedule. I got angry (typically my first reaction) and called a friend who said, "Oh, he sounds really sick." And she was all concerned over him while here I was, angry because I was feeling abandoned with his incommunication.

So I went over to his apartment and forced a talk on him. He was meek and small and didn't say much and admitted to even less. I asked what kind of girlfriend he needed from me: someone to support him or someone to hold him accountable. He said supportive. We talked about what makes him feel better. He said going to the gym. He signed up for a gym memebrship and I bought him a year's subscription to Men's Health. He did quietly thank me for coming over and squeezed my arm when I was leaving.

The next day he called me and said he's been up since 8 am and has been applying to all sorts of jobs all day. Good, I thought. Situation fixed.

And downhill slope begins again. He wants to see me, but doesn't want to leave his apartment. So if I ever want to spend time with him, I have to go to his place and sit on his couch. I begin to hate his apartment. I detach. He starts getting colds one after another and I'm not surprised because he isn't eating or sleeping regularly. That was the one thing my therapist asked me when I started seeing her. Every meeting: Am I eating and sleeping regularly? "Yes," I said. "Good," she said. "You're fine." By this standard, Christopher is not fine.

After not seeing Christopher for a couple of weeks, I stop by his apartment at 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon. My plan was to kidnap him and take him out to his favorite place to get some food, sunshine and interaction. He answered the door in his boxers, clearly sleeping. I turn the shower on. He gets back in bed. I tell him the plan. He tells me to turn the shower off because he's too tired to go. I begin to cry and say I need this from him. He says he needs sleep. I dance around the depression word again because he'll never admit to him, but he agrees he's been "mopey" this year. I cry and say he never comes over to my apartment anymore. We used to cook dinner together and watch TV, but he doesn't do that with me anymore. He swears he will this week: Monday or Tuesday. He asks me to leave so he can go back to bed. When I linger, he goes ahead and pretends he's sleeping.

A week goes by. I stopped by with several job leads. Every day he sends me a text saying he's got a cold and can't make it for dinner because he's going to take a sleeping pill to sleep off the cold. I've never heard of nasal drip incapacitating anyone to the extent it's taken hold of him. I'm understanding Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. But on Sunday we had made tentative plans to go out to dinner. 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 rolls by and I haven't heard from him. He doesn't answer the phone and I know he's sleeping. But I'm angry (again my first reaction). He can't make a single effort for me, yet says he wants me in his life. I feel rejected.

I send him a text that states this sleeping excuse is old and his behavior is unacceptable. An hour later I lessen the blow with saying I'm acting this way because I'm tired of having my feelings hurt. I get no response. I go to bed.

Close to midnight I get a text from him that says he really was sleeping and it's not an excuse. I can't read the emotion of the message so I call. He doesn't answer.

A few minutes later I get another text from him. He wants a break because he's not feeling it and he knows I'm not either. I laugh because this is the second time I have been broken up with by text. I hate texting and I was only able to do it again this year. I ask him to define "break." Does he want space or to break up. "Space," he responds "And I told you I didn't want to be serious."

That's my version.

Family and friends tell me that he's so depressed that he is unable to feel at the moment. That I shouldn't take it personally because he would be like this with anyone. It's not my fault and I didn't do anything wrong. They say he was depressed from being unemployed a year before he met me and that being with me gave him a high during which he was able to function. But now the high is wearing off and he's going back to being depressed because it's been an additional 9 months and he is still unemployed. Unemployment has run out and his parents are enabling him by paying his bills. His credit cards are maxed out.

Each one of them expresses concern for him. But me? I'm angry.

And the secret insecurity? Maybe he just doesn't like me.