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college bound... anxiety & unacceptable losses

R

RedRum OG

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 18, 2009
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MN
here is my situation. i am about to turn 18, just graduated high school, and am scheduled to leave at the end of summer to go to college about 1.5 hours from home. she is a year younger and will stay at home for another year. my girl and i are about to celebrate our 1 year anniversary. thats a long time for how young we are.. or so it seems. we were each others first girl/boyfriend, first love for sure, and lost our virginites to each other. i have anxiety and depression issues, have my whole life, i mean like i would cry myself to sleep every night since i was 4. i have panic attacks a lot and theyre extremely painful. i have tried basically every drug except for meth and heroin. uppers just make me have panic attacks, even X and some grade A coke.

i am really totally in love with this girl. this isnt a stupid high school crush or some shit. we are both really serious about it and have been consistently in love for a year now. even though im 18 you really gotta realize this is a mature relationship. i am so scared to leave her. she got me to quit opiates, cuddles me to sanity when im having a panic attack which is just indescribably amazing and literally the nicest thing anyones ever done for me. she helps me care about myself enough to stop cutting myself and to never seriously attempt suicide like i did before i met her. for 3 yrs i was desperate to kill myself but never really did. she got me out of that after only a month with her. i dont really enjoy hanging out with other people that much. never really have, i am too different. i mean i go out to parties and social events all the time, used to deal a lot of drugs, so i know a lot of people and get out a LOT. but no one can compare to her, she is the best person i will ever fucking know. everyone, even my family, has treated me like shit from the second they meet me, just cuz im very nice and open, sometimes a doormat.

so next year i am scared, make that petrified, of losing this girl. i am planning to come home almost every single weekend. we talk on the phone for hours a day too. but still the distance is gonna kill me and her. i hate hate hate being away from home, used to get homesickness panic attacks a lot. i know i am going to get back into hard drugs. opiates scare the shit out of me. without her i could be a dope addict within a month, no joke. i have horrible ADD and no motivation so i could easily turn into a fuckup and drop out, ruin my life... but end up with her back at home.... or i will try to numb myself and be hard against the pain of missing her and go back to cutting and shit.... and eventually lose feelings for her because thats what depression does to me.

shes the only thing i have. my family and i hate each other. i havent had a real conversation with them since i was 12 its very messed up. she is my whole world, im empty without her in my life. i will fill the beautiful space she filled with self destruction and opiate addiction if things get too hard for me cuz im a very weak person. if youre gonna try to preach the stereotypical shit like " shes your first thing, you will move on eventually if things dont work out" orrrr "many fish in the sea..." just stop. i will NOT listen. this is the roughest point of a rough life, losing her would pretty much be the end, not being overdramatic


im a young dude. help me be hopeful i need advice from older smarter people please. sorry for rambling im stoned
 
I see that you mentioned that, as far as you are concerned, being with this girl is the only thing that has prevented you from committing suicide, from injuring yourself, and from going back to drugs. That seems very unhealthy to me. You seem to be placing way too much emphasis on this girl by thinking that she is your everything and that she is the one thing keeping you out of trouble. You should be able to keep a handle on things all by yourself, girl or not, but you seem to think that if you are away from home and this girl, for just one month, you will go right back to drugs and other self-injurious behaviors.

You may think that one year is a lot of time and you may find some sense of security in the fact that you have made it to the one-year-mark of your relationship. Well, I was with my ex for four years. We were seriously discussing marriage. Something happened, though, and now we are no longer together. We started seriously dating both at age 22 and she left me when we were both 26. Even in our twenties we both still had a lot of growing up and changing to do. The length of time you have been with someone is not necessarily an indicator that the relationship will continue to last.

It is possible that you will be with this girl forever, but it is extremely improbable that this will come to pass. If I read your post correctly, this girl is only seventeen. The both of you have a lot of growing and changing to do. Once you are in college the two of you will be in completely separate worlds and at completely different stages in life, not to mention the relationship will be long distance. What are you going to do if she leaves you? You need to keep your own mental health in check and you need to be able to stay away from using on your own. If you need help managing your anxiety you should go to therapy. I am willing to bet that your college, like most colleges, will offer free counseling to students. My college did. You should take advantage of that. Go to NA meetings to stay clean and gain support. You will also meet new friends through NA so you have other people in your life apart from your girlfriend. A good rule of thumb is to only hang out with people from NA who have at least one year of clean time. You need to become a bit more independent.

I am not saying that long-distance relationships cannot work out. For about one year out of the relationship I had with my ex, in the beginning, we were both in different states while she was finishing up college. I am not trying to preach to you about all of the fish in the sea. I am just advising you that you would be much better off if you took the time to become more independent and self-reliant. If you can do that, your present relationship will become even better. If things do not work out between the both of you in the future, you will be able to stay clean, healthy, and happy all on your own. Also, a majority of the women that I have known like men to be independent instead of clingy and needy.

I hope things work out for you. College is a time to grow, learn, and change in ways you have never been exposed to before. Use that time to gain some independence, a deeper understanding of yourself and a better idea of what direction to take in life, and become more comfortable in your own skin :)
 
^+ a million

I was also in love with my high school boyfriend, who I dated for 4 years, not just one, starting in high school and continuing on into the beginning of college. I was SO IN LOVE omg omg omg, and I thought I would be with him forever too. I don't get along with my family, I have psychiatric problems, he was the only good thing in my life, all that same stuff too. We were each other's first loves, lost our virginities to each other, and all that too - he told me he loved me after knowing me for less than 3 weeks. After he dumped me, I thought my life was OVER. I was almost committed to a psych ward over it. Nowadays I know that it's the best thing that ever happened to me. Literally, the BEST thing. I can't even imagine how I stayed with him as long as I did anymore.

Just keep in mind that you are VERY young, and no matter how mature you think you are or how mature you think your love is, it's not and you're not. I was EXTREMELY mature for my age all through my teens, but now at age 25 I realize that for as mature as I was, very mature at 16 is just not the same as very mature ten years later. My life at 18 and my life now are absolutely worlds apart. What made me happy then simply doesn't anymore - my needs are completely different. Your life WILL change, as will your girlfriend's, and likely, that change will cause you to grow apart. It might not, and it would be wonderful if you do stay together, but you should NEVER EVER EVER (ever ever ever ever ever) base your life around another person. I did that once and it was the worst mistake of my life, and the only thing I regret. Even if you do stay together, you need to make sure that you can be strong and healthy independently too. Dependence is not the basis of a healthy relationship.
 
I went through something similar two years ago when I graduated HS so let me lay it down from MPE.

I had this girl that was my everything. She knew how to calm me down and understood all of my personal demons that I had gone through while I was a senior including a suicide attempt and multiple hospitalizations. I could have sworn that we were going to be together for the rest of our lives, except that I was going to college 8 hours away in the fall.

At the end of the summer and when I got to college I was beyond depressed, I started hardcore using any pill that I could find and if she called I would just miss class so that I could keep talking to her. I even came back home on 3 different occasions in the first month there so that I could see her. Eventually my depression, drug use and the pain of missing her was too much to handle and I dropped out of my school and moved back home. Then guess what happened? She got a new boyfriend, knocked up and a nice heroin addiction to go along with it.

I was devastated. I did everything to try to get her back and show her how much I loved her and blah blah blah (if dropping out of school wasn't enough) but it didn't matter. But in the long run this was the best thing that could happen to me. Sure I'll never know what would have happened if I stayed in Ohio, but if I never came home I would have never formed my band that is now starting to blow up, I wouldn't be with the girl that I'm with now and I especially wouldn't have found the career that I'm perusing now where work doesn't even feel like work!

Here's another little bit that's a happier story for you to use for hope. My girlfriend now and I were together all through HS (before she dumped me when I was in the hospital and I met the girl from the last story) and last year we got back together. She goes to school 6 hours away but comes home on the weekends and we talk everyday. Our relationship is AMAZING because of this! Absence makes the heart grow fonder my friend. If you are going to be coming home on the weekends and talking daily it really isn't going to be as bad as you may think. It'll be like if you guys went to different high schools, during the week you have work to do and can only talk on the phone but on the weekend LOOK OUT :)

All I'm saying dude is don't get all worked up about it because you still have some time together so you should just enjoy it and when you get to college there are things like school provided counseling and tons of people to keep your mind in check. If it's meant to truly be then it will happen. This might actually make you guys closer in the long run because when you are together it will be special.

If it for some reason it doesn't work, then hell you're at college! I know you don't want to hear that there are tons of fish in the sea because for a while I didn't want to hear it either, but in the rare instance that something does happen between you guys then you will be fine.

Hope this helps and if you need anyone to talk to or anything just PM me because I've gone through alot of shit and would love to help.
 
i dont want to be dependent on this girl. i know thats unhealthy. but my life has always had some huge chunk missing and she fills that better than drugs or whatever else.

i also understand im young and can change a lot. but you people forget how long that change takes... or how long it will seem if you have to sit and wait for it to happen. im super impatient. and waiting for my mind to mature and grow and get over her over the course of years.... well thats just not gonna last long without me getting high or cutting or whatever to pass the time. i am scared of heroin cuz i have idealized it and sorta been obsessed since we learned about it in DARE. and i really love opiates in general, when the walls of my head are closing in they more than take it away. its like the opposite. i dont have the self control to sit there feeling like im in my own personal hell, and to know that i can fly straight from there to through the clouds any minute, with just 1 phonecall.
 
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So you admit, fully outright here, that you USE this girl to deal with your problems. You use her like a drug. "Flying straight from hell to through the clouds in a minute"? That doesn't sound suspect to you? ;) Even if you love her and she loves you, it simply isn't healthy to view a relationship as something you use to fix your life. And it's silly to assume that it will always help you that much until the day you die.

I'm not trying to hate on you or on your relationship here, I'm just really trying to make sure you understand that you have a very unhealthy perspective here, and it's not even that much about your age, although it is harder to understand these sorts of things when you have less perspective. I know you say you're impatient, but the time goes remarkably quickly. I haven't forgotten how long any of these things take - after 4 years with one guy (and that was over the course of over 5 years), it took me a year and a half to get over him. I didn't even sleep with anyone else for over six months after we broke up. Those times, though, were the times that I grew the most as a person. I began to realize that I could make myself feel better by myself. I began to realize that idealizing a person is no better than idealizing drugs and that neither of them would make me a better person, or even really feel better as a person. And when I realized that I had made all those realizations while I was "all alone" (being single isn't being alone!), I realized more than ever that *I* was the one that had the power to fix my life and only *I* was going to be the one that would be able to make things better. I was able to go out and have tons of fun and meet plenty of great new people, including new boyfriends - and the one I'm with now is a much better guy than any other I've ever been with.

And I know that we can sit here and tell you this over and over again, and you'll think we're nuts or can't possibly understand your situation well enough or understand you well enough, just like how it's been happening since the beginning of humanity. :) Just remember that things will get easier in time, and the most important thing you can do for yourself is to become secure and confident in yourself and your abilities completely separately from anyone or anything else. The younger you can accomplish that, the more awesome your life will be, and the happier you will be in relationships. :)
 
I'm 52, a grandma, mom, and wife so I have some background with life :)

The first thing you need to realize is that you have to make things right within yourself first! You cannot count on anyone else to make you happy. You cannot depend on anyone else for your sobriety either.

Coming home on weekends will work if you both are committed to it. You will have all week long at school to focus on making the Dean's list then! It's not really a whole year either unless you screw up and have to take classes in the summer. It's more like 8 or 9 months! If the two of you make it through that time then you have a much better chance of making it forever. I've been married 32 years. Wasn't a virgin when we met though... ;) It was the 70's!
 
rant n rave i think you sorta read that wrong. i was talking about heroin and other opiates for most of that stuff. i use them to get over shit and go through the clouds and stuff.

i dont use the girl. she has just come to be a solution for a lot of my problems. shes fucked up too and i support her when shes freaking out.

and help me please good advice stuff like that keeps me lookin up for a while.

thanks everybody.
 
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