Dear Jade:

I would like to summarize your story and then offer you my thoughts:

Your romantic relationship with your boyfriend started on June 30, 2021. At the beginning, “he was a Prince Charming, everything I have ever wanted and more. He said he felt … as though all this time, the person we were searching for were simply each other all along…  it felt like a fairytale“.

In mid-August, his roommate kicked him out, and he was forced to move back into his parents’ place. On August 30, you moved into his parents’ place as well, because of your own personal apartment situation having not worked out. On September 15, he told you that “he felt he didn’t deserve to be loved by me”. You tried to convince him otherwise and he calmed down. Sometime later, he told you that “he felt nothing… He cried, he apologized to me continually… He felt as though he was committing a high-end crime by not loving me” He also told you that “everything around him felt numb as well“.

You cried and told him that “it’s okay. It was not his fault“. He then asked you to leave his parents’ place, but within a week, “he was sobbing in my arms saying that he loves me again, he doesn’t think he ever stopped, or that maybe he was just lost. He told me he felt terrible for putting me through that emotional rollercoaster“.

On November 17, tired of living in his father’s basement, you asked him to move out with you.  His response: “He didn’t find it suitable and felt that the two of us were on separate paths…  he said he was not ready to move out of his parents’ house“. You understood, asked him to reconsider, and after he refused, you left and got your own place, but “made sure he was aware that he could join me at any given moment“. The two of you were then on a sort of a break, but still going on dates, texting, calling, spending the night together and having sex.

A month into your “break”, you found out that “he had broken a huge boundary of ours. I confronted him, devastated, crying my eyes out… He cried as well, just as hard as I did, apologizing, swearing he would never do it again“.

On December 22, 2021, you were running a bath, and he stared at you from behind, and said softly: “I don’t think this is going to work…. I feel weird. It doesn’t feel the same anymore”.  You gently held his hands, and he said: “before, when I held your hands, I knew that they were your hands. Now, as I’m holding them, I just see them as hands…. before, when you touched my face, I felt all your love, all your warmth, I felt comforted. Right now, I just feel weird. I feel guilty, I feel sad, I feel uncomfortable”

On January 10, 2022, your birthday, he spent time with you and friends at the bowling alley. “Still, he does not love me“.

On January 14, he told you that “he would still do anything to me, that he knows I am more important than everyone else, I am more special, but that for some reason, he lumps me in with them. He feels the same about me as he does about everyone else, empty, coexisting… He says he hardly thinks of me because his brain is in overdrive, but that, when he does, he misses me…that he has zero interest in anyone else or in finding anyone else. He says that when the time comes, the first person to know that he is okay will be me, but that as of now, no-contact is best“.

“It is January 17, 2022. I still love him and am beginning to fear that I will never stop. ‘After all this time?’ ‘Always.’”

My thoughts: being that he said that (1) much of the time, his brain is in overdrive, meaning that much of the time his stress level is too high,  that (2) everything around him feels numb, that the feel of your hands and the look of your face lost its personal meaning to him, that is, that he perceives your hands to be the hands of no one in particular, your face- the face of no one in particular, and that he feels about you as he does about everyone else, empty co-existence, and that (3) he said he has no interest in any other woman—> all this sounds like the experience of depersonalization- derealization disorder (DPDR).

merks manuals. com: “Depersonalization/derealization disorder is a type of dissociative disorder that consists of persistent or recurrent feelings of being detached (dissociated) from one’s body or mental processes, usually with a feeling of being an outside observer of one’s life (depersonalization), or of being detached from one’s surroundings (derealization). The disorder is often triggered by severe stress”.

Wikipedia: “First experiences with depersonalization may be frightening, with patients fearing loss of control, dissociation from the rest of society and functional impairment. The majority of people with depersonalization-derealization disorder misinterpret the symptoms, thinking that they are signs of serious psychosis or brain dysfunction. This commonly leads to an increase of anxiety and obsession, which contributes to the worsening of symptoms… There is growing evidence linking physical and sexual abuse in childhood with the development of dissociative disorders. Childhood interpersonal trauma – emotional abuse in particular – is a significant predictor of a diagnosis of DPDR”.

My thought: maybe he was abused in his parents’ home as a child, and going back to live there, with his father (but not with his mother?) back in mid-August triggered his childhood trauma, greatly elevated his stress level, leading to DPDR symptoms.

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by .