Relationships are difficult. Anyone whose been in a long term relationship will tell you that. Add in disability and trauma? Extremely difficult.
I came into my current relationship with the trauma of my past romantic relationships. I was abused in some shape or form in all of my romantic relationships prior to the one I am currently in. My boyfriend came to the relationship having lived through domestic violence with his family (and I have no idea what happened with his previous relationships, he never explicitly told me what happened in said past relationships). A year or two into the relationship, my boyfriend had a complete mental health breakdown and ended up being diagnosed with schizophrenia. About a year after that diagnosis, I got psych tested and it came back positive for general anxiety disorder and abandonment problems.
As time has gone by (we have been in a relationship for about six and a half years at this point, I am in my mid-twenties and my boyfriend is in his late-twenties), we have certainly had our ups and downs. We are both trying to deal with our own problems as well as constantly learn what’s the best way to deal with each other’s issues. We both have bad mental health days. We sometimes have days where all we do is get mad at each other. There have been days where all I want to do is scream and cry into a stack of pillows and then crawl under blankets.
There have been numerous incidents where I was scared that we were going to break up. That we would split because we had both reached our breaking point. What does the future look like? I have no idea. I wish I could tell you that it’s looking positive but the reality is we really are struggling right now. We both need to find the most healthy and efficient way of dealing with our problems.
