I Want My Girlfriend To Stop Journaling and Get a Job

My girlfriend has depression and has been in a depressive period for nearly a year now. We were together for two years before this episode began, following a period of time where she lost her job and experienced the death of her grandmother. (They were close when she was young, but only spoke every few months or so as an adult.) At what point am I allowed to start expecting things from her again? When I try to talk to her about things like her unemployment, me taking care of our animals alone, etc, she says it’s too much for her to process right now while she’s feeling this way. I work to support us and she spends most of her time journaling and playing video games. We certainly can get by on my salary, but I’d like to be able to save more for the future and live a more comfortable life. Looking for anyone who has struggled with depression to give me some guidance here, everything I’ve come up with on my own isn’t working, and I’m scared it will be like this forever. And yes, she is in therapy. She says her therapist agrees with her current approach to life.

Valerie: Is there a world in which you could ask to see her therapist together for a few sessions? So that you can get a better handle on how to best support her through this, but also so you can express your concerns about her and about the future. Everyone’s depression and grief is different, so what might pull me out of a depressive episode might not work for your girlfriend, and vice versa. But talking together with her therapist might give you both the opportunity to express what you’re feeling in a safe environment with someone who can help you both communicate clearly about your needs and wants and come up with a plan going forward.

Summer: Hmmmmm well, a year is definitely long enough after a traumatic event to try and get back on one’s feet. If it’s been that long and her grief and pain are still the main drivers of this lethargy, she may have frozen her grief. My first question to you is what have you seen her do to grieve for her grandmother? Grieving is a much more active pursuit than people realize. And doing things that move grief along is how we reclaim normalcy after the event. It’s why people have funerals, memorials, and death rites. Humanity as a whole has long-agreed that freezing grief in time is not the answer and we need to do something to grieve and move on.

Valerie made the therapist suggestion so I’ll keep things at home: Is there any way you can gently encourage her to take up more household labour? From what I can tell, you’re not solely concerned with a lack of income on her part, but also feeling unsupported at home. It sounds like you’ve become more of a caregiver than an equal partner and you didn’t sign up for that. Having frank conversations about the small things she should start helping you with at home is a way to gauge her motivation and maybe get her back onboard with the shared relationship duties. Speaking as someone who has experienced the depression + forever gaming funk, people usually don’t just jump up and start applying for jobs after a catalyzing moment. They usually need small, productive steps to give them purpose. Like doing more stuff around the house, or shifting bedtimes to a healthier place. These will become the momentum needed to venture out of home. These are my main thoughts.

I know you’re afraid that this will become permanent, but I don’t think that’ll pan out. A year is not that long into a destructive part of life. However, you’ll surely be feeling the previous year harder because you’re giving so much of yourself already. Try to take those baby steps and do them with her as a companion, rather than as an adversary and you’ll see if it progresses.

P.S. From someone who’s been around therapists and trained in counselling, a good therapist shouldn’t ‘agree with’ a lifestyle based on stagnating on a couch. Good therapists are very ‘yes’ oriented people. They nudge clients forward at a safe and comfortable pace, but they shouldn’t let a life go wasted.

Nico: I agree that talking together with the therapist for a couple sessions could be really productive, especially because I also doubt that the therapist “agrees” with a client staying in a depressive funk. Generously, maybe there are steps your girlfriend is taking and talking to her therapist about that she has not talked to you about.

You ask when you are “allowed to start expecting things from her again,” and I think that you should almost always be able to expect that your partner will at least have a dialogue with you, especially if you live together, and share a household, finances, and a life. Her decisions affect you directly, and it’s unfair for her to refuse to even engage in conversation with you. DBT for distress tolerance might be helpful here for you both, as would be talking together with her therapist about…talking to each other.

Now, losing a job can be incredibly traumatizing, just like a death, and to be hit with both at the same time is a lot. However, your girlfriend is probably caught in a cycle where she lost some of her purpose by losing her job, and so she’s depressed, leading to it feeling overwhelming and too difficult to find ways to bring meaning and purpose into her life. I do think small steps can make a big difference here, and socialization is huge. She needs to get out of the house and participate in life again. One way of doing this that isn’t just hanging out with friends is by helping people. Mutual aid is still very much a thing. Are there immigrant families or elderly neighbors she can help deliver groceries to, for example? Can she pet-sit for friends? And once she’s switching up her routine a little, hopefully it’ll be much easier to ask her to help take care of the chores and the pets at home. Of course, you’d have to convince her to try and step out there, but if finding paid employment is too daunting and overwhelming in her current mental state, then finding less demanding, more one-off chances to help others might help ease her back into the world.

A final thing to consider, if you haven’t already, are meds or a medication adjustment. Sometimes a person needs some antidepressants to kick their butt back into gear, even if they’re not going to be something she takes permanently. Maybe you two could talk to her doctor about it?

I am a queer person in a “straight-passing” relationship. It didn’t used to be like that when I was on testosterone, though I have been off it for awhile for personal reasons. I have a lot of trauma when it comes to women and sex from a very young age due to being shown lesbian pornography when I was young and this has impacted my sexuality in ways that I never really got a chance to explore, and now it’s popping up for me. I feel content and happy with my relationship with my partner, but I also feel like I never got to experience the part of me that is attracted to women and femme leaning/presenting gender non-conforming individuals. I’ve also never been able to confront my attraction alongside my trauma from Child Sexual Abuse as well as religious abuse. I still feel lots of shame for finding women’s bodies attractive and find myself more fearful of disclosing and talking about my sexuality more so than my gender identity which I think is weird during the current state of the world when it comes to transgender and gender non-conforming persons. I know this is a lot and so feel free to shorten this, but I would love any advice on how to navigate this.

Summer: I usually advise directly, but when I read someone’s story that has many overlapping threads to unpick, I pull out the therapy recommendation. My reading of your letter is that you experienced CSA – definitely being shown porn, but unsure about other incidents – and religious abuse that are tied together. Those are two traumatic experiences with a very long tail. They bear the kind of complexity that’s best explored with a therapist. If you have the means, a queer-affirming therapist would probably be best because it seems the trauma has latched onto your queer identity. And religious abuse of queer people is one of the most common things queer-affirming therapists have to deal with.

Aside from recommending therapy, I’ll point you in the direction of complex trauma, or CPTSD. This family of diagnoses and experiences is meant for people who suffered continuous, long-term trauma. It’s distinct from PTSD, which tends to be caused by single incidents or short-term events. Complex trauma comes out of sustained abuse with no means to escape—it happens a lot to children and those in abusive relationships. It usually doesn’t have a single inciting incident or worst period, but reflects the harm of moderate and long-term stress. I’m not here to diagnose you, but childhood trauma resulting in adulthood fears and shame is a common feature of complex trauma. I’d read into that topic and consider finding online support communities if the reading resonates with you. And good luck. It’s hard to begin confronting a violent past, but the difficulty is far preferable to leaving it untouched.

Nico: Summer’s resources about trauma and CPTSD are really important recommendations here. The first step seems to be to, to whatever extent you are able, work on healing from the trauma of your childhood. I’m sorry that happened to you. If you can alleviate your feelings of shame, then you can have a clearer head when you think about what you want when it comes to exploring your sexuality. It might also make conversations with your partner easier. I’m glad you have such a supportive and loving partnership, by the way. Do you feel like these things are things you two can talk about together? Maybe there are ways your partner can support you in exploring and experiencing the full spectrum of your sexuality that you’ll both feel good about. Hopefully, they’re open to the conversation, but I think if you take your time and talk about it in the way that you have here, then any reasonable person would engage you in that conversation. Wishing you luck!