Hello, this is my first time on here.
I’m 20 and I’ve been emotionally supporting my very close friend daily for the last 2 years. This was all done online over the phone. We could not meet eachother in person due to our family circumstances.
My relationship with my close friend/intended future wife(complicated) started one year before that. She had existing chronic illnesses but her illness is unknown still. I was a consistent emotional support for her at this time but it was nothing major, I was just the one person at the time who she could speak to and feel normal for once.
After 1 year her health severely worsened and she needed to have brain surgery to remove a tumor from her brain. The surgery was successful but ofc she had last all of her memories from the last 5 years or so, so she didnt know who i was or anything which was stressful as it didn’t seem liek her memories were going to come back and we had been through a lot together before that due to our situation which forced us to talk online and not be together the way we wanted to properly, I was sad because I thought I would be alone with the feelings of being hurt because with her memories gone she was like a new version of herself without any memory of me. I became a stranger to her at the time which was hard for me too.
Anyways, her memories came back after 2 weeks but ever since her reliance on my emotional support became very severe. Without me supporting her emotionally her physical health woudl severely deteriorate. Her chronic illnesses would flare up badly. She has been in hospital multiple times in emergency care because I havent been able to talk to her over the phone in time.
My care for her is daily now and if we have an argument or any sort of negative energy in a conversation can affect her health severely. Its not as sensitive as it was the weeks after her surgery but my carer has been the same way ever since. If I dont speak to her, her symptoms flare up alot. She has chronic breathing issues, chronic pain, cluster headaches at times, migraines often, seizures often, fainting/blacking out etc.
All of this is worsened if I’m not speaking to her etc in order to stabilise her symptoms with my emotional support. I do my care remotely and I haven’t been able to meet her in person dur to our family circumstances. My family are unsupportive of us beng in contact with eachother so my care is all done in secrecy, I have no support.
Its especially stressful at times when I’m not be able to speak to her immediately when shes close to dying because of her/my family members being around us and i cant afford us to be caught.
Everyday is draining, its so hard to just talk and talk in order to care for her. It has ruined my sleep and I’m finding it hard to form any routines because of this. Its hard to talk to her when she isn’t able to talk back to me due to her health being at times really bad. I dont know if theres something wrong with me or I’m just not much of a talker.
I’ve been struggling with feelings of guilt etc but I have been working on it for the past couple months.
A couple months ago I was diagnosed with ADHD which as u would imagine makes caring for someone quite abit harder due to the nature of ADHD especially since i have no support from my family for my ADHD too and i sought out a diagnosis myself.
I’m currently on medication titration however I think the dose I’m on isnt working too well. I have went to therapy for my ADHD/carer issues and it was a little helpful for the carer struggle as it confirmed that what I thought to do was not immoral.
They told me to set boundaries of when we could call as in his words “I can’t pour from an empty cup” This has helped but its just the nature of my situation to be rly unpredictable and severe at any given moment. So at times I have to break this rule in order to help her so my sleep is still affected and its hard to make any sought of routine, especially with having ADHD which im only recent diagnosed and trying to help myself with. However, I am making some progress with a routine which I’m very glad about.
My time in education was filled with alot of failures because of my undiagnosed ADHD so now that I’ve finally gotten the answer and some assistance in it I’m trying to pursue education.
Yet again, my family aren’t very supportive of it and arent happy with giving me time to get myself on my feet etc.
I feel really stuck because I want to pursue dentistry but i dont know how this will work whilst caring for my partner the way I am. I dont want to wait too long before I’m married and have kids. I feel I’m running out of time.
Ultimately, I just want someone to talk to who can relate to my situation. I know this sounds silly but I feel that no one has the same experience as me, I feel so alone and I struggle with understanding if my feelings about my situation are valid.
Only recently did I realise how alone I feel because of a little interaction with someone who was kinder than others have been about my situation and it made me happy. I felt so alone from that, I don’t know who to turn to, I don’t contact any friends and I dont want to. I feel alone in the sense that I dont know anyone who truly understands what I’m going through. Even when i go online I dont see anyone in my situation. I just want someone who understands and is in a similar situation to me.
I’m sorry if anything i said seems confusing or difficult to understand because of how I’ve worded things. I don’t know why but I’m terrible at saying what i want to say and forming sentences in any setting that isnt casual. I also tend to overthink/overshare or over explain things to the point its just confusing. I find it hard to understand things without specific precise wording so i think thats why. I just speak/text in a disjointed way.
So if theres any questions I can try to explain further.
