I can't show him love, and he can't support me without love. [TW?]

[Cazzles]

I don't even know where to start.. I just felt like coming here would be a good way to get some guidance in a situation I feel tangled in.

Having only been diagnosed with CPTSD in October 2020, I'm still completely learning everything there is. I've always been told that I suffer from severe depression and anxiety, but when I started having flashbacks of things from my childhood, no one could tell me why. When I started having flashbacks during sex from events that happened while I was a child, I could tell something wasn't right. So i started seeking further help and assistance, and only after admitting to disassociating with my therapist in October, they discovered that I am suffering with more than just depression. Now dealing with almost constant emotional flashbacks, that I've always just considered mood swings. My disassociation has become bad enough that I'm currently with a therapist who is not allowed to discuss my traumas, while patiently waiting for my turn in line to see someone to help with interpersonal therapy, to prep me for secondary care with trauma specialists.

I have always been hypervigilant, and non-trusting. Which i always just put down to my personality. However I have only had one other instance whereby my triggers were so bad, even though I didn't know that they were triggers, and I was 19 at the time. I ran away from all of my problems, and suddenly I felt better. So I didn't think anything of it.
This time around, being told I went through trauma was practically a trigger for me. I've always made excuses for my parents, the way they are with me, what happened to me as a kid. What even happened to me as an adult. I guess I've always just tried to shrug everything off as though everyone else goes through this. Now I feel like an absolute alien to everyone else, and I'm struggling. Badly.

Looking at more of the present, I'm in a relationship with a beautiful and kind man, whom has stuck by me for 8 years. He had tolerated how badly I cry after sex, even sex I instigated. He had tolerated my midday breakdowns where he has abandoned work to come home to me. He had put up with my mistrust of friends or family, and understood my excuses behind it.
Until last month.
We (UK) got news of a new lockdown in certain areas just before Christmas. This new lockdown in our area meant that we couldn't see family. And his response to this was "well i'm going to see my parents regardless, so i guess you'll have to spend Christmas day on your own at home". Suddenly, feeling abandoned, all the feelings I'd been trying to suppress were back. Even though he backtracked his decision, and begrudgingly stayed at home with me, I couldn't and still can't shake this pain I feel. And ever since, everything has been worse. I'm triggered constantly. He just needs to ask for a hug and i'm vigilant.
He now responds differently. "stating things such as
"I just want to f***ing hug my girlfriend." 
"I feel like you don't love me anymore."
"Are you just making this up?"
I have explained to him that I don't mean to react to him this way, and that him coming up behind me to hug me makes me feel like i'm going to die. But there is a level of whatever I am going through that he doesn't want to know about.

Fast track to today, and I have woken up feeling like I am going to throw up because we had one of the most difficult discussions of our relationship last night, which went like this.
"I need love."
"I can't give you love right now, I am constantly scared that you're going to get angry with me."
"I need love from you for this to work".
"I need more support from you for what i'm going through, and to know that you're gonna stick around with me when things continue to get tough; when i'm facing my fears."
"I can't give you support without love."

I'm stuck, because I need to recover. I need to get better once and for all. I need the therapy, and to work through my triggers and responses. Work and understand my trauma, come to terms with it as memories. And I don't think i can do that with him in my life now. But i don't want to be without him either.
The conversation with us has been left that we are going to see how the next 3 weeks go, and at the end of the 3 weeks reevaluate what we want from one other. And from this we can remain, extend or end. I don't know if its just how I am reacting to this scenario, or if others would be too, but I now feel like I'm waiting 3 weeks until the end of my relationship.

Please, if anyone else has been through this, or is going through this, I want to know what people did, or what they thought was best.
I'm feeling the most alone I've felt in a very long time.

[Bella]

Hey Cazzles!
My heart goes out to you for the pain, confusion and "stuckness" you're going through right now! Even though I haven't experienced exactly the same, the thoughts and feelings you are experiencing are very familiar to me.

I'm sorry your boyfriend find it difficult to understand all of your reactions and the situation in general. Not many things makes me feel so alone as when people just don't get me!!
I want to validate every feeling you have, and that it makes perfect sense for people to react, think and feel like you do, that have relational trauma in their life. When all this is said, I also want to say that it actually makes perfect sense that your boyfriend can't understand it. If he haven't experienced trauma, he has no reference frame to understand. It is sad, and painful really, when we desperately need people to see us, see our struggle, and they are just incapable of doing so...

I don't have any advice really... this condition is debilitating on so many levels. I don't know your story, or your boyfriend's story, so giving advice is difficult.
A thought; would he be interested in learning more about CPTSD maybe? If he could learn that many of your reactions and feelings are actually based on things that happened to you a long time ago, and not him, maybe it would be easier for him to understand? I don't know.
I'm sending you lots of understanding, support and love, and really hope everything will fall into place in your relationship.

[Cazzles]

Hi Bella,
Thank you for your reply, any message back right now is a good message.

Its nice for you to say that you can validate my feelings. Because i have and am questioning it. I've had many sessions including an emergency session with my therapist this morning to ask whether I am making this up or not. She has asked me to remind myself today that I am not making this up, I have experienced these things, and that my reactions are caused by these and therefore I am not making it up.
He has come from a perfect, well to do family background. Not even a divorce in the family.
By contrast, I have come from a very broken home, and have been through some things which apparently aren't normal - not that i knew any different until 2020.
So his understanding of mental health was very much - fake it 'til you make it - sort of thing. Which as we know going through any sort of mental health condition isn't necessarily a) helpful, or b) possible.
He has read some material on CPTSD that my therapist has provided me with in the early days, and this includes the symptoms and even scenarios of people and how it has differed between individuals. And this was when he was very supportive of me going to therapy. I feel like the novelty has worn off for him now, and even though i told him my journey on this road to recovery could be very long, its like his support has dwindled. He has been the subject of a lot of my therapy sessions lately because of how bad it has gotten, but my therapist has offered for him to join several sessions, to help his understanding generally; to which he has refused every time.

I think what i'm struggled to wrap my head around mostly is that we have come through so much, and I've supported him in every way I physically and mentally can. And now that its my turn to really face my demons, I can't have that support back. Without a compromise. Correct me if i'm wrong, but normal relationships shouldn't be based around compromise. And the compromise in return is that I provide him with a love that I currently feel incapable of providing without having internal anguish, just to be supported through a necessary journey.
I don't feel like that is very fair?