u/ali-phoebex

My partner has been stuck in what feels like survival mode for nearly 2 years and I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore.

From the outside it probably just looks like depression and “sitting around all day”, but it’s way more complicated than that. He wants to work, exercise, fix his life, build routines, do projects, move forward etc, but every attempt seems to backfire twice as hard.

Exercise used to feel like one of the only possible outlets, but now he keeps getting injured really easily. Shoulder pain, back pain, chest strains. He’s on diazepam as well and honestly it feels like it’s made him physically weaker/more injury prone and slower to recover. So then trying to improve himself physically just becomes another thing that hurts him.

Mentally he’s exhausted all the time. Not even anxious in the normal sense anymore, more like permanently overwhelmed, angry, numb and uncomfortable in himself. He struggles badly with suicidal thoughts/depression and gets stuck on the sofa most days because everything feels pointless or too much.

The worst part is he DOESN’T want this life. That’s why it’s so frustrating. He doesn’t enjoy rotting away watching TV or sitting on Xbox all day. Those things are overused at this point and don’t even really distract him anymore, but we’re low on money and don’t have much support from family, so most days it’s just us stuck at home trying to get through the day without things getting worse.

Hobbies don’t bring joy. Rest doesn’t help. “Just relax” doesn’t help. Forcing productivity usually causes a crash mentally or physically. Even small pushes forward seem to come with consequences afterwards.

I think he’s stuck in this horrible middle ground where he can’t function normally, but also can’t mentally accept doing nothing either. So he just lives in constant frustration and restlessness.

Has anyone actually been through something similar and found ANYTHING that helped even slightly? Not miracle cures or “go for a walk” type advice, but genuine things that helped when someone felt mentally trapped, physically run down and completely disconnected from life for a long period of time.

He’s obviously severely depressed, has anxiety, severe suicidal ideation and now he can’t leave the house as he gets scared of the thoughts and the dangers outside. He deals with alot of anger too. We suspect CPTSD. And some form of nervous system overwhelm/shutdown. He gets no comfort from anything, not me, family, comfort items, our dog. It all seems dead. He knows he cares but has gotten to the point he doesn’t feel love and we don’t say it to each other anymore as it makes him feel uncomfortable so we let each other know we care about each other. But yeah I feel like I’m just stuck watching him suffer with nothing I can do and he obviously feels stuck, when he’s angry he feels like everyone is forcing him to stay here because we won’t let him take his own life and then we aren’t doing anything to make him feel better so it’s a bit of a tricky situation. But yeah any suggestions or ideas would be a great help.

I don’t think people realise what my partner actually tries to do just to get through a normal day. His family doesn’t always get it and sometimes I don’t. I try and think my way out and think of things to do, but come up sort as he can’t handle the things I suggest. So I never get anywhere. Standard support and acceptance doesn’t work anymore. We are just so so stuck.

He’s not just “lazy” or sitting around doing nothing. He spends most days stuck between wanting to fix his life and not physically or mentally being able to do much. He wants to work, exercise, build things, feel useful again, but it feels like everything fights back against him.

The diazepam seems to have made injuries more likely and recovery slower. His shoulder and back are already hurting, so exercise — which used to feel like one of the only possible ways forward — now feels risky half the time. Then when he can’t do it properly, it makes his mental state even worse.

The hardest part is the anger and numbness. Even when we try hobbies, games, TV, sitting outside, planning things, business ideas, little projects, his brain just says “what’s the point”. It’s like nothing connects emotionally anymore, so everything either feels exhausting or irritating instead of enjoyable.

We’re also low on money and don’t really get much support from family in terms of company and help with him feeling better, or people wanting to spend time with him as much as they should. But everybody is going though their own things so I try and focus on me and him. So it’s mostly just me and him stuck at home trying to survive each day. TV and Xbox are overused at this point and hobbies don’t bring much joy anymore either. It’s like being trapped in the same loop for nearly 2 years. We don’t really have any friends to rely and talk to so we are isolated. And reaching out seems too much, and he would find it too draining or overwhelming.

He doesn’t fully want to give up, but he also can’t keep pretending sitting on the sofa all day is enough either. That’s what makes it so hard. He still wants movement, purpose, progress, connection, literally anything that feels real again, but mentally he can barely access it.

We are getting help but it’s NHS and so far they’ve only made things worse. We are trying to get his meds sorted, been more than a year trying to do that. So we are left waiting until they can sort something out and actually help.

Has anyone been through something similar or found small things that genuinely helped? Especially when someone is stuck at home a lot, low on money, physically limited and mentally exhausted all the time.

I don’t even know how to explain what life is like watching someone you love slowly disappear into a constant state of mental pain that nobody seems able to stop.

He’s my partner of 10 years. I live with this every day. And honestly, I think people massively underestimate what severe depression, nervous system shutdown and long-term mental distress actually looks like behind closed doors.

Most mornings start before he’s even out of bed.

It’s not laziness. It’s not “not wanting to get up”. It’s like waking up and immediately feeling trapped inside another day you already know you don’t have the energy to survive. He’ll lie there not wanting to move, but sleeping longer makes him feel worse too, so eventually he has to almost rip himself out of bed while already overwhelmed, angry and exhausted before the day has even started.

And that’s the part people don’t see.

Sometimes he wakes up already wanting to scream or smash something because his whole body feels wrong. Not dramatic wrong. Deep nervous system wrong. Like his brain and body are rejecting existence itself. And in those moments I can feel how much he hates being alive inside that feeling.

People always say “go for a walk”, “do breathing exercises”, “talk about your feelings”, but they don’t understand how deep this goes. When your nervous system has basically been stuck in survival mode for years, those things can feel insultingly small compared to the size of the pain.

And the anger… that’s the hardest part.

He gets angry because he’s trapped. Angry because nothing helps. Angry because he feels abandoned by the NHS after years of trying to get help. Angry because every medication either numbed him, caused side effects, made him worse, or just did nothing. Diazepam. Quetiapine. Amitriptyline. Therapy. CBT. EMDR. CBD. Weed. Supplements. Endless conversations. Endless appointments. Nothing has actually given him his life back.

Sometimes he gets angry at me or the people around him because part of him feels like we’re forcing him to stay here and keep experiencing this pain every day. I know he doesn’t truly mean it in the way it sounds, but when someone is drowning mentally for years, everything starts feeling like pressure, expectations, noise, demands.

And afterwards the guilt destroys him.

That’s what people don’t understand about anger mixed with severe depression and shutdown. Underneath the anger is usually shame, fear and desperation. He knows it hurts the people around him. He knows I end up carrying a lot emotionally. And when he calms down he’ll say he feels guilty all the time because he thinks he’s becoming someone he doesn’t want to be.

He’s told me he’s scared of himself sometimes because when the anger takes over it feels bigger than him, like he loses control of where to put all the pain. And honestly, from my side, that’s terrifying too because I can see he isn’t some evil or violent person. I can literally see someone whose nervous system has been overloaded for so long that it’s breaking down under the weight of it.

And then there’s me.

I know I annoy him sometimes. I know I can wind him up without meaning to. I know sometimes he looks at me like “why can’t you just make this stop”. And the horrible thing is… I can’t.

I care about him more than anything in the world, but love doesn’t magically regulate someone’s nervous system or remove years of trauma, depression, chronic stress and hopelessness. Sometimes I sit there trying to calm him down and I can literally see it not touching the sides. Like his brain is somewhere so dark that my words can’t even reach him anymore.

That’s the part that destroys me.

Watching someone you love desperately want relief but be terrified of everything at the same time. He wants something to work so badly he’s even looked into microdosing mushrooms because normal treatment hasn’t helped, but he’s scared too. Scared of making things worse. Scared of losing control. Scared because at this point every “solution” feels like another gamble.

People see mental health as sadness. What I see is someone fighting his own brain every single day while trying to survive inside a body that never feels safe or calm.

And the worst part is he’s still here having to wake up and repeat this same loop over and over again while services pass him around, misunderstand him, medicate him, or leave him waiting for help that never really comes.

I genuinely don’t think people understand how traumatic it is to live like this long term. It started when we were 20, got really bad in 2023 and declined since. we haven’t go to live our lives. We’re stuck in limbo. Both don’t work, have nothing for ourselves and mourn what could have been. This is mental torture for both of us.

I don’t even know how to explain what life is like watching someone you love slowly disappear into a constant state of mental pain that nobody seems able to stop.

He’s my partner of 10 years. I live with this every day. And honestly, I think people massively underestimate what severe depression, nervous system shutdown and long-term mental distress actually looks like behind closed doors.

Most mornings start before he’s even out of bed.

It’s not laziness. It’s not “not wanting to get up”. It’s like waking up and immediately feeling trapped inside another day you already know you don’t have the energy to survive. He’ll lie there not wanting to move, but sleeping longer makes him feel worse too, so eventually he has to almost rip himself out of bed while already overwhelmed, angry and exhausted before the day has even started.

And that’s the part people don’t see.

Sometimes he wakes up already wanting to scream or smash something because his whole body feels wrong. Not dramatic wrong. Deep nervous system wrong. Like his brain and body are rejecting existence itself. And in those moments I can feel how much he hates being alive inside that feeling.

People always say “go for a walk”, “do breathing exercises”, “talk about your feelings”, but they don’t understand how deep this goes. When your nervous system has basically been stuck in survival mode for years, those things can feel insultingly small compared to the size of the pain.

And the anger… that’s the hardest part.

He gets angry because he’s trapped. Angry because nothing helps. Angry because he feels abandoned by the NHS after years of trying to get help. Angry because every medication either numbed him, caused side effects, made him worse, or just did nothing. Diazepam. Quetiapine. Amitriptyline. Therapy. CBT. EMDR. CBD. Weed. Supplements. Endless conversations. Endless appointments. Nothing has actually given him his life back.

Sometimes he gets angry at me or the people around him because part of him feels like we’re forcing him to stay here and keep experiencing this pain every day. I know he doesn’t truly mean it in the way it sounds, but when someone is drowning mentally for years, everything starts feeling like pressure, expectations, noise, demands.

And afterwards the guilt destroys him.

That’s what people don’t understand about anger mixed with severe depression and shutdown. Underneath the anger is usually shame, fear and desperation. He knows it hurts the people around him. He knows I end up carrying a lot emotionally. And when he calms down he’ll say he feels guilty all the time because he thinks he’s becoming someone he doesn’t want to be.

He’s told me he’s scared of himself sometimes because when the anger takes over it feels bigger than him, like he loses control of where to put all the pain. And honestly, from my side, that’s terrifying too because I can see he isn’t some evil or violent person. I can literally see someone whose nervous system has been overloaded for so long that it’s breaking down under the weight of it.

And then there’s me.

I know I annoy him sometimes. I know I can wind him up without meaning to. I know sometimes he looks at me like “why can’t you just make this stop”. And the horrible thing is… I can’t.

I care about him more than anything in the world, but love doesn’t magically regulate someone’s nervous system or remove years of trauma, depression, chronic stress and hopelessness. Sometimes I sit there trying to calm him down and I can literally see it not touching the sides. Like his brain is somewhere so dark that my words can’t even reach him anymore.

That’s the part that destroys me.

Watching someone you love desperately want relief but be terrified of everything at the same time. He wants something to work so badly he’s even looked into microdosing mushrooms because normal treatment hasn’t helped, but he’s scared too. Scared of making things worse. Scared of losing control. Scared because at this point every “solution” feels like another gamble.

People see mental health as sadness. What I see is someone fighting his own brain every single day while trying to survive inside a body that never feels safe or calm.

And the worst part is he’s still here having to wake up and repeat this same loop over and over again while services pass him around, misunderstand him, medicate him, or leave him waiting for help that never really comes.

I genuinely don’t think people understand how traumatic it is to live like this long term. It started when we were 20, got really bad in 2023 and declined since. we haven’t go to live our lives. We’re stuck in limbo. Both don’t work, have nothing for ourselves and mourn what could have been. This is mental torture for both of us.