First, I wish to say hello to everyone. I have just registered, with the intention to ask you guys about some advice on how to deal with a loved person in my life. I hope your experience will come in handy.
It's about my girlfriend. She is from USA and I'm from Europe. We met online almost 8 months ago. It was a perfect flow from the start to the point that we became best friends first, soul mates, and then lovers.
I know long distance relationships are hard, but relying on our good communication we managed to pull it off just fine. Two months ago she flew here and we met for the first time. It was one awesome week and we had a great time. We planned our future together.
But almost a month ago she fell into a sad mood, and she told me she suffers from seasonal depression during the winter.
Even though we had a talk about it, I can't seem to understand her anymore, she has changed. Not only that she doesn't enjoy our common activities anymore, but she gets constantly annoyed and irritated by some very simple things in our communication. It's like I'm talking to a completely different person, it's frustrating. At moments she seems ok and happy, then just a moment later she is all depressed and even talking about suicide. Mood tends to shift in days if not hours.
I got scared about her suicidal thoughts, dug up all the info I could about depression and even talked with my therapist about it. Everything advised me to keep calm, don't get emotional, to support her and be around for her. Sadly it is not as easy as it sounds. She had a troubled childhood, got molested twice as a kid, parents divorced, living with her mother who is being stressful towards her. Having a lot of unsuccessful relationships in her life too.
Until now I have tried to support her, and advised her to seek professional help, but she just refuses and says that depression cannot be cured and I just have to deal with it. Everything lately has been about her, it's like I have no say anymore. I often have to hear sentences like "Deal with it!", "Understand it!", "Stop it!" and such. On the question "Do you love me? Do you want to be with me?" she answered with mere "sure". This in turn make me insecure and introduces even more damage as we start to argue over it.
I feel hurt and confused, especially after the fact that she seems to enjoy communicating with other people and don't turn down offers from other men hitting on her (for example to fix her broken car). She is very faithful and she will never cheat on the person she is with, but her actions make no sense to me. Is it really the depression or she's just tired of me and doesn't want me anymore?
Thanks.