Hard Situation

[celebrian]

I've been with my boyfriend for over 5 years; we've been engaged since July, and I love him with all my heart. However, I feel like we're in a really hard situation.

My boyfriend has a rare sleep disorder; basically, he goes to bed and wakes up a little later each day, cycling around the clock. He has no control over this; if he tries to keep to a schedule, he's unable to sleep. When he does get sleep, it's often not good sleep, and he doesn't feel well.

As you can imagine, this makes doing a lot of things very hard. He's in graduate school right now; he has trouble making meetings and going to classes. He's going to have to help teach one of these years soon and I don't know how he's going to make it through that.

He's been to several doctors, including a sleep specialist, about this. None of them have been able to help, and have pretty much told him they don't know why he's still going to them, since they don't know what to do for him.

He's been very upset/depressed about this for the past few months. He feels like his life is slowly falling apart, and it's completely out of his control. I don't know how to reply to that, because...well...it kind of is. I don't know how he's ever going to finish grad school, and he'll never be able to hold a job with his weird sleep schedule. He doesn't get to have much of a social life because he isn't awake at the same time as everyone else a lot of the time. Too often lately he's said to me "I give up. I can't keep trying."

Truthfully, I would be willing to try to support us both, if he could be happy with that. He wouldn't be, though. He's already told me he'd feel like a failure and wouldn't be able to be happy, with everything he's been working so hard on for years slowly slipping away. If he ever has to withdraw from grad school, I think he'd probably kill himself.

He's also tried therapy and antidepressants; neither have done him any good.

I just don't see how this can have a happy ending. I love him with all my heart; he means to world to me. But when he's depressed about everything that's happening there's nothing I can do to drag him out of it. I don't know how we'd ever be able to have kids, etc.

I have no desire to leave him (and if I did I'm pretty sure at that point he would kill himself; I'm pretty much the only thing he can count on right now). I feel like I'm just sitting on a train waiting for it to wreck, though. One day he's going to have to withdraw from grad school or something, and I'm going to come home and find him dead or something. I feel like I'm just enjoying what time with him I have while I still have it, although the good days are getting farther and farther between.

I just don't know what to do. We've tried everything we can, explored every option, and nothing works. Things are only getting worse, and it's completely out of our control.

[IncognitoSir]

Wow, that is quite the situation to be in. You have to do whats best for you first, everything else comes after that. Saying that, if you love someone, even when they're on their last breathe of hope, you wouldn't leave them. You have to decide, love or change. I say change because you leaving him doesn't necessarily mean happiness for you. You might feel even worst if you left him. And don't stay because you think he might kill himself, stay to give him another reason to keep trying!

[smackie9]

I've suffered from messed up sleep all my life and I've just come to terms with it. I might be lucky to get 3 hours sleep a night. What really helped for me was running. Exercise, healthy diet, no drugs or alcohol. There is this great doctor thatI have discovered on public tv. His name is Daniel G. Amen M.D. He has a DVD called Magnificent Mind At Any Age. If you go one youtube you will be able to watch some of his segments. This could be your answer.
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