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I’m in need of help, advice, or stories of people who have been through this situation or have more of a better understanding than I do. My girlfriend has ADD, Anxiety and depression. Long story short I’m beginning to lose my patience and I’m overwhelmed on what I should do as far as some things. I’ve done research on how these affect her and how I can understand. I do understand and want to be a supportive boyfriend. I know it will never go away and I can only manage things. But I’m lost and don’t know where to begin and I feel ya too late. She tells me sorry and she wants me and two hours later she doesn’t. She leaves and comes back. Please help there’s more

Hi Always, I read your post and had to answer.I know what you're experiencing, my partner suffers from the same/similar disorder There are ways of managing, but you have to be very thick-skinned and constantly be on the lookout for anything you may be doing which enables the behaviours. You have to be able to switch off the caring, empathetic part of yourself and be really hard when it's necessary, and, in relation to that, you have to be able to make a good call on whether your partner is genuinely in need of sympathy and support or they're just engaging in attention-seeking behaviour. People who are experiencing this type of disorder often have a strong tendency to over-react to any problems which present in their life, day-to-day hassles that you or I would take in our stride and deal with can seem insurmountable to them. They also tend to be quite self-absorbed because they're busy dwelling on their perceived problems and magnifying them until they're well and truly blown out of proportion and a world war seems insignificant by comparison. They're usually not too concerned about the emotional well-being of their partner, they tend to see you as their support system and it's not on their radar to consider that you may need or want support sometimes. They often have no, or very limited, understanding of how their disorder affects the people close to them. If they do begin to see the effects of the disorder on those people, they may become suicidal because they start to see themselves as as a terrible burden and believe that suicide is a viable solution. They can be extremely draining when they're having a depressive/anxiety episode, they say and do things which leave you speechless with anger, and you have to swallow your rage and the urge to verbally tear them to pieces, and be the grown-up. Can you handle all that? This is how I deal with my partners disorder, and you may think I'm kooky myself for recommending this, but......I use the dog-training method. Yep, positive and negative reinforcement. No pandering to the bad behaviour. You say your Gf comes and goes according to her whim, so it sounds like you're letting her make the calls on your relationship. You need to stop that right now. You're the injured party, she's the one being a jerk. Ram it home, and don't feel guilty for doing it. Don't ever take her back until she acknowledges that she behaved badly. If she refuses to acknowledge it, ignore her until she does. If she doesn't, and you never get back together, swallow it and move on. Seriously. Don't ever let someone with an emotional disorder or a mental illness dictate to you, because they will screw up your whole life. Back to the positive and negative reinforcement thing...... For the first twelve months that I dated my partner we had some seriously bad moments, we'd date for a month or so and then he'd have an episode and say or do something that would have me spluttering with rage and confusion, and I'd flick him off until he apologised. Eventually he would. Then we'd get back together. I had already worked out that something wasn't right with him by the time, at about the three month mark, he actually told me he had an anxiety disorder. He's charming, funny, affectionate, and handsome under 'normal' circumstances. During an episode he's rude, obnoxious, spiteful, and his face seems to change and become ugly because his eyes change, his pupils get smaller and his iris' get darker. I now recognise those symptoms and head him off at the pass most times, sometimes the horse has already bolted and I have to get all tough and hard with him and we have a 'debate', but nothing like those arguments of the first couple of months where he thought his disorder gave him leverage. That's why you have to be hard, you have to steadfastly refuse to let your partner use their disorder as an excuse for bad behaviour. If they behave badly treat them exactly as you would treat a person who behaved like that who didn't have an emotional disorder. As I said earlier, no pandering to them. This might sound cruel or uncaring, but it's actually about self-preservation, and it's also about not letting someone abuse you. So, apart from all that, you need to ask yourself what you want from a relationship. If you're young and looking forward to life, do you really want these hassles? I'm older and 'emotionally tough', I'm past the age where having a weak partner will have a negative effect on my life, but if I was young and wanted all those things that young people dream about....a career, marriage and children, solid relationships, financial security, enlightenment, peace and contentment, travel, fun, love, etc, etc, etc......I wouldn't choose a person who was an emotional drain. Think hard about what YOU want, not what your GF wants. I'm guessing you're a nice guy, because if you weren't you would have drawn the line with your GF at the first sign of BS. Don't let anyone take advantage of your good-guyness, absolutely no one! :-)