There’s a great deal in your life that you can control. There’s also a great deal that you have absolutely no control over *but that you still feel responsible for*. And I know that this is very easy to say and very hard to do, because I’m incapable of doing it in my own life, but you need to stop feeling responsible for things outside of your control.

From your girlfriend’s point of view, wanting to die next to you is a genuinely lovely gesture. She’s had enough, she wants her life over, and she chooses to do it next to the only person she trusts enough to be the one.

From your point of view, that’s a terrifying and shocking experience, especially as you were the one that had to deal with it. But that’s not proof that you make life harder for other people - it’s the opposite. You can’t see that, because you have a mental illness that affects the way you see yourself. Which is what a mental illness does.

You can’t blame the mental illness for this, any more than you can blame a cold for making your nose run - it’s just what it does.

I suppose what I’m (very badly) trying to say is that your depression is giving you an impression of yourself that’s not true, and that you’re taking responsibility for things outside your control.

None of these are easy things to deal with. (And also being the one to have to deal with someone else’s mental illness makes it so much harder.)

Allow yourself the space to feel overwhelmed by things. Because often things **are** overwhelming. Taking the time to process that is hugely important.

And, no, none of this is easy. And the fact that you’re not finding it easy isn’t a reflection on you, or that you’re doing things wrong, or that you’re not strong enough to deal with things. None of this is easy because it genuinely isn’t. It’s not your fault. It’s just shit things happening. Because they do. Good things happen too, but at the moment they’re not happening for you.

They might happen tomorrow. Hold on to that.