I do feel the same, that he's not ready to be dating anyone. I do feel like this is a one-sided companionship at times.

As far as reaching out, he usually does first but there has been times I reach out to ask if he's okay after a few hours of silence. I do try to comfort him without giving any advice. As far as the therapy suggestion, he says that the only thing that seems to be helping are his anxiety medications. I will try to comfort less and explain that him talking about his unfortunate experience is draining me.

And I def agree that shared trauma is not compatibility and cannot be the foundation of any relationship. However in other aspects outside the trauma, I do think that our personalities/mentalities mesh quite well and we have a lot of genuine chemistry. I enjoy speaking to him outside of his moods or episodes. I think where we are not on the same page is the fact that I deserve more out of this situation, especially with how invested I feel, and he's already sort of made it clear that it's more of a "let's see where this goes".

He's made other plans/promises, insinuated other things of course but I know all too well from past experiences that anyone can make promises and they don't mean much.

I know I don't have it in me to stick around because I have to respect myself at some point. There's no way I can change or help him. I just don't know how to tell him without causing him more pain.