‘She loves me, she loves me not. What’s wrong with my girlfriend?’

Dear eppy, 

I have a problem with my girlfriend.  She easily gets irritated and is always scared something bad might happen.  When we have sex, she sometimes pushes me away because she is scared that she might get pregnant even if we use contraceptives.  At times, she cries for no reason at all.  But she says she doesn’t feel sad.  How is that possible?

I love my girlfriend.  But sometimes, it’s difficult to be with her because she will say, “… you don’t love me anymore.”  Then, later on, she’ll say, “… maybe it’s better if you broke off with me.”  But honestly, I didn’t say anything to make her think that way.  Sometimes, she’d break down and cry and say she loves me so much she can’t let go of me.  Sometimes, she always wants me by her side.  I don’t mind it.  It’s just that she gets upset if I can’t do that for her.  For example, I have to be at work.  What am I to do?  Is there anything wrong with her?  Sometimes I wonder if I should even be with her.

Rattled

Dear Rattled

Your description of your girlfriend’s behavior lacks detail.  However, you’ve said enough for me to have a clue about her problem.  She may be suffering from a disorder called Generalized Anxiety Disorder. 

People with Generalized Anxiety Disorder manifest high anxiety.  They are restless and they experience headaches, shortness of breath, palpitations, gastrointestinal problems, and irritability.  This is why she gets easily irritated.  Your girlfriend is always aware of her thoughts, unlike most people who have the ability to quiet their thoughts.  Part of her thoughts is her fears.  One of her fears is losing you.  This fear is the very experience that makes her focus on the thought of losing you.  This causes even more fears.  The pressure inside her builds up to uncomfortable levels.  To rid herself of this experience, she forces herself to believe that it’s better for you to be out of her life so she won’t have to be scared anymore.  Her solution is to tell you to leave her.  But you don’t leave her.  Now, she becomes scared that you might actually leave her because of what she said.  That’s when she will say that she loves you and can’t live without you.  Then she goes back to thinking that you will leave her again.  So, the vicious cycle continues. 

According to Kaplan and Sadock in the Synopsis of Psychiatry, there are two major schools of thought that explain Generalized Anxiety Disorder.  These are the cognitive-behavioral perspective and the psychoanalytic perspective.  The cognitive-behavioral school of thought believes that a person with this disorder has a distorted response due to a perceived danger.  This person sees his/her abilities as inadequate to deal with the situation.  The psychoanalytic school of thought believes that the experience of anxiety is a result of trauma from the past, particularly from childhood.  

In the cognitive-behavioral perspective, you can see that your girlfriend perceives there is a danger of losing you.  She responds incorrectly to this danger.  She thinks that she has no way of doing anything about this.  She finds a solution and the solution becomes a problem.  This happens to all her fears such as “the pregnancy issue.”  

In the psychoanalytic perspective, she brings with her in the present all the fears she has accumulated due to trauma.  Treatment can be done by helping her review her life and witness it as if she was just watching a movie with her therapist.  In therapy, she will grieve about these experiences and will be able to see the experience in a different perspective.  So, yes, it is possible for her to cry without being sad, because she is actually crying about past experiences without even being aware of them. 

What I’ve written here should not replace the diagnosis of a professional who can see her in person.  You must bring her to a professional for proper diagnosis and treatment.  You need to be more patient with her.  It is difficult to be in her situation.  Loving another person means being compassionate.  As a man, it will be helpful for you to try and feel what she feels.  Even after she is cured of this condition, your empathy will help both of you in your relationship. Eppy

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E-mail eppygochangco@gmail.com.