He gets these "paranoia attacks"

[Darth_Taco]

I see major red flags here reminding me of my father. He was the king of control issues. He would constantly manipulate my mom in any way he could think of. He would drag my brother and I out of bed as little kids on school nights to pick and drop off my mom at work at ungodly hours, just to make her "feel guilty". Any time she's try to leave him he's go over to our house and do something drastic like slit his writs so my mom would let him stay. One time she had him arrested for attempted murder. He made bail, and decided to slash my mom's tires as revenge. She almost lost her job after that since she couldn't get to work. He would beat my mom in front of us to show us what would happen if things didn't go his way. According to him, it was always our fault. He could never be wrong unless it was convenient. Don't get me started with friends, none of us were allowed to have any. To this day, I'm paranoid about making friends. My mom has none anymore. He was convinced my mom would cheat on him, even with the women. My mom is straight, and it's well known. He's still not sure my brother is his kid, and he looks just like him.

I just want to tell you to be very careful, because this is incredibly manipulative behavior. You might not want to continue this relationship, it sounds dangerous to me. You usually don't know where people like these will end up leading you to. If he doesn't get help, I would not recommend continuing this relationship until he finds a way to control his emotions and paranoia. He needs help beyond you, this would probably be happening regardless of who he's in a relationship with or what type.

[London-FortCollins]

I'm from the UK and therapy isnt really a "big thing" here like it is in the States. I personally have never seen a therapist. However if I thought that my issues were bigger than ones I could deal with myself, and honestly too draining to put on a loved one I would consider seeing someone.

Sometimes we need to talk to someone who has all the answers or who is at least an experienced enough of a listener to know when they DONT need to have all the answers. Some people are lucky enough to find that in their best friends, mothers or SO's (etc etc)

But not everyone is able to listen or give advice - or not give it as is much more often the needed case; letting you sort through it in your own head in a safe environment. In fact some people you talk to can actually make the situation worse with their "advice" - or simply by them not knowing what to say and wanting to help you so much. Then the person you talk to is under a lot or pressure to "fix" your problems which again can make the whole matter worse.

I dont know if that made much sense but the point I'm getting at is that to me at least, it seems that this is a bigger situation than luna_banana can deal with.

**My apologies if that isnt the case at all and you just wanted some advice**

It just seems that this is potentially quite a deep rooted issue with her SO that he expects her to fix which puts her under a lot of pressure. I dont know about anyone else but I think its better to put the "pressure of fixing the problem" on the person trained to do that.

[luna_banana]

Panic attacks can cause all kinds of bizarre thinking, especially around people you love when the thought of losing them would destroy you. Shortly after my son was born, the panic attacks I had suffered from intermittently since college morphed into horrific visualizations of my crashing the car and killing him, or his being stolen from me in a store, etc. These thoughts\visualizations were so incredibly real that I often had to pull the car over to make sure I hadn't hit anything. I HAD to see a therapist to understand it was my original panic attacks returning with different symptoms! Once my therapist explained how that can happen, I was able to easily overcome them!

It's really great that you were able to overcome your panic attacks. If you don't mind me asking, what did your therapist suggest to help stop them? What did you do to overcome them?

[luna_banana]

Anyways, thanks for all of the help guys. I'll try to talk to my SO about this soon, I just want to find a good time. I may show him some of these posts.

But I really don't think he is TRYING to be manipulative. He (says he) wants me to have a good time with myself, but then he says things like "oh don't worry about me, its okay, I can be the one in the relationship to make sacrifices..."
So he might be trying to manipulate me by making me feel guilty, I really don't know. Regardless, I feel bad just leaving him in a horrible mood, he'll usually end up crying or something...wouldn't I be a bad girlfriend if I just left him like that when he was so upset? The only problem is he gets that upset quite often, and its always when I'M trying to enjoy myself with my friends.... *sigh* It's all so confusing. Thanks for the help guys.

[Bluestars]

Anyways, thanks for all of the help guys. I'll try to talk to my SO about this soon, I just want to find a good time. I may show him some of these posts.

But I really don't think he is TRYING to be manipulative. He (says he) wants me to have a good time with myself, but then he says things like "oh don't worry about me, its okay, I can be the one in the relationship to make sacrifices..."
So he might be trying to manipulate me by making me feel guilty, I really don't know. Regardless, I feel bad just leaving him in a horrible mood, he'll usually end up crying or something...wouldn't I be a bad girlfriend if I just left him like that when he was so upset? The only problem is he gets that upset quite often, and its always when I'M trying to enjoy myself with my friends.... *sigh* It's all so confusing. Thanks for the help guys.

A lot of the time people do not "consciously" manipulate others; they do it without realizing it. That may be the case like you said, but that does not mean it is not a problem. I do agree with Darth that this would probably be happening no matter who your boyfriend was with. If he is ever going to have a healthy relationship, he needs to realize that this is not normal and find a way to stop acting like this. If he can do it on his own, great, but the first step is him admitting that he has a problem because it is not you.

And no, you would not be a bad girlfriend if you left him on the phone upset. You said that it can take hours to lift him out of his depression. When it gets to that point, it is not healthy for you to continue trying to cheer him up because when it comes down to it, he is the only one who can do it.