I am a senior in college with bp II, GAD, and SAD. Up until recently I was dating a guy with GAD. He is a little older than me and in the process of going back to school for a career change.

The first few months we dated, things were really good. We were only able to see each other once or twice a week do to our conflicting work and school schedules but we made due. We took things pretty slow because that is the only rate either of us could handle. He is utterly adorable. Bit of a weird goon, who is intelligent, talkative, sweet and affectionate. He took me to the state fair and held my hand the entire time. Utterly cheesy but not at all obnoxious.

So things changed when this last school semester started. Lots of things happened in the first month. He had to drop a class and pick up another one. His computer crashed and then he got really sick for a few days during his first series of exams. My bp sister went coke crazy and wreaked major havoc on me and my family.

So we both ended up withdrawing, me to my friends and him to his family. His ability to return phone calls and text messages dropped to nada. About a month and a half into the semester I told him that I could not keep dating him. I knew we did not have time to see each other but the lack of communication was brutal. My friends were the only thing keeping me together and my bf was not one of them. We talked, I cried a lot, he told me that he understood if I needed to move on. I decided to think about it, I was too emotional to trust myself to make a decision. Well after that incident he started calling me more and hanging out with me a little bit. So we really did not break up.

The entire semester as we saw each other less and less, he kept telling me that things would get better once we got through the semester. He just had to focus on school and almost nothing else because if this plan failed (going back to school for a different career) he did not know what he would do. For three months he told me this.

Jump in three months into the semester, same stuff. Stopped returning calls and messages. So I tried to break up with him a second time. More reassuring from him that things would get better and that he would be better about returning phone calls. So I did not break up with him again.

Three days later he broke up with me and said that "we should just be friends". It hurt, would have been nice if he had not gotten my hopes up for the last three days but whatever. I was feeling better about it after a couple days.

We ended up talking then and he made some comments that pretty much amounted to that he hung out with me less than he could have because he did not want to lead me on to thinking that we had anything serious. ??? I was really hurt. He was the one that kept telling me for months that things would get back to the way things were before once this crappy semester ended. I cried so much I had puffy eyes for three days in a row. I ended up starting an argument with trying to tell him how used I felt. Once we talked it through a lot, I told him I could not talk to him for a while. I was feeling too raw. He said that he was sorry for how hurt I had gotten. Again he left it with that in the future he would have more time for me.

I know that when he was not returning calls and messages it was because his anxiety was through the roof. I was trying to give him room. How do I handle this? I am so crazy about the guy. I would think it is a safe bet that if we get back together he will just write me off again when he becomes too stressed.

Is it ok to let his GAD dictate that situation? I have my own diagnoses, I know the crap that happens because of them but if I let his GAD dictate how he treats me, how can that be right, fair, or healthy? Most of me is like it is a lost cause but there is a part of me that hopes something can be salvaged.