Depression/anxiety whilst being at the other side of the world
So this is my first time posting in a forum about this kind of thing. I apologise if it's too long and a bit messy.
I am currently studying in Japan for a year as part of my degree at university. Recently I have realised that I have had depression since I was about 14 years old when my parents were having loads of problems and I had a lot of self confidence issues. Since then I have had depressive "episodes" (I'm not sure what to call them) that have lasted from days to months. The most recent one I remember until now was around December/January/February 2014-2015. I just hated myself, isolated myself and had no motivation to wake up or leave the house for class. I was scared that my housemates thought I didn't like them or something as I would barely come out of my room. Then I started dating my boyfriend and best friend in February and I still didn't feel happy but I sort of got on with life. My boyfriend also suffers from depression. The first half of our relationship was not very nice. He'd get upset over nothing and sometimes would be verbally abusive towards me. We play lots of video games together and he would tell me off for making the slightest mistake and I just stopped enjoying playing games with him but I still played games with him cause I didn't want to upset him. I never told him how I felt which didn't help.
Then in Summer (2 months before coming to Japan), I told him I wanted to break up and explained how I felt (not enjoying doing things with him cause I was scared of making mistakes and other stuff) and he cried so much I couldn't do it. I told him, look, if you want our relationship to work out you have to get help and he promised he would and it was so much better for a couple of months and he is seeing his university counselor here in Japan.
So yeah, then Japan happened. He is studying in a different city to me but he spent a month in my city and it was really fun. After he left however, I realised I was really homesick. And from then things got bad again. He was also really homesick and we started fighting a lot over tiny things and he would swear at me again and I know it was his depression talking, not him. It was unbearable and I felt like I didn't love him anymore and dreamt of being free from it all even though I promised I would stick by him through it. Then we met up for 5 days in his city and it was so fun. We both had an amazing time and it was like falling in love again, more than ever before and I wished it could always be that happy between us but long distance is difficult, especially with depression.
I also started seeing my uni counselor because I was feeling so depressed and anxious. I started having panic attacks at random and unexpected times for no reason (which I had over Summer too but there was a reason which was that I convinced myself I was going to die). She sent me to a psychiatrist when I told her about them and he gave me some anti-anxiety tablets which have definitely stopped the panic attacks. (I've only been on them since monday) However, I've been feeling so depressed. I've just been crying over nothing. My boyfriend is actually feeling good atm but I bring him down with my depressiveness(?) and I just hate myself for it. I keep thinking about how much I want to go home but at the same time I don't cause this year abroad has been my dream. But I can't study, I hate getting up in the morning and I just go to uni and long to get back home and into my pyjamas and then curl up into a ball and cry. I'm not sure what else to say, but I'm feeling pretty terrible atm. I am very sorry for the length of this post. I just really needed to let it all out. And thanks for whoever takes the time to read it all :)