Confused

Hi, my name is Clara. I'm 18 years old and honestly at the moment I'm a bit of a mess and I don't really know what is wrong with me or how to sort anything out.

My mental health is pretty dismal as of the past few months. I went through a bad patch of mental health in 2017 but then it seemed to clear well and I seemed to get reasonably back on track and in control of my mental state but lately it's just flaking out on me again and I'm not really sure what's wrong or what I can do.

I have a reasonable amount of academic stress on me right now, obviously I'm also a teenager so that's probably not helping my mental health hormone wise. My relationships in the past year have been a bit of an iffy rollercoaster of emotion and stress and are still a bit weird - which I will address in a moment - and honestly my mental health has just taken a total dive again.

Relationship wise (because although I know this is probably not completely causing the mental health dive it's clearly not helping) about a year ago, my long term boyfriend dumped me over his own mental health issues. He's depressed and was going through a lot of family difficulties at the time, our quality of communication was pretty dismal given that we were both 17 and this was my first relationship. It had been going on for several years and although I wouldn't say it was a brilliant relationship because there were insecurities, arguments and other problems including both of our mental health states, it wasn't a bad one to say the least. I was - and I feel I am still - in love with him. He moved on quite fast and so did I - regrettably I didn't give myself much time to get over him - He's already been through another relationship that I know of and is now on another new girlfriend, so I am not his most recent ex. I am currently still in a relationship with the man I got into a relationship with after him. My boyfriend is funny, sweet, genuine, kind, clever and just all round wonderful and an amazing human being. I love him. But I am still in love with my ex as well. And another problem is that I do not find myself to be overly attracted to my boyfriend sexually. Our sex life isn't brilliant - not terrible, just not great - and I don't find him that attractive other than in a cute way. I think he is beautiful and cute, just not hot. I was more attracted to my ex.

Despite trying to be friends with my ex, considering it was something we had both wanted, he's not exactly a brilliant friend, acted really miserable and upset with me when I was unsure if being friends was a brilliant idea and he flat out ignored me trying to be friendly towards him half the time, whines to me when he doesn't have a girlfriend, ignores me almost completely when he does and is - like I said - a pretty dismal friend. I got upset with the way he was treating me, especially considering I was overcoming all of my lingering feelings out of both restraint and respect for my current boyfriend and being 100% platonic and treating him like I would any other of my friends, I decided to cut him off and recently severed all ties with him, unfriending and unfollowing on all social media and asking him not to contact me again.

I love my boyfriend. He's amazing and so sweet to me and I would honestly love to spend the rest of my life with him. I just wish I was more attracted to him. My ex was a terrible boyfriend in comparison but I was more attracted to him and I've had real issues with wrestling my lingering feelings for him that haven't left after a year and even after completely cutting him off, have not yet diminished.

I wouldn't get back with my ex. Not after I've met my current boyfriend. I wish I could just forget about him and move on.

I'm also scared my mental health is damaging my current relationship like my ex's mental health damaged our previous one. I don't talk about this particular situation because I don't want to upset my boyfriend or make him feel unloved in any way, and I feel I can't mention it to anyone else either because even though I have not been disloyal to him except with these thoughts and feelings, I feel as though telling someone else would also be disloyal to him so I feel trapped and isolated with these issues out of fear that opening up about them could ruin my current relationship which despite the current lack of physical attraction is the most amazing relationship I ever could have hoped for.

Right now the teen romance drama portion that I've been bottling up has been fessed up anonymously on the internet, I can move on to my mental health.

My mental health isn't great rn. It's better than lots of my friends. I don't like talking about my mental health because I have lots of friends in very serious situations with terrible mental health problems and next to them I practically look like an ambassador for the ideal life of a person. I have a friend who is being emotionally abused by her boyfriend and has BPD and depression and I'm the next person along that she trusts besides her manipulatior (a lot of pressure on me) I have a friend who has bad social anxiety and another one who has driven herself into a rut with anxiety, stress, and overworking. All their situations are so extreme that I feel bringing up my problems would be petty. Especially since none of them - par the social anxiety one - are very good at listening to me and caring about how anyone else feels because they are so wrapped up in their own issues.

My boyfriend is fine to talk to but I feel self-restricted in my ability to open up to him out of fear of upsetting him - ie with my difficulties getting over my ex, or how I feel about myself -

I'm very stressed mostly from academics although I'm also lost with what to do with my future. I don't sleep very well at the moment and I have a breathing issue that makes me feel as though I am suffocating and cannot get enough air (which is entirely mental and not a physical issue)

I feel empty and overwhelmed and useless. Sometimes I feel as though I've made such a big mess of everything I want to just lay down forever and give up because I feel as though I can't cope with anything anymore. It's all too much and I just feel so like exhausted, isolated and numb to a lot of things. I kind of feel like a hamster trapped in a wheel. I'm not getting out of the rut no matter what I do. I get temporary mood improvements but I always fall back into this rut.

I just don't know what to do. I'm not in a bad life situation. I have a caring family, friends, a wonderful boyfriend and reasonable career prospects. I know so many people in worse situations, it's not like I should feel like this. My feelings for my boyfriend and ex are an absolute mess. My friends are kind of draining to be honest but they all rely quite a lot on me. The stress is a bit much right now and I just feel helpless. I'm not happy. I'm not content. I'm not even really sad. I just feel a bit broken and tired and alone.

Thank you if you read this whole thing, I know it's super long, sorry. I really needed to get it off my chest. I don't know what to do.