Vent away - this is a great place for it. We've all done it in our time!
I know you haven't asked for advice, so just reject this outright if it's not welcome -
I would say the key 'root' problem is her anxiety - all the other problems stem from that.
Is she in treatment?
If you read around on this forum you will see that time and time again what is urged is not 'tough love' (too harsh!) but 'firm love'.
Firm love sets boundaries for the aberrant behaviour (and BOY does your partner have aberrant behaviour - it's TOTALLY dominating BOTH your lives and making you BOTH deepely, deeply unhappy!), and simply does not tolerate breaches.
Firm love sets rules. Key one is 'accept treatment or I leave'.
Firm love essentially differentiates between 'healthy' care, and 'unhealthy' care. Healthy care is SUPPORTIVE care - and SUPPORT crucially focuses on 'healing' if you want to call it that, but definitely 'moving forward', getting the person to a 'better place'.
Unhealthy care, alas, only ENABLES the person to stay how they are....
Do you think you give supportive care (with the emphasis on actual progress towards a better place for you both) or only enabling care (which keeps your partner just where they are.....) ? (I suspect I know the answer from what you've written and the length of time you've been 'trapped' in that situation with her....????) (apols if I'm wrong!)
We always need to appreciate that the mental illness 'fights back'. It resists 'healing', it resists 'progress' to a better place, it resists 'change' of any kind. It just wants to stay exactly where it is, freezing its victim in fear and misery.
Your target is not the person with the MH, it's the MH itself. That's the target of your 'firm love'.
If you really want your life to keep as it is, and probably just get worse and worse and worse for BOTH of you, then 'stay as you are' and 'keep coping'.
Two final points for now (again, reject them out of hand if you want!) (I'm 'no expert' just another person, with some personal experience of loving someone with MH, including a family member with quite a lot of what your partner has alas!)(and I can tell you the physical problems ARE mental related, most definitely, so may be for your partner too???)(but of course the horribly physical symptoms also in turn cause mental distress, that's the bitter irony of it!):
- Check out 'secondary gain'. I actually heard about that on this site, and boy does it ring true with my family member alas!
- YOUR life is as valuable as hers. YOU have 'rights' to a good life. Does she have a right to dominate your life so negatively (let alone her own!). That said, check out secondary gain for carers as well.....???!
OK, apologies for the totally unwanted advice - reject/delete as you will.
As a substitute, you have my sympathy. I dare say you have been targeted with a truck load of 'helpful advice' (!!!!!!) from just about anyone and everyone, none of which has made any difference to the daily misery of your joint existence, so I can well understand why you may be totally jaundiced and 'hopeless' about it all.
To my mind, though, it just seems a dreadful waste of her life being spent SO unhappy and scared and miserable. We only get one life (probably), so such a shame to spend it unhappily. (And feeling 'powerless' is, to my mind, part of the mental illness you and she are fighting.....)
Best wishes in a difficult situation - sorry if I've offended. Like I say, delete and discard if so.
