Newbie here

Hi all, I’m new here.

My partner (27yo male) has been struggling with severe depression since he was a teenager, and is also diagnosed with ADHD. He really struggles to motivate himself to exercise, eat properly or do any activity that doesn’t produce instant dopamine (i.e., computer games, scrolling tiktok, gambling) even though he always says how much he wants to stop doing those things and focus on getting better.

I have tried to encourage him to go to therapy several times, and he always says he will, yet never books the appointment. I have offered to book it for him and drive him there but he says he needs to do it himself. I understand it is his own personal journey and you can’t force someone to help themselves, so I don’t push the issue and just let him know I’m here for him, particularly since I have suffered from depression myself before and I know it doesn’t help to always have someone on your back about getting therapy. It makes you feel like you’re not loved or good enough just as you are.

I’m just really struggling at the moment because I feel like his attention and focus is always elsewhere, and I feel isolated, alone and uncherished. I don’t tell him when I feel these things anymore because he says it makes him feel like he is doing a bad job. People with ADHD have often lived with this type of feeling their entire lives and I want him to always know he has a partner who loves and supports him just as he is, but it is just really hard sometimes to not feel like I have that too. I don’t know what to do. We don’t go anywhere together anymore, or laugh together, or talk about our future. He is always so tired. He barely even sees me and if I mention any of this to him he just withdraws more, even if I speak calmly and with “I” statements.

I know he loves me and I can’t imagine how hard it is for him to even get through the day most of the time. I just don’t know how to help him and it’s starting to affect me too, but then I feel like I’m just making it about me. I don’t know. I just feel really alone.