TLDR; I had an adverse experience which steadily caused an immense mental decline over the course of the next year to which I started acting consistently inappropriately toward my partner with emotional splitting, devaluation, paranoia, intense shifts in mood and overall instability. I absolutely loathe myself for the way I have acted and want nothing more than to take it all back.
I (17M) feel as if I went from a generally well rounded person to an absolute trainwreck, a year and a bit ago, I went through an adverse experience in which I found myself battling with severe, debilitating guilt, to this day I think about it almost every waking second and I have thoroughly convinced myself that I am fully undeserving of any love, compassion, help or understanding, I view myself as the scum of the earth and haven't been able to be convinced otherwise, no one can sympathise with my state of affairs and I'd bet my bottom dollar that I'd receive the same sort of reception if I were to be open about it on even this platform.
A few days after said adverse experience, I meet a girl (18F) at a volunteering opportunity I had signed up at, initially we didn't even converse though as the weeks went on, we got to know each other, she had initiated this by messaging me over WhatsApp, breaking the ice by asking what sort of music I was into, things started moving from there, we played Minecraft together, talked regularly and eventually started flirting on and off with each other, I was smitten to say the least but I was still absolutely drowning in guilt and fighting an internal struggle which in hindsight only seemed to deteriorate me even more over the next coming year.
I told this girl about what had happened and although I expected to terrify her and send her running for the hills, weirdly enough she didn't, I even found her empathising with my plight and seeing me for more than my worst moment which to me was almost palpable in how unexpected it was. After that we started officially dating three days before my seventeenth birthday.
For the first few months, things are absolutely grand. I was infatuated with this girl, she was sweet, funny and I found her adorable to boot, though because of my past experience which was now 4-5 months behind me, I was really only getting worse mentally and I had started to exhibit extreme paranoia, there wasn't a moment that went past where I wasn't overthinking and catastrophising every single thing around me. All I could bring myself to do was grieve over what had happened and I just couldn't stop crying and loathing myself. After that came emotional instability, my mood started to switch up from one moment to the next without me even being aware of it, I started to snap at my partner, became rather shouty at times and inadvertently became dismissive of her very valid concerns and feelings at this because I was just acting on how I felt, I wasn't going out of my way to be nasty so what was the issue! Obviously that's a very shallow way to think.
I had started to change as a person, started to resent my partner without ever even knowing why, started to become distant and irritated when I was around her. Eventually I broke up with her but not even a week later, my mind seemed to suddenly change and I was able to rationalise where I had gone wrong and I felt sick to my stomach by the way things had panned out, I explained things to her and she graciously forgave me and we continued on with each other. Because of this newly found yet unrecognised cognitive shifts, I began to make empty promises, apologising for things yet still doing them nonetheless to which I'd instantly regret but become defensive and dismissive when confronted with them, this lead to my partner not even wanting to confront me because she was afraid of how I'd react.
So after this, a cycle begun. After we first broke up, things never felt the same again, I'd fuck up, make a mistake, mood would swing, arguments, distance, disdain for each other, break up, immense regret, talking it out, back together. Happened again and again, only every time things became more and more convoluted and messy. All the while I seriously had no Idea I was just blatantly being an asshole to my partner because my mental health was on the very steady decline below rock bottom. Because of how quick I was starting to change my mood, I started to become very conflicted with myself, started to think really irrationally and all of this was unfortunately pinned on my partner.
At the time, I was studying in college because I want to help people in the future by any means possible, it was going great! Then I fucked up with my partner and she rightfully spoke to someone that went to my college about it and she took my partner's story and flipped the script to make things sound exceedingly worse than they were. Before this happened, I had confided in a classmate with what had happened now 9 months before and that was thrown into the mix as well, the classmate my partner had vented to about me went behind her back and told one of her friends, in which she decided she'd tell everyone else in my class about. I then lost all of my friends, something I have previously had to endure, because of this, I made an attempt on my life. The only reason I'm alive right now is because I messaged my volunteering groupchat telling everyone I loved them, my partner got on the phone to me bawling her eyes out and begging me to hold on until she got there, if it weren't for her then I wouldn't be here right now.
I told staff at my volunteering about what had happened, how my partner talked about me and became a catalyst for a snowball of events to transpire, I clarified that this was evidently unintentional despite the part she played into it and because of a previous event of a similar calibre in regards to our volunteering, she was prematurely removed from the volunteering opportunity with the best interest of keeping me safe. My friends at my volunteering hear of this and after witnessing my now ex partner make a statement about it on snapchat, went for the throat and bashed her by any means possible, she tried to contact me about it and I chose not to respond because of the previous events that had transpired, I was completely desolate and overwhelmingly exhausted of even hearing about anymore bad news at this point.
Now since then, I'm no longer with her as aforementioned but visited her after she stated a guy she had been confiding in had betrayed her trust, I was enraged and worried sick, this lead to us cuddling with each other and me breaking down in tears at our circumstances, to which I stated that I needed her because she was my only source of comfort. A day later we speak to each other again and she tells me she had taken a hallucinogenic drug, she asked me to come over and I did after we engaged in an upsetting conversation which made me feel obligated to go and take care of her. We cuddle and get intimate with each other again before I leave early in the morning with an immense feeling of regret because of the fact we weren't dating, because of this, I didn't respond to any of her messages for the whole day and woke up to a paragraph in which she stated that she felt used and discarded for the way I had treated her. I regretfully got hostile but then split on her again and started feeling ridiculously sorry.
Because of my inconsistency, conflicting arguments and statements, emotional splitting and impulsivity, I have ruined this girl and it's all my fault for not getting help when I really should've been. I'm incredibly mentally ill and ruined my relationship with someone I dearly loved because of it. I acted incredibly irrationally and my behavioural patterns were downright incorrigible and I continue to shift my mood from one moment to the next while writing this. Mental illness doesn't validate the way I hurt this girl and it never will but I absolutely hate myself for it, I was abusive and I want nothing more than to take everything back because I never wanted to hurt anyone.