TW: Self harm, alcoholism, suicide tendencies


For context: My(24 F)  boyfriend (23M) has severe anxiety which at it's worst can render him completely unable to function/be productive/sleep/eat etc. 

We were in a loving and secure 3 month online relationship, and were planning a trip to meet each other(tickets, hotel was booked). He unfortunately had to miss the flight because he accidentally didn't realise he was supposed to take his neg covid test with him.

After the flight thing, he pretty much started avoiding me, and whenever we'd talk, I knew I couldn't mention the trip because it would upset him. I started feeling abandoned.

Prior to this, whenever there were issues within the relationship, that I wanted to bring up, he'd fall ill or it would spike his anxiety up, or he'd mess up at work somehow, which I'm almost a 100% certain was due to a discussion about something he found stressful.


I deal with depression and anxiety myself, so I knew I had to be empathetic towards him. 

The problem arose when I started to notice my anxiety rise whenever I had something confrontational to bring up to his notice because I was dreading I'd make him unwell or cause him harm somehow. It got bad enough that I started self harming/drinking to avoid speaking to him about issues. This had begun before the trip issue, but post the trip event, it started to get a lot worse. For around 15 days I became unwell, I started losing hair, couldn't eat, I wasn't able to sleep and then became suicidal and cutting myself. (Dramatic, I know. It's just the anxiety I swear)

I'm high functioning in general so my anxiety stays under wraps most of the time people don't know that I'm experiencing a whole whirlwind of everything inside. I don't think he knows how bad my anxiety gets, and I'd rather not be yapping about how I'm struggling or whatever. 


I didn't want to carry the guilt of bringing up things we needed to fix, and risk worrying him all the time so I ended the relationship. Talking things through stopped feeling like an option to me. 


What could I have done differently/better? Thanks!