
My boyfriend (24) and I (22F) have been together for almost 2 years now. The beginning of our relationship was really happy and although it’s been really rocky since the pandemic started I still love him to death. He’s the only person Ive been able to connect so much with and we have even spoken about marriage before because we love each other so much. But ever since the pandemic happened, it’s really gone downhill.

We live together and we are both college students doing all of our classes through Zoom. He doesn’t have a job nor wants one. I work from home so I don’t really leave our house very often. Last semester, I was keeping us afloat financially as I was our only source of income and spreading myself thin with classes and work. This semester his parents have started helping him out with the bills so it’s taken some weight off of me, but he still owes me like $600 and it really sucks being the only one working. Regardless, the problem is he’s become completely delusional. 

Every day he finds a new health issue to be concerned about. He’s been going to therapy but I don’t think it’s helping him much at ALL and he doesn’t seem to be taking it seriously. He has a history of depression, self harm, and BPD.  He started taking pysch meds to help him but he stopped taking them because he convinced himself he had all the side effects. It’s been really rough. Here are some of the delusions he’s had:

-Convinced himself he had a full body rash when he didn’t have a thing on him. He started crying and panicking and this went on for hours as I tried reassuring him he was fine, but he ultimately got offended that I couldn’t see the nonexistent rash and started lashing out at me. Finally the next day after nearly going to the hospital over a non existent rash, he woke up and told me realized he had imagined the whole thing and just brushed it off? The worst part is he doesn’t even have any empathy for the stress he puts me through and barely addresses how this affects me. 

-Convinced himself he had rabies even though he hasn’t been in contact with any wild animals. This went on for weeks and he refused to leave the house and constantly complained about it. He didn’t have rabies. 

-Convinces himself he has COVID every week and has been making us get COVID tests almost every 2 weeks because he convinces himself we have COVID when we don’t even leave our house. He’s really isolated me from my friends and we haven’t seen much of anybody in months (esp since I work from home) but somehow he thinks we got COVID from like the grocery store even though we wear masks and don’t get within 10 feet of anybody. 

- Lately, he keeps convincing himself he has a heart condition and is going to have a heart attack. Anytime he becomes aware his heart is beating he freaks out and starts having a panic attack. I’m talking multiple panic attacks every day. It’s really been affecting me cause I live with him and I feel bad and have to calm him down but I have to work to do. He’s gone to Urgent care twice in the past two weeks, and like 3 times to the doctor as well. His doctor and family even seem to be tired of him but they keep monitoring his heart out of precaution but nothing is coming up. He has no family history of heart conditions and he’s 24 and has no prior health conditions or illnesses too.

Lastly, one of the worst parts is he sleeps ALL day. I’m talking 12-18 hours a day. Usually ranging at 15. And the few hours he is awake he’s just having panic attacks. It’s driving a huge wedge in our relationship. I barely spend any time with him, and he doesn’t wake up until like 8 pm . I barely get to talk to him anymore, besides calming him down from his panic attacks and hearing him CONSTANTLY whine about these nonexistent health problems. I’m talking finding a new illness on WebMd almost every week and convincing himself he has it. It gets really annoying.

One of the most concerning things about all of this is I’ve tried addressing his behavior and sleeping habits multiple times. He doesn’t seem to care that he sleeps all day and has multiple panic attacks, he doesn’t seem interested in wanting to change his sleep schedule and when I complain he just makes a joke about how nice sleeping is. I’ve tried helping him become more motivated and the only thing he seems to be interested in is his non existent health problems. And even though he is slightly aware of his delusions it doesn’t seem to deter his behavior. 

I miss how our relationship was before this pandemic. I miss being able to do things together, I miss leaving the house and feeling like normal people. His constant anxiety and stress is really affecting me, but we live together and we have this whole life together so breaking up seems so difficult especially since I’m working from home and I barely get to see anybody. I don’t know what to do. What do I do ? Please help and be kind. 

tl;dr: my bf is a hypochondriac who sleeps all day and then wakes up to have panic attacks about nonexistent health problems. he’s seen doctors nothing is wrong with him, we barely spend any time together anymore and his healthy anxiety and stress is really affecting me. what do i do?