So some background here, We’re both 18 shes had anxiety and depression for a long time most likely due to traumatizing things that happened in her life with family and other such stuff, her first relationship was formerly with a guy who had depression, she put everything she was going through away and tried to help him, in the end getting hurt, around 4 months later we met and got together, we’ve known each other since the start of may now.

pretty much the anxiety is doing really bad things for her life, we’re in our last year of highschool and exams are making everything flare up a bit.

here are the things I have observed so far:

she doesn’t like talking about the future whatsoever, things like me playfully teasing marriage in a few years stresses her out (I don’t do that anymore)

She has fear that everyone around her is having fun and she isn’t, at one point she didn’t get invited to a party and got really bad anxiety over it

She has a fear of being alone, as in - no friends or people to talk to

I have a feeling she has a fear of rejection too, she doesn’t want anything going wrong relationship wise which makes her also fear the future so she doesn’t want to talk about it, she says she wants to put her cards close to her chest as to not get hurt again and so wants the relationship to be lighthearted and fun, not too serious but there can be serious aspects (as in no talk of marriage or kids or anything big quickly, she said she used to be able to do that with her ex, but now cant’t, she wants to but says her brain just stresses her out when she thinks about it, we do love each other very much completely though, thats 100%), This probably stems from her first and only relationship other then me, he basically used her sometimes for sex, never made her cum once in the 9 months they were together for, They talked about all those serious aspects and she was ready to move to another country with him after highschool, she put all her depression anxiety aside for him to help with his depression, 3-4 months before they broke up it all got really toxic, then they broke up and around 4-5 months into us meeting each other he made an instagram account and messaged her which sent her into a massive anxiety attack while she was outside with friends, they talked and he said he got better since the relationship ended (not really considering he’s on almost every type of drug, in another country and I don’t think finishing uni) They’re basically kind-of friends now idk, she despises him but feels its okay to be atleast on good terms so he messages her sometimes and sometimes she responds, seeing how each other are and things like that which im okay with, I think thats probably good to be on good terms atleast.

Right now she’s going through online video therapy and a few days ago got on low dosage anxiety medication which will take a few weeks to kick in, so we’ll see if that helps.

Recently though, she’s been having problems with intimacy, not just with me but with anyone including her family too, even with friends she just gets very agitated and can’t really enjoy herself, with me the problem’s been only during sex, everything was fine up until the last 2 times, she just locks up in the middle of it (No she doesn’t have vaginismus as everything before the last 2 times has been completely fine) and it starts getting painful for her, its good at the start and she stays wet but just completely locks up 5 minutes or so in, she went to the doctor about it and he told her it probably has something to do with the anxiety which is the reason medication was prescribed, I told her I think we need to spend much more time on foreplay and introducing new things to make sure she’s ready for penetration, she said she also wanted me to incorporate knifeplay (we tried it for the first time with each other the last time we had sex, i’m experienced in it so that front is fine) and degrading into the mix, at the start i was hesitant because of her history of self harm but she assured me it wouldn’t make her want to do it to herself, which I was okay with, she said all this new stuff might make a difference with the whole locking up thing.

So I guess my question here is, How do I help her? how do I make sure I’m always there for her during anxiety attacks or depressive episodes, Is there anything I should change or know about what I’ve said and do, What do I say that might cheer her up a little, and is what I’ve said with the whole sex locking up thing really the right way to go? I think i’ve been doing good so far, and I’ve seen that I am but i think I need to put on a little extra recently as the anxiety has gotten worse then usual.