My girlfriend loves me but i’m scared i’m dragging her down with me because i’m so sad.

I don’t really know if this is the right place, but I don’t have anywhere else to go right now. it’s my first time posting. I’m only 18, I don’t know why I feel this sad. This might be all over the place, my head is a mess right now.

I guess some background:

I have a chronic illness. I was diagnosed in december 2024, but I had been struggling long before then, and after diagnosis it only seemed to get worse. I was an athlete for most of my life, very physical. Now I can barely walk a trail with an incline (pots but i suspect something else too. I am in so much pain and disorientation all the time) and I tried to go to college last semester. I’ve always seemed to bite off more than I can chew when it came to school in highschool- I wasn’t the smartest, but I took harder classes and I mostly did exceptionally average in them. Well, paired with some severe depression and anxiety that I didn’t really realize was that bad, the pain and symptoms that I couldn’t manage, college hit me like a sack of bricks. I wasn’t enjoying my major, I was several states away and also not really talking to my parents, my health was in crisis, and my mental state was all over the place.

I started dating my girlfriend in July of 2025. She’s so lovely, and she’s my rock. But she’s in her senior year, and she’s dealing with her own problems, and mine feel so heavy all the time. She says that it’s okay and she wants to be here for me and listen, that i’m not a burden, but I know I am. She says she’s not tired of me, but I don’t understand how she possibly couldn’t be. I’m tired of me. I need reassurance all the time because I am so terrified that I am unlovable because of the amount of effort and care it requires to be around me for a long time. I see it in her eyes when she asks if we can go out and do something and then has to scan me down and add “if you can, it’s okay if not.” because i’m dizzy, or on the floor, or swaying, or nauseous. I hate disappointing her. I hate not being able to do everything and go everywhere she wants to go.

I have no friends in this area since I moved here in january just after winter break, i’m staying with family for now, but i’m not sure how long that’s going to work out. The job I have seems to be sizing up to a lot of work and responsibility but it’s under the table and it’s not much money, and I don’t know how i’m going to survive off of it. My cat is the sweetest baby but she’s having problems in this house and I just want what’s best for her, so i’m finding a shelter to surrender her to.

I’m just so sad. I cry all the time because I feel like i’m failing everybody around me. I’ve cried myself to sleep so many nights the past year, it just feels like i’m never going to survive this, much less thrive. My family begs me to come home all the time, but I know that i’ll be just as miserable there, as well as now several states from my girlfriend. It’s so difficult to get out of bed every day. I get lots of little cuts and burns and bruises because I don’t have the energy to be careful. I don’t eat if it’s too much effort to get up, much less make anything. all of me feels like a let down, like I had so much potential but it fizzled out somewhere, like a missed leak. Like a stair at the bottom of a staircase that blends in with the platform below. I went to a counseling center yesterday and they told me they needed me to come back as soon as possible because I was urgent, high risk factors and low protective factors. Moderate risk. I don’t really know, I feel like i’m just lazy and unmotivated, which is why I feel like i’m failing everyone. the only person I can blame is me, I just can’t handle anything.

She doesn’t deserve that, any of that. she shouldn’t have to carry the weight of this responsibility and these heavy feelings with me, but i’m drowning so desperately that i don’t want anyone who tries to save me to just go down with me. I don’t want to die, but i’m not living right now. I can’t find that much good going on around me anymore, she’s pretty much the only constant. my thoughts are so locked on everything that’s blowing up in my life that it feels like all i can do is cry and think and talk about it, which i know can get old and tiring quickly. She has such a promising future and she deserves so much joy and success and i don’t want to be the reason she doesn’t end up with it. I don’t see my future at all. It’s a thick gray mist and i haven’t the faintest idea where i’m going or what i’m doing. i’m completely flying blind. every plan i make falls through for some reason or another, and i think it’s just me playing the victim since im the only common denominator.

i love this girl so unbelievably much though. i feel selfish and guilty all the time because i don’t deserve her. she’s the most caring person i have ever met, her heart is five sizes too big for her chest. she’s the most beautiful girl ive ever seen and her smile stops my heart straight in its tracks then bolt like a racehorse. She is so incredibly smart and passionate and her vigor for education and knowledge is remarkably special. She was dealt a bad hand in life too, worse than mine i’d say by far, but she’s so much better than me at keeping it together. I am so proud of her and I know that she’s going to accomplish so much and change so many lives.

I just don’t think I am.

I don’t really feel compatible with life, not in a wanting to die kind of way. Just in a, I don’t know if I can rise to the standards necessary to live a good quality of life. I don’t want her to have to miss out on anything because i’m struggling physically or mentally. I don’t want to break up. I just want to get my life together so I can be the girlfriend she deserves to have, but I don’t really remember what it feels like to not have this filter of heavy sadness on everything.