questioning my love??

I went through a time - a very long time it felt - that I couldn't "feel" love. It was depersonalization/derealization due to the effects of these infections. Is that possibly what you are going through?

I knew I loved my husband with my all, as well as my children, but could never "feel" the love. This article will likely explain it much better than I can: www.tiredoflyme.com/depersonalization-and-derealization-from-lyme-disease-and-its-coinfections.html

I sometimes feel - "How can my husband love me the same? I'm not the same. I'm not the gal he fell in love with"

I don't even know if I love me. Who am I anyway? A weak, scared, uninteresting person...who never wants to do anything...who can't even keep a clean house...

I have almost completely cut off communications with someone who used to be very close to me, because of this. I'm just not who I was, I cannot contribute anything real, meaningful to the relationship. It's all generic, placeholder, going through the motions, much like the conversations I have with almost everyone else in my life.

There is no "me," no personality to any of it, just the bare minimum, and what Lyme has to say. I don't want to expose her to that any more, even if she does still very much want me to be in her life.

I know that, by most rights, I am a huge waste of time. She benefits from the company alone, even with all the heartache, but I sort of see the relationship as it stands a bad habit, like proscratination or something. I'm just helping her break it.

Part of my reasoning behind it is selfish though. I just hate that I can't be who I was. She is another reminder of how much I have lost.

But, if both parties think there is something there, something beyond, keep fighting for it. Like Traveler said, it's a matter of finding yourself again.

Me, I just don't know when/if I'll be doing that finding, and I don't really wanna see her sitting there, still dealing with me as I am, or worse, a decade from now.

It's sad though, 'cause never will I find someone this committed to me again. She is crazy. lol

I think letting go is the best route for her and I though.

All you can do is try, buddy!

I'm going through it right now. My bf of 12 years has been here helping me while I help him. He does what I can't, and I provide a home for him (for 2 1/2 years now) while he fights for his disability. I even fought to get approved for home health care (housekeeping sort of chores) with him as caretaker so that he would have a little income for a dozen hours a week. We never used to fight before he moved in, but now he has to see me at my worst and vice versa, every day. He made an unfortunate comment a little bit ago thinking I wouldn't hear him, that he "has to get out of here". So I obliged him by telling him to just go.

And he is. He's packed what he can, and headed to live in his Dad's empty dump of a trailer. No water, huge holes in the floor and as I said, it's a dump. But apparently it's better than being here so....

It's easy to blame this on the Lyme, and my feeling like death every other day, but it doesn't change anything for us. (((hugs))) to all of us. We didn't deserve this.

I feel too much ..but have lost love for myself.. and if i cant love the zombie i have become how can i love another ...the love of my life has been back with me for a year now @nd half of that i was hunting down the cause ..obsessed on forums and praying for a cure or hope of remission...i am a shell of a person ..cant walk without paying for it ...@nd wonder is everg one better off with out me ...i have the lame dog in the pack like i should go off in the woods and keep going or lay in bed stop treating and stop eating ...or make it quiker .she deserves a life a real hope ...too bad she has it too..she just doesnt know it.

Yeah, though this has already been established, I just want to reiterate, if only for myself, you'd be amazed how much of an effect that these illnesses have on our hearts and minds, what we think, how we feel.

The brief instances I've had where I've experienced a parting of the clouds, and I had the sense enough to be aware, I was shocked to see just how much my mood improved, and how much my personality changed. I wouldn't say I was the old me, but I could feel him there. It is an energy.

Keep in mind that these moments of clarity weren't even what someone who's experienced real success and strides with their treatment would consider noteworthy, at least in my mind.

They were very short-lived, and I was still very much in the depths of the sickness.

That said, I cannot imagine what it would feel like to truly wake up from this, know a day, week, month with more than a few scattered minutes of that sensation, the clearing of the skies.

Now that I think about it, my losing that feeling, sense of self, the "me," I'd forgotten what that was like. It's been so long, I just got used to living like this. I hate it, yes, I am not settling, but that's just being human sometimes.. adapting to certain situations, however uncomfortable or even painful, because that's just how you gotta exist for the time.

Sucks. I hope I can experience more of those reawakenings in the future, and have them be more lasting and consistent, permanent.

But, yeah. Feels. We feel too much, we feel too little, some right, some wrong.. some our own, others not quite at home.

Stupid Lyme and friends.

Anyway..

Best wishes.

Thanks again btw, Girlie. Very nice to me.