"Please don’t shut me out," he would tell me. "It scares me when you do that."

Throughout all of this, both of us have had to work together to maintain our relationship — despite how hard it’s been, we have so much fun together. I feel respected, loved, and appreciated; we don’t yell at each other or call each other hurtful names, and I still maintain that we haven’t gotten into a "real" fight yet. I’m my true self around him, and after three years, I still feel like I can talk to him for hours on end.

But toward the end of last year, my depression started to really interfere with my day-to-day activities. After finishing a post-grad, moving back to my hometown, starting a new job, getting a new apartment, and adjusting to a new lifestyle, I finally broke down. I would burst into tears at random moments, and I wasn’t sleeping well. My anxiety was worsening; I was stress-eating and having horrible stomach problems. I had been working nonstop and taking little time to assess my mental health. I wasn’t seeing a therapist or talking about my feelings, and I eventually crumbled under the weight of my stress and anxiety.

It all came to a head after I missed a fitness class with a friend and felt super depressed about it. I got a text from my partner saying someone had cancelled on him for a previous engagement, but that he was now seeing another friend. I felt instantly mad: Didn’t he know I was stranded with nowhere to go now? Why was he always hanging with friends while I struggled to form a good social life? Didn’t he care?

I sent him angry texts and ignored the rest of his, even when he pleaded that I tell him where I was so he could pick me up. I refused his help and walked down a few blocks with tears in my eyes before calling an Uber. The whole ride, I wondered if he and everyone else in my life would be better off without me.

"I need to see someone," I told him that night. He rubbed my back and kissed me while I cried harder than I had in months. "Please make sure I see someone."

But the thing is, the responsibility wasn’t his: Only I could recognise my own depression, and only I could work on healing myself. Depression may have damaged multiple aspects of my life, but I didn’t want it threatening my first serious relationship. So I stopped letting what I saw as fate take its course, and I did something about it: I sought professional help. I’ve been on psychiatric medication for almost six months now, and I see my psychologist once a month. I make sure to practice self-care by paying attention to my stress levels, taking time to unwind, and pushing back against my negative self-talk.

We work through it together as best we can. I tell him about each psychologist visit, and he makes sure to take me out to dinner or suggest date nights when he knows I’ve had an especially rough week. He is infinitely patient and tries to understand why I feel the way I do, even in my most insecure moments. I now do my best to be more communicative and self-reflective.

I still have a long way to go, but I’m trying to convince myself, slowly, that I do deserve to be happy. My boyfriend continues to validate this and support me, though I know it’s something I need to tackle with or without his help — he can’t "save me" from the abyss of depression. I’m nowhere near where I want to be, and some days are still harder than others, but I’m working on it every day. I don’t expect a perfect fairy-tale ending, but I won’t let my depression write our story anymore.