I've been slightly paranoid since I was young, it got worse as I got older, particularly once I was living my by myself and my wife. I started getting very sensitive to sounds of cars driving my our house, motorcycles particularly, generally any kind of movement that seems to happen "right outside the window".

I did use drugs for a while (stimulants, which exacerbated it, and disocciatives which in my eyes helped when used in moderation).

The big problem I guess is that I've had my worst paranoid episodes when I was using stimulants, so now even after having quit all drugs for months, my wife automatically assumes whenever I get scared by sounds at night, she thinks I'm.on drugs, and I get a huge lashback about why I'm bothering her, get accused and generally makes my anxiety increase tenfold.

During my stimulant use I started getting auditory hallucinations, particularly imagening her crying (because she does cry and freak out when -I- have a panic attack). This still lingers around, and it comes out worst when I feel anxious, especially because I know that I absolutely can't share that anxiety or depression - otherwise I set off a panic attack in her!

So we went to counseling, individually and together, and it helped a little bit, but I had more hopes that she would work on herself too and I ended up just trying to break out of this codependence, while she is just holding on to it and thinks she is fine. But she's not, she has bipolar too and refuses to accept that diagnosis.

I then went to get a psychological evaluation, since I'm hearing stuff I shouldn't be hearing, and they wanted to see if I have done damage to my brain. It ended up taking 7 hours, and I came out with apparently no cognitive deficits, 130 IQ, but unspecific anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder and schizoid tendencies.

The most important part: the auditory hallucinations are a RESULT of my anxiety, and not drug induced. But yeah, she doesn't believe that of course.

I just feel all alone now. We have a happy marriage apart from that, but I can't get rid of this immense remorse about being labelled a drug addict, and it's all that the therapists and counselors would really try to address. And I do miss drugs, because in my eyes it was self-medicating (admittedly, the stimulants were not the best idea), but I'm abstaining just for her sake. But it doesn't resolve the problem.

Now I basically have anxiety, paranoia and a controlling wife that doesn't have the patience to try to understand the full situation. So I'm just suffering. I want to be with her, but I can't make her understand that these problems have always been there, and now they are even worse.

Every day I'm stuck with this cognitive dissonance of my belief that I can deal with my problems myself if it didn't ruin my marriage at the same time, while also seeing her point of trying to protect me by making me stop self-medicating. So I try my.best to go "her way", but it's not working since she won't see that the entire problem is more complex, and I'm afraid she never will.

Right now I'm.just hesitant to move forward in life with her, because this issue is lingering, and I can act okay, but inside I'm dying and I don't want to end up with a divorce.

I know most people are gonna suggest marriage counseling, but this has simply made things worse, so we stopped. I don't know how to flip the switch in her brain that to understand I have actual issues and I'm not just an addict that's just gonna betray her being selfish...

This sucks.