I hope all of this makes sense, apologies if it's a little bit of a read.

I have been dating the love of my life for a little over ten months now. We're currently living together, and everything is going very well, except for one thing - my mental illness. I have been diagnosed clinically depressed for about five years now, this has been an issue that I've carried my entire life, it's not something that somebody can all of a sudden fix. Currently I am prescribed medication to help with thoughts, although I am not able to refill my prescription due to finances, which is making things go slowly downhill more than usual.

The problem that is here, is that whenever I have "one of those days" or fall into a more depressive state; she gets frustrated (which I completely understand, it must be difficult to live with somebody who is damaged). She gets frustrated when I don't tell her whats going on, but when I do tell her what I'm thinking and how I'm feeling, she always blames herself, and says something along the lines of "I've tried so hard to help you and it's clearly not working, I just don't know what to do or how to help you". I can't find the words to explain to her that a chemical imbalance is not something that can be very easily fixed, especially by one person. She just always, always blames herself. She will often get upset or frustrated at the fact I feel this way the majority of the time, and she'l get short or blunt with me, and sometimes leave the room all together., which makes me feel worse as I've dropped her mood.

I guess I'm just worried that shes going to get fed up, realise I'm too much effort and leave. The thought terrifies me.

I just want to know a way of explaining to her how this mental illness works, so she doesn't constantly blame herself or get upset when I'm not in a good place.

Apologies for such a long post, I didn't intend it to be this big. A huge thank you to everybody who read the whole thing, I hope you understand what I'm getting at.

Thank you again, it means everything./