📝 AITAH for getting annoyed at my boyfriend for asking invasive questions about my mental health

By Important_Duck_5601 • Score: 2 • April 26, 2025 3:24 PM


TW: this post will discuss self harm

Apologies i don’t know how to word that title better. so last night me (19f) and my bf (19m) had stayed up late gaming and it had got to about 5am so i wanted to go to sleep because i was tired. at this point my boyfriend decided to start asking about my history of self harm, and why i didn’t anymore. for some context ive struggled with self harm, and several other mental illnesses for a long time due to personal reasons and what myself and past psychiatrists have put down to chemical imbalance. it’s visible to anyone who meets me if im wearing short sleeves or skirts/shorts. most people in my life are aware of this and do not discuss it with me. i do not self harm very much anymore, unless something really triggers me, and it’s very rare. i’m happy with the place i’m at with it, i’ve done a lot of therapy, been put on medication, and seen in total through my time in treatment 10+ mental health professionals for therapy and assessments over the course of approximately 8 years. i and most of my friends tend to say that ive definitely improved radically from the place i was a few years ago, where i was a high risk for needing to be admitted to a psychiatric facility to now being for the most part a normal functioning adult. i no longer feel any urge to self harm 99.99% of the time. for how i feel, i think i’ve done the work and i’m really happy with where i’m at, which every doctor and psychiatrist i’ve seen since doing therapy has agreed with. apologies if thats too much explaining, but i feel that its quite relevant to explain how far from that part of my life i am. i’m happy to discuss self harm as a subject with most people, but i will always try to keep it pretty non-personal, as it’s something i’m quite private about, and if people ask what made me get better, i’ll give them the honest answer that the biggest changes in my life that contributed were going on medication, getting a job i liked and seeing a therapist who i got on with really well. but anyway, my boyfriend is aware of most of this but last night decided to question me on this further. he asked if i felt like i was ever going to self harm again, and i said i don’t know, that all depends on where i’m at in life. he’s said things before about not wanting me to, asking how id feel if future children asked about it etc. these questions make me somewhat uncomfortable, as i have thought about them at length, and i don’t like feeling shame for how i appear to others, as i view my scars more as a reflection of how far i’ve come, and given the option would not get rid of them. i was very obviously visibly uncomfortable with these questions. my boyfriend went on to ask what makes me what triggers me to want to self harm, and i replied quite annoyed at that point saying it really isn’t any of his business. had this been at another time i might have given a more serious answer but i really wasn’t in the mood and just wanted to go to bed. he then asked why i didn’t self harm anymore and i answered honestly that it was because i take my meds and did the therapy. to me it very much felt that he was implying being in a relationship was what had made me not want to self harm. while in some ways i understand it may appear that way to outsiders, i feel it’s a bit insulting to imply all the work i did was instead a result of being in a relationship, which just isn’t true. after this i just left to go to bed (for context we live together but have different rooms). i haven’t spoken to him since but i honestly don’t feel like i was in the wrong. AITAH?

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