Hi everyone,
I've just spent over an hour typing out my first post only to press the wrong key and it all got deleted!! Aarrggghhh!!! Here goes again....
I am a 38yr old woman and I have a lot of issues stemming back from childhood. I had a good upbringing but it lacked love and support. I never wanted for anything but my parents had me late in life and because they grew up without cuddles and support they found it hard to do that for me. I grew up without ever being told I was loved as they found it uncomfortable to say it. I was adopted as a baby and growing up, and now in my adult life, I've struggled in a lot of friendships and relationships with my issue surrounding this and have a fear of abandonment and being rejected. This has led to me being a "people pleaser" and my fear of being not liked and being on my own. I have very low self-esteem and feel very insecure, I've struggled with my weight all my life and comfort eat pretty much whenever I have some time to myself. I got good at not letting people see the hurt and keeping it all inside. I used to be a happy-go-lucky kind of person, always making people smile and laugh and I had a big heart. I struggle with my self-image pretty much every day and can't think of anything worse than looking in a mirror and seeing how disgusting I am. This is all barely scratching the surface.
Due to my low self-esteem I always ended up drifting from one relationship to another. None of the men were good for me but they showed an interest in me for some strange reason and so I clung on to them with all my might in the hope I would be with someone for ever and I could have my dream of getting married, having a family and being happy. I was always deluding myself I was in love but at the time I thought I was. Eventually I would realise they weren't for me and I would find someone else, move on and the cycle would repeat itself. I would do whatever it took to be with someone whether it was to move house or move to another country....I'm that pathetic!! They never accepted me for who I am and always tried to change me. When the relationship was over I would then hate myself for wasting so much time on them and my dreams would be further away again.
I've found it hard to maintain friendships as I have issues with trust as I usually found I would let people walk all over me and use me and they would end up stabbing me in the back. I've grown sceptical about people over the years and I often try to work out their motives for wanting to be my friend even thought they may genuinely like me. As a consequence of this the only people I am friends with are the people I work with but with most of them it's only because I crave acceptance and can't handle rejection.
In the last few months I was diagnosed with depression and put on medication. I felt that finally I was dealing with all my negative feelings and I was on top of the world...much to the relief of my bf. I even had course of 12 counselling sessions but they revealed feelings I thought were dead and buried and before I knew it the 12 weeks were up and I left feeling like I had only just begun getting to the root causes of my issues. I feel like I have no one to turn to now. I don't like feeling a burden to my friends so I bottle most stuff up. I have a theory that when people say I can talk to them, they don't really mean it and don't want me babbling on and crying to them. I know everyone has their own issues and problems in their own lives, so they don't want the burden of mine too and they're only saying it to be nice.
These last few months have been the hardest for me. I feel worthless, drained, tired, moody, angry and putting on a brave face is getting harder. I have another theory that if I expect the worse to happen all the time I won't be disappointed when it does and when things go right it's a bonus. This is much to the annoyance of my bf as he's the most positive person on the planet and he tries to ram his positivity down my neck so much that all I want to do is shove it down his.
I can't handle crying all the time and feeling so worthless and stupid. I thought when I was younger if I cried so much the tears wouldn't be able to fall and I wouldn't feel the hurt any more. Now I'm grown up I realise it's not that simple. All I want is to sit down with someone face to face over a coffee or something and have them let me pour my heart out for how ever long it took without fear of being judged or being a burden. I want a friend.
