Hello

[juwee]

I would like to say hello to everyone on this site and tell you how glad i am that i found you. Just reading through the posts lets me truely know that I am far from alone in my feelings. You all seem to support each other so well also.

I have suffered from depression all of my life.

I have never really had any friends at all. Growing up I only had one friend and that came to a screaming end in 11th grade when I found out she was using me to get to my brother.

Surprisingly I married the first and only man who ever dated me. It was 11 years of pure emotional abuse until he divorced me to marry another.

During that time work became my place of refuge. I could be open and free there. Everyone loves me and I just keep them laughing all day. Then I come home and I am sad, bitter and depressed. I see other people going out having fun dating etc...

I need to know how to bring that fun carefree woman home with me. It is just like a split personality but not. I so love the person I am at work and thats me!! Help me to learn to bring her home

[Mark]

Help me to learn to bring her home

Welcome to our community. I hope that you will find some of what you are looking for here.

I like the phrase you used that I've quoted above, because it tells me that you have a good idea what you'd like to transform yourself into, and actually already have a self-concept of what that looks like articulated within yourself. You've got a model for what the new you should look like, but probably also a lot of fears and self-defeating beliefs that are standing in your way.

The first thing that you might think about is the concept of assertiveness. Have you read about that at all? Some good links are here (read the entire chapter across several articles) and here for starters. It seems that you are very shy, and interpersonally, at least when it comes to your personal life and emotional intimacy, etc. and that translates into a passive interpersonal style. You wait for things to happen to you, possibly believing (wrongly) that you have no control over what happens to you interpersonally. You don't ever have total control - but you probably can have more than you are allowing yourself. You may believe that you don't deserve to have more control, or that there is something wrong with you, etc. Assertiveness training (and the concept of personal boundaries that underlies it) can help you work on this stuff.

Mark

[lostgirl]

Hello Juwee, welcome here. I am new as well and I hope you can find the answers to your problems and get ahead. I can actually relate to you, I love to laugh and make people laugh when I go out. But when I come home it all gets shut off, like a switch it just goes off.

I think it's because home is where my problems are, this is where my hell is, where all my pain builds up. For you, I guess it's where you become lonely. Where you have more time to think about your problems, where your problems are able to creep in because you have no one to hold you up there.

I am no expert and God knows I need help, but maybe you need a pet? I know my little cat brings me so much joy in the middle of all this hell I am going through. I can have the crappiest day and when I look at him, it makes it all better.

Maybe you need a pet to love and play with, one that doesn't make home so lonely. Or maybe you need to confide in someone at work and let them know your situation, perhaps they'll invite you to go out, and things will just get better from there.

Again I am no expert, but just wanted to leave a message and maybe help even a little.

You're not alone and I look forward to reading more from you and your process.