I’m a 38 yr old female with a history of low self esteem due to battling severe social phobia and agoraphobia and sexual mental abuse in my teens and 20s.
I’ve had a lot of challenges over the years that has made huge gaps in my past where milestones should have been. My teens and 20s were emotionally and physically rough coping with mental illness that I didn’t get to grow like my peers did. Ive always been a decade or even more behind.
Ive learnt that being busy meant I didn’t think about these things. At 34 I got my first job. Severe social phobia prevented that in my past. But everything changed for the better when that happened. I gained my best self and self taught myself the importance of self identity and self care and communication. I also learnt there were many people in similar or different boats to me - that I was okay and didn’t need to be so hard on myself. They were big lessons going from excluding myself from society to being social in a work environment and actually letting people get to know me.
I even got a boyfriend out of it.
But that was 5 years ago and since then everything went downhill again. I lost my job 2 years ago as they had to downturn. My partner has severe schizophrenia and so many problems with him that it has been very hard for me to cope. Over the last 4 years I went from my best to my worst with adrenal fatigue from this relationship. It’s not abusive it’s just having to cope with his delusions and ups/downs, drug issues, money issues not being able to plan issues, hygiene issues, depression , psychosis and issues not being able to realise these issues and their toll on others.
Hes been a big love hate in my mind. Basically I’m his best friend really. But due to coved 19, he sleeps day and night now. It’s hard to get much interaction, but I do go for walks with him that really help.But unless someone is there to encourage him to do anything but sleep, he’ll just sleep or clean his room, not really anything else. He has issues with concentration even a movie or tv show.
He is my 1 contact really. The last year I’d been volunteering and that helped my social phobia and depression at bay but now since coved 19 and relying more on him to talk to it’s been hard. His depression can wear onto me.
At the same time I’m having grief thinking about my baby body clock and the dream of finding a man and having a child and think I’m too late. My cousin is expecting and it’s quite painful for me. I want to build my life again.
My
