Hi,
I'm new here. I've had access to this for years and am just now actually trying it. I've had anxiety for years - all my life, really, but was not diagnosed officially until my late teens. I've learned many coping mechanisms to hide it and so not very many people know until I tell them. I've had some issues with depression, the last bout started after I had my last baby 4 years ago. Circumstances stemming from the delivery caused a lot of issues for me and it was really, really rough for a few years. I found a depression support group in the town near where I lived at the time and it was incredible. I didn't have any family and only really had one friend in that town, so the group of understanding ears was huge. I still rely on some of the things I learned from that group to manage some of the recurring issues that crop up (low days, anxiety, etc, etc).
Last year, I decided it would be best to move closer to my best friend from high school, and so my family of five moved an hour away from where we lived previously. Our house is nice, we like the town and the kids enjoy the school, but the friendship has NOT stood the test of time. The closer I moved, the more clearly I saw my friend of 22 years for who she had become and how she treated people. She has lied chronically to me, found an endless number of ways to use me, taken advantage of my generosity, talked about me behind my back, and basically just refused to even try to have any kind of balanced relationship. She started a home based business in a direct sales company and has been using that as an excuse for her poor behaviour. I am not a priority to her and she only ever bothers to contact me if I've contacted her first. It was only after I stopped chasing her and started to mimic her treatment of me (low behaviour, I know - sinking to someone else's level is never good) that she started to see something was wrong. I've attempted to bring it up and be honest in a non - critical way and she has never once accepted responsibility for her part in our friendship failing. She is the epitome of a toxic person who makes up excuses for how they treat people and never, ever admit fault. She's proven to be unreliable even in important situations, and so I can't trust her in any form anymore.
I am well aware I have issues, I do not mean to sound like everything is her fault. It is my fault for not setting boundaries and not seeing her more clearly sooner. My husband warned me numerous times and thought we were making a mistake by moving here. Unfortunately, his warnings were not heeded, but I don't think it was a mistake. I needed to see her for who she is, and the relationship is all but gone. We are connected solely through facebook, and even then, I can't handle seeing her posts every day so I've had to unfollow her.
It's just hard to continue to live in this tiny town (~1200 people) without any other friends and over 3 hours away from any family. We had our house listed but can't sell it until next year, probably - the market has slowed sooooo much it's impossible. So it's been hard - I feel trapped here, I have gone through an entire grief cycle for our once sister- like relationship, but it's hard to completely let it go because she is the only emergency contact I have locally, and my kids need that backup. Our kids are similar ages and will be in the same school, so seeing her or her husband at the pick up and drop off brings it all back again over and over.
There's so much more to what's going on in my world than just this, but this is the biggest lingering thing.
Other stuff that complicates things is that we are so far from any family, that I am a SAHM of 3 kids and my husband works away from home for a week at a time. The city we need to go to for most of our groceries is about 30 minutes away, too, so even getting out to window shop or go to any play centres geared towards kids is costly and time consuming, as well as needing to over plan to make sure we have what we need while we are out.
I have anxiety and depression, some OCD and agoraphobic (more to do with people and situations than wide openness) issues, so just leaving the house is a struggle most days.
I am overweight and trying to lose weight, but I struggle with emotional eating and sugar addiction issues. I'm also waiting to be referred to a surgeon to have a procedure done to relieve a chronic pain issue, but have to lose weight to get to a certain BMI before they will refer me. I am 19 lbs away from the goal weight and stuck here. This is a horrible cycle and I hate feeling stuck.
Most days it feels like the rest of the world is moving and I've just been standing still, much like any of the numerous time lapse videos people make of pedestrians walking around someone stationary on the sidewalk.
*FTR, my husband is incredibly understanding and supportive, and we plan to move closer to my family as soon as we can. My mood issues have taken a hit in recent months as we expected to be able to move this past spring but our house remains unsold. My family has it's own massive emotional issues to deal with as well, my mom is pretty toxic as well, but living closer to her and the rest of my family (my sister especially) is the end goal because at the very least I will have them around and I'll be able to get out more and do things with them. Plus just having local support I trust and who is reliable will be huge - I've not had that once since my first kid was born over 8 years ago.
