Is being sad and lonely hereditery?

[ineedtochat]

Just wondering, my Mum is a very sad,grumpy, lonely lady who doesn't help herself at all, but expects everyone else to run around for her.She drives me mad, but Iam slightly worried as I don't seem to be able to make good relationships either. I split with hubby last year after trying to make it work for 16 years and have found myself with absolutely no one to talk to. I used to have a couple of good friends, but we grew apart when I moved away.
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, just feel under incredible pressure for lots of reasons, Iam trying to keep myself together for the children and really don't want to end up like my mum but am wondering if there might be something wrong with me.

There's nothing wrong with you. You move away from friends as you age, it's a fact. As you mature you change, your priorities change, the things you like change, it's inevitable. You find that you no longer have the things in common with people that you once had or you no longer have the time to keep in touch (days turn to weeks, weeks turn into months etc). People come and go all the time. It's really hard to maintain a friendship when someone moves away, you don't have common things to talk about anymore. What have you done to make new friends where you live now?
You don't have to follow your mothers needs, you have seen that you are different, you have a choice. You can either stay as you are or you can do something about it.

I think even if we are given some of our parents less desirable personality traits it's never to late to change them if we want to.

Maybe you need to give yourself a bit more time to get over the split with your partner. That's a big readjustment and your energy has gone on keeping it together for the children. It's so hard to be outgoing and likeable when you're knackered and stressed. Without meaning to, it's easy to give off signals to others not to get close, as everything's a bit much.

Unless it's proper depression which needs help, maybe you could just make a big effort to lighten up - watch really funny films, listen to upbeat music, read optimistic books and mags not doom and gloom news, and just smile and make eye contact a lot more. Sounds like very cheesy advice, but it works when you're in a rut of being grumpy and down. If it's real depression none of this will help but if it's the understandable rut of having been involved in a split after a long time, then it might just help kick start you to feel happy again.

If you don't want to be like your mum then you're aware of the problem and you can make sure you don't end up like her. You could also get in touch with those old friends again, or think about what you liked about them, or liked doing with them and try and meet up with some people who have stuff in common with you.

I really hope you get to know some lovely new people so you can move on from the split and enjoy yourself again.