Why do I find it so hard to open up?

[incommunicado]

Basically I find it practically impossible to open up and talk to people, particularly dp. Our relationship is not too good at the moment, and hasn't been really since ds was born. I know some of the reasons are down to me and some to him, but I find it impossible to just sit down and talk to him about it. I'm not even sure I lkie him enough to talk to him about things any more.

I was brought up in a family which didn't talk about thinks, lots of skeletons in the closet etc. My advice to others is to talk about things, and I always talk about everything to ds, even though he's too young to understand. I just can't take my own advice!

This is ruining what is left of our relationship and also means I don't have many friends either, I think people just view me as either snooty or offhand.

I'm also suffering from depression, which doesn't help, and feeling very lonely.

Its difficult to separate which feelings are coming from depression. How long have you been together, and how old is DS? Could some of your feelings be coming down to tiredness, and maybe not getting time out to yourself?

hi mummytummy, we have been together 7 years and ds is 20 months. so I can't really blame lack of sleep. Dp is really good at looking after ds and tries his best to make sure I have a bit of time to myself whenever possible, so maybe it's just that I'm a miserable ungrateful cow?

Hi there incommunicado,

I can kind of understand where you're coming from. I don't really talk much either - and it definitely goes back to being a child. A few years ago, pre-children I was having problems with our relationship and I became depressed. I couldn't really talk it through with dh, tried relate and - because of my failure to say stuff, they kind of looked at me rather strangely as if it to say. well what exactly is your problem. So I tried counselling - got it on the NHS - as on Ads at same time. And it worked for me. It was a step, and there were lots of otehrs to take but it was a really important first one. Another one I found - if you can't talk - write - keep a diary. I know neither of these suggestions are actually ways of opening up to your dh, but they might be ways of opening up to yourself, if that makes sense. And sometimes that's what you need to do, in order to work out what you want to say to anyone else. I hope that makes a bit of sense for you. take care

I've said this before to other people, so sorry if I sound like a scratched record (or indeed some sort of health food shop freak) but I suffered with depression, and eventually someone suggested to me that I should look at what I was eating. I saw a nutritionist, and she gave me a detailed medical questionnaire, covering things like depression, and told me that my symptoms were all linked with my diet. I made some changes, and it seemed to help (it didn't cure it completely, but things did get a lot better).

havent read all the posts, but i think this is down to depression as i have pnd and during change of my tabs, i felt exactly the same. please go to see doc, either for counselling or see how ad's work, you might just need ' picking up' again.
hope you get sorted

mummytummy, do you still have that questionaire? and what are'danger' foods?

MrsMiaWallace, are the new ones working for you?

Oooh, sorry MMW, we must have typed those at the same time!! I'll see if I can find it (although DD2s ceiling collapsed last week, and we are having a new one put in this week, so the house is in chaos). I know I was hardly getting any of the B vitamins (which apparently links to things like pmt, depression and tiredness), so I had to take B supplements, eat plenty of seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, etc), spinach, tuna and chicken. I also hardly drank any water, and too much coffee (although I still drink a lot of coffe, but I drink more water) and apparently dehydration causes depressive symptoms.

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Thanks for all your kind comments and suggestions, I'll definitely take them on board.

The stuff about diet is interetsing. I try to eat healthy meals, but it's the crap between meals that lets me down. mummytummy, I would be interested to see that questionnaire if you have it.

I would love to try counselling, but I'm not sure what type. I recently had one session, but ended up with me knowing more about the counsellor than him about me! And I had a bit of therapy many years ago but apart from saying "hello", I said nothing there either, and if I can't talk to a counsellor then there really isn't much hope!

I haven't been to the Drs as I don't want to take ads (but might have to) and I don't really want depression on my records (I'm paranoid!).

WigandRobe, many thanks for that. I will definitely try the exercise, but I have a feeling I know which column will be the longest.

Everything seems to be pointing towards ads and/or counselling. I have a huge amount of anger to deal with so counselling would probably be good and would hopefully help me be more tolerant of people, especially dp. I seem to be opening the floodgates here, so I'll stop writing now. Thanks again.

Hello there incommunicado, pleased to see that you have been getting loads of great advce here and thought I would let you know that you are not alone on the 'not being able to ope up 'thing. I also had a childhood where nothing was discussed and there were loads of secrets (I'm still finding them now!). All this added up to a feeling that you just 'don't tell people how you feel and lots of things are taboo. For example, neither my sister or I ever discussed boyfriends or relationships with my mum becuase we just instinctivly knew she would be over suspicious and therefore it was wrong in some way, we don't talk about our feelings at all and it just feels odd to all of us to ever touch in any way really.

All this lead to my having great difficulty in ever reaching out and telling my partners how I felt (both emotionally or sexually really) and because of that, loads of my ealry relationships were 'strained' to say the least. People got really offended at me not responding in the way they expected and thought I was being off hand, rude and snobby. My current partner never apporoached me in the 4 years we knew each other before we finally got together becuase he thought I was a stuck up cow!

Obviously, that has changed now, as we are very much together but I can't stress enough the actual effort I had to put in to be able to open up to him. I started by keeping a diary (something I had only ever done once before as a child and stopped as my mother read it) and I found that really helped. If you know no-one else is going to read your thoughts, it is alomst as if you are saying them and you can allow yourself to get bolder and more brave with not only what you are saying but what you believe...if you know what I mean?

From there I moved onto actually responding when someone gave me a compliment (something I used to hate) and then to actually iniating 'delicate' conversations. I took a hell of a long time and someone I trusted utterly but I am really glad to say I think I am out the other side now, in fact my dp would no doubt argue I have gone too far the other way - always saying how I feel about everything!!!!

I'm not saying that is THE way to make yourself feel better but I would suggest you at least start keeping a diary of how you feel, you would be surprised how much better you feel just for getting it all down on paper and out of your system.

Hope that helps