Hey everyone

I guess I should tell you a bit about myself first: I’m a 42 years old woman, I’ve been married since I was 18, I’m childless, and with my husband I run a very successful online business. I have battled depression since I was 10 years old, and have attempted suicide several times; I’ve had numerous rounds of counselling, and have been on antidepressants for most of my adult life. I come from a very difficult family background: my dad was alcoholic, as is my sister, my mum has borderline personality disorder, my brother was a drug addict who died from a heroin OD. My dad died when I was 21, very suddenly, and my mum is currently terminally ill (she has only a couple of months left to live). My sister has just come out of a very long stint at rehab, we aren’t in contact. Although I’m part of a religious community, I only really have one close friend who I confide in. I have Aspergers, and I’m very introverted anyway; I don’t find it easy or comfortable to share my feelings with others. On the rare occasion when I do try, it never seems to achieve anything; I felt this week like I was suffocating in sadness and despair, and (rarely for me) I said as much to my husband and my close friend. I got exactly the same response from them both (and this seems to happen every time I try to open up): they both completely ignored what I said, and immediately started complaining about their current problems. It was like I’d never even opened my mouth.

Despite my struggles and difficulties, I’m a very successful person to all appearances; I’m successful in business, I look good, I’m intelligent; everybody I know seems to treat me like their own personal life coach. They come to me with their fitness problems, their business questions, their health worries, their relationship woes. I do my best to help, and they say (in effect), “wow, aren’t you great, aren’t you clever, you’re so on top of everything”. And off they go, pleased with my service. But when I’m in need……. talk to the hand. If I tell my husband that I feel like the best thing for me would be to not wake up tomorrow, it’s like the shutters go down over his face, he blanks me. I don’t have one person in my life that I can turn to, not one. I’m trying my best, with meditation and other tools, to learn how to be my own support system, and take care of myself, but it is unbelievably hard to feel worth caring about when nobody else seems to, or ever has. (I will acknowledge that is probably partly a perception colored by depression, but there’s pretty solid fact to back it up too. I was 12 years old when I first attempted suicide: I took a whole bottle of aspirin. My parents, when they found out a few hours later, didn’t take me to the ER, because they didn’t want anyone to find out, instead my dad gave me salt water to drink to make me vomit, and we never spoke of the incident again. Some years ago, I tried cutting my wrists, and got myself into a real mess; when I finally went to my husband in the early morning, and sobbed out what had happened and how frightened I was, he got angry, told me not to be so stupid, and actually went back to sleep, leaving me to patch myself up as best I could.)

I have a cat, you’ve no idea how much I love this cat; most days, it’s my love for him that keeps me going. He is very very attached to me, I couldn’t abandon him. But seriously, what is wrong with me, and/or my life, that I’m 42 years old and outwardly have everything going for me (I can’t tell you how often people tell me they are jealous of me), and the only creature in my life who I feel has ever showed me unconditional love is a cat??

I want so badly to feel that, nobody else matters, I can be everything to myself that I need to be to thrive (well, survive!), but I don’t know how. How do I learn how to show myself compassion, when nobody else shows it to me?