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I feel like a fraud

  • 18-12-2008 4:13pm
    #1
    LegacyUser
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 166,026 ✭✭✭✭


    I am a female post grad student in my mid-twenties. I have a good job which i love and have made some very good friends through it. i have a small network of very close friends from school whom I love to bits. I have never had a secure, stable relationship with anyone, although i have recently started seeing a lovely guy. I live at home with my mother, we get on well but we also fight like cats and dogs, which is normal enough. I get on well with my siblings and have a reasonable relationship with my father. my mother left my father many years ago after he cheated on her and was violent towards her.
    On paper, i have a great life and I seem to be a happy, sociable, girl with a bright future ahead of myself.

    But I feel like such a fraud on the inside. I've been battling with low self esteem and self hatred since as long as i can remember. I was abused by an uncle of mine when i was ten years old but I have never told any of my family members about this. I blocked this out of my mind until just after I left school when I became severly depressed resulting in an attempted suicide. This suicide attempt has never been referred to by my family since it happened.

    I went for counselling for a few years, on and off, after it happened but i felt like i was getting nowhere. I cover my depressive episodes well, altho i tend to hide away from the world which affects my college work.
    I can put on a happy face with family and friends and just focus on them, their lives, making them laugh etc. And this brave face works because everyone tells me how much ive 'improved' over the years, and what a turnaround i've made etc. But even after many, many counselling sessions I don't feel like i've turned a corner, or have gotten over what happened to me in the past....which scares me as i am beginning to feel like a hopeless case. I've since stopped going for counselling partly because i feel like i was getting nowhere with it and partly because of the cost.

    Not being able to confide in anyone makes me feel like im deceiving them all and that they have become good friends with this persona, rather than becoming friends with me. i confided everything once to a friend after my suicide attempt and her reaction just crushed me. SHe didnt want to have any contact with me afterwards and i haven't spoken to her since. I can understand that it was probably too much for her to deal with, but her reaction has stayed with me ever since. I can't even imagine confiding with a boyfriend any of this, for fear that he won't want to deal with my problems.

    i just feel like a complete fraud and i don't know what to do about it. i apologise for the long rambling post.


Comments

  • #2
    codeblack
    Closed Accounts Posts: 34 ✭codeblack


    Its ok to feel like this you know, you've been through something very traumatic. And i know you must feel a sense of pressure now to "be ok", now that everyone thinks you've made such an improvement.

    I have depression myself, and went through a very bad episode a couple of years back. I went and got help, went to counselling and everyone thought i was doing better. I was even telling my counsellor that i was doing much better when in fact i wasnt at all, i just knew everyone was rooting for me to get better and i didnt want to disappoint them. Que me having to leave college because i evently broke down.

    Now im really on the mend, I go to a counsellor in college and im extremely honest, embarassingly honest, and its doing me the world of good.

    Just a couple of questions, where you always very honest about how you were feeling in counselling? and are you taking any antidepressants? If you are they way not be the right dosage or the right kind for you and i think you should go talk to your GP.

    I would urge you to go back to counselling, I know its not for everyone, but its doing me so much good now that im being so honest.

    And about that friend you told, she is not a real friend. I know how hard it is to trust someone with all those feelings you have inside, and she betrayed that because, fair enough, she couldnt handle it. But that was HER fault and in no way should you feel bad for it.


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