Hi All,
I've been experiencing intense anxiety over an embarrassing situation. Recently have been dealing with domestic abuse at home - a fairly serious incident of physically threatening behavior by my husband two months ago, and more recently a lot of emotional abuse. After the physical incident, I told a mutual friend of ours - my son's hockey coach - about what happened because I felt he would understand, being a prosecutor of domestic violence cases, and he's also always been kind to me. He's also a lot older than me and I think I was looking for a male I looked up to to help me to feel validated and safer. I went through a long period of anxiety and depression over everything these past couple months (and I'm also 38 weeks pregnant, so that doesn't help either with the hormones). I told this friend of ours a LOT about what was happening. Eventually, two weeks ago, he said that he couldn't know any more about what was happening because he's my son's hockey coach (and I think he was concerned about legal implications). I absolutely understand that, and I think I knew it the whole time but was so desperate for support from people who would understand. It was SO stupid of me. Although he did show concern and has been pretty patient with me, I'm pretty sure he was aggravated and I feel so incredibly embarrassed about my behavior, the way I kept bugging him, telling him I was worried about whether he believed me (which I was), and apologizing over and over (another product of my anxiety). Ugh. How can I forgive myself for this? And how can I manage seeing this friend all the time - I see him a couple times a week for our kids' sports practices (both hockey and lacrosse)?