Hello bittersweet1976: Welcome to PsychCentral! PC is a great place to gain support as well as to obtain mental health-related information. There are many caring members here.

I will share my experience with you. I'm an older person & I don't have any family or friends to be concerned with. However, I am married & I do have casual acquaintances. Without going into allot of detail, I'll just say that, a few years ago, following a 2nd suicide attempt, I finally divulged a secret I had been carrying around my entire life. I was certain that, in one way or another it would change everything. But what actually occurred is that nothing happened. The reality was that my spouse didn't want to know anything about it & so basically just pretended it didn't exist. I never told anyone else except, of course, the mental health professionals I was seeing. (They also didn't seem to much care one way or another.) So, in the end, I ended up right back where I started from, except that I began to feel, & still feel, exposed & foolish. In retrospect, I wish I had just continued to keep it deeply hidden.

So I guess, from my perspective, what I would say is simply to be aware that the response you'll get may be entirely different than you expect. My personal prejudice is that most people don't really want to know about, or care about, another person's problems. They have their own, whatever they are. So, to the extent possible, what they're most likely to do is to simply ignore your problem or, in some cases, ignore you. This is probably not the reply you are looking for. But it has been my experience. My best wishes to you both...