Hi all,

So I don't know really where this post fits in the forum, but it has to do with communication so I decided it could go here.

Last night I went out with co-workers and had a fabulous time...but I find, in social situations with people who don't know about my depression, PTSD, agoraphobia, and history of SI, that I'm afraid I'm going to say something inappropriate that "spills the beans" on all the messed up stuff that goes through my head. Does anyone else ever feel that way? Like I'm trying to hide my mental illness and because it's this big secret I'm worried that I'll give some hint or something as to what's really wrong with me. My co-workers know I have disability because I have a service dog, but they don't know that it's a mental health disability.

I started SI when I was 34 and stopped when I was 35, so my T and I have really determined that it was related to the major amount of stress that I was experiencing and a kind of nervous breakdown. I haven't SI'd in almost a year now and have no compulsions to. But the thing is, for that year when I was hurting myself I went to town, so to speak. I have so many visible, huge scars...no one asks me about them, which is very polite, and they all know that I left my previous job because I got sick but not what kind of sick... I really wonder what they all think of me. I know they really like me as far as my skills and abilities go because they say it over and over again, how glad they are to finally have someone like me in the position, and what a great job I'm doing.

But I'm always worried that I'll say to much and let it leak out that I suffer from severe depression, PTSD, that my dad was abusive, that my brother tried to molest me, that when I was a kid we didn't have enough food on the table, that my mother had terrible rages from her own PTSD and that all of this has kind of screwed my head on the wrong way...

Does anyone ever feel like this or know what I'm talking about?

Seesaw