[Rose76]

I am afraid to be in my own apartment by myself for more that several hours at a time. I come over here to clean up and check mail and attend to other things.

I have been staying nights with a friend. (Actually, he is my significant other.) He could get in trouble with management at his apartment complex, if it looks like he has taken in a "border." He doesn't like coming to stay with me at my place because he is handicapped and needs the accommodations he has at his own place.

I'm afraid to keep doing this. I have tons of experience living alone and was just fine with it, in the past. My S.O. and I did live together, in the past, and that just did not work out.

I have to get going now and get out of here, as it is becoming late. I didn't even do what I came over here to do. I must do that now and leave.

This is truly awful.

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

I'm so sorry Rose, I know the feeling all too well. Maybe it's because we're so afraid to be alone with our own thoughts that cause us to fear being alone in general? I don't know I'm no expert. I know it's a long shot but I'm pulling for this T tomorrow to at least give me some words of wisdom on how to manage being alone when I'm there tomorrow, if he does I will gladly post it. It's a terrible thing, it truly is to feel so totally dependent on someone. I don't care who it is, I've even considered numerous times going and sitting in our appartment lobby just so I wasn't alone during work hours.

Perhaps looking for a roommate might be an option? I'm so thankful my fiance lives with me, but when he's gone to work and he's my transportation and I am stuck alone for 8-10 hours during the day 4 days a week, I am in a constant fear. You're not alone.

[Rose76]

Hi Purple - It sounds like you do really know what I'm talking about. Believe it or not, it is really a comfort just for someone to let me know that they understand what I'm talking about.

When you said about wanting to go in the lobby during the day I could tell you do know this feeling I'm trying to explain. I just came back from having a shake at Sonic. It felt nice there seeing other people and listening to the upbeat music. It was even interesting seeing the staff running off pan-handlers. I don't mean that as weird as it sounds. And I do feel for anyone who is to the point of panhandling - though these guys looked young, decently dressed and well-fed.

After drinking the shake, I continued to sit there. For some reason I got real interested in reading all the flavors of things that you can add to beverages. Eventually, I said "Well, I got to face going home." Here I am and it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

I left my friend's place a little while ago because we had a little discussion about me and my depression and he indicated that he thought I really had a problem with laziness. Since becoming awfully depressed, I have become the queen of laziness. I started wishing that I could be like I used to be when I was anything but lazy. I thought about how it was when we lived together years ago and I was working and going to school and supporting him half the time. Then it dawned on me why I moved out and went to live on my own. It was because he was always verbally abusing me. One time he said that if I only "had a little more push" we could be living in a nice condo on the beach. At the time I was making more money than he was. Plus he drank a lot of his money. 3 times a week, he would come home drunk and tell me I was a &%$*#$%*&. (it's not fit to print.) Now he's sober and can be real nice now and then for a few hours or so. And I'M SO GRATEFUL. I go around thinking: "I'm so glad that we stayed close friends, even though I left him for emotionally abusing me."

I'm glad I'm home in my own apt. instead of at his place. I am very depressed and I am very lazy and I am afraid to be alone. Yet, here I am alone and I'm glad I got a place to go to get away from him.

I'm just scared that I will lose my apartment. I'm out of work a long time and not even trying to get another job. So I figure I deserve whatever happens to me. Still, I'ld rather be sleeping under a bush than in the apartment of someone who sneers at me like I'm his idea of a real loser. I probably am a real loser. I'll take the punishment that goes with that. I'm sure it's coming. But I won't stay where I'm an object of scorn. I had enough of that growing up.

My next door neighbor tells me that I don't live right and that I should pay more attention to my appearance and that I sleep too much and why do I often have my blinds closed for days at a time. (I live on the first floor. It's like I live in a fishbowl.) Well, wasn't I the dope to humbly listen to my neighbor telling me this stuff and agreeing with her that I got to get my act together and be more like her. (Meanwhile, her adult son has often rang my bell asking me for money. He's an addict.) Part of why I hate my apartment is because of my neighbor watching me and commenting. Well - what the heck business of her's is it ??? None. And I got to learn to keep my business mine. I got to learn not to be a sap letting others browbeat me.

This is probably incoherent. I've just been reviewing my life and thinking of what a dope I've been. Maybe it's not too late to change.