Hi Tracy, it's really good to see you back on here :)

I'm really sorry to read that you've been having such a tough time with your depression, but feel so proud of you for being able to see that something had to change in the way that you put your own needs second best to everyone else's.

As you already know, we're not dissimilar in some of our ways and elements of our backgrounds, so I can relate to how natural it has become to you to feel like everyone else needs to have their needs taken care of before your own needs even register...in our younger years it was key to our survival, but as an adult, whilst we don't particularly want to create bad feeling between ourselves and people we care about, we're not dependent upon them anymore for our survival, and we can actually cope without them if needs be ...and we need to remember that.

I've found that over time, a lot of people do start to come to terms and respect the changes you make, some don't, but then, they are the ones we probably need to protect ourselves from the most anyway, and so the benefits of limited or reduced contact usually outweigh the loss.

Stay strong Tracy - it's not an easy part of the journey, but it's definitely a worthwhile one! xxx