Dealing With Isolation

Being the type of person who is quite prone to the depression that can accompany loneliness, I knew I needed to do something to prevent myself from feeling totally isolated from the world.It is a Lonely World in the House!When I left my job, I didn't have a single friend in my town that was a SAHM. That left me with only my two year old and a newborn for company and conversation during the day. Pretty soon the loneliness crept in and I began to feel disconnected from the outside world. I felt like life was going on without me. To make things worse, I wasn't prepared for negative responses to my choice to stay at home. The comments like "Don't sit around and get fat!" and "You are wasting your education!" served to isolate me even further from my working friends. Overnight, I no longer had a peer group with whom I could discuss my thoughts and ideas. Then the depression started. With no one to talk to about your feelings, this situation only becomes worse over time. A person who is depressed suffers from low self-esteem, black and white thinking (mostly black), irritability, and plummeting energy levels. The last thing a mom with small children needs is to have no energy! This change in personality can begin to affect your marriage and your relationship with your children.Many SAHMs begin to depend on their husbands as their only source of friendship and connection to the world outside the home. But no matter how stable and loving the marriage, depending on one person to provide all of our intimacy can strangle the relationship. Most SAHMs are looking for empathy and understanding, and even the most caring husbands cannot identify with what it is like to be a SAHM. No one can, except someone who has experienced it.A depressed and irritable mother with no energy is not someone with whom children enjoy spending time. After a couple of months of feeling this way, I began to wonder if my children would be better off in day care with a more patient caregiver who had enough energy to spend time playing with them. I knew in my heart that the very best person to raise my children was me, so I sought out other mothers in the same situation, and my stay-at-home life began to turn around.

Seeking out other . I was overwhelmed at how much we all had in common, and many of us felt as if we had known each other forever. In this group I found friends who understood exactly how I felt and could provide insight into dealing with the problems that come with being at home.