Replies to 'Giving and Receiving Support'

I definately know what you are talking about.  I am on a journey right now to change things if it is at all possible.  I take it from your post your are over 50.  Me too.  Like you I have spent a good share of my life being supportive of others and thier problems.  I am the friend people can call when they are having a bad day.  I am the one that people turn to when they need a great idea for something.  But, now that I feel like I need a shoulder to cry on, guess what.  There is no one around.  What I have started doing is saying no and meaning it.  I have a son, who calls everyday with some crisis.  I think I would faint if he ever called and told me, Hey mom, guess what I did to day.........I have started telling him I am in the middle of something or I can't talk now and I hang up.  Mostly because I can't solve his problems anymore, He is 23 years old , Its about time he did it himself.  My parents are getting older as well.  They both will be 76 this year.  My mother sits and quilts all day.  She has shut herself off from everything.  When she calls me she is just....Dumb!  It's like she has forgotten all her social skills.  When she calls she is looking for answers on how to do the simplest thnigs that I know she knows how to do.  Like yesterday she called and it was sunny outside, so she calls and tells me, It's a nice day, I had hoped you had taken the day off.......what?  My husband and I own and run a construction company, there is no time off.  This really irreitates me.  So all things considered, I don't feel I can call my mommy when I have a bad day.  I can't lean on my kids for any reason.  My husband is pretty supportive, when he has time.  He is wound up in his business most of the time.  Another thing I have noticed and I don't know why is:  that I offend everyone.  Even people I don't know.  If I walk into a room, I instantly encounter a fight.  Not a physical one either.  People just don't want to help me.  I can stand and wait for help until I rot.  No one will ask if I need help.  I can ask for help and they roll their eyes and walk away or if I call on the phone they put me on hold for ever, if, that's if they come back, they take a message and I never get a call back.  I try to be as pleasant as possible, I don't raise my voice, I dress nice, I try very hard, but it just doesn't matter.  I wouldn't think so much of it, if it were only once, but everytime I got out in public this happens to me.  Someone on these very boards told me once that it is because I am so stressed out, that people can see it and take offence.  I don't believe that at all.  Because like I said, I do everything in my power to be pleasant, so know one knows about my stress.  Also like you I have a plan to go to a big city where I can get lost in the system.  I plan to find me a job at walmart or someplace like that and have my little apartment and just live by myself.  I already know that no one will try to find me, No one will miss me, they will be glad I am gone. So, it's all good.  So I do know what you mean and you are not alone. 

Norma