not myself anymore

[ziia 9]

Hello. I would like to be able to help you a bit sharing a bit about my adjustment here.

My fisrt two or so years here, i was a wreck. I didn't know anybody from my country, had little experience in how to find jobs, friends, things to do. Though i landed in a big city like Chicago with plenty of stuff to get my mind out of the "dark box" in my head, i still couldn't adjust to the culture. People wanted to be friends with me and i tried too, but the second i was calling them and they wouldn't get back to me in days and a week later were calling and acting as if nothing was wrong and we're best friends, i was thrown out of the loop, confuzed as hell, since at home i used to keep in touch with friends every day, several times a day actualy.

What made it wrse was the fact that i look ok and many people(too many) wanted to be friends in order to hit on me. I grew a sour taste regarding men here who are only out for fun and wemen who drinked too much. In fact every time i wanted to hang out with someone it had to involve some shopping of some sort. And if it wasn't shopping, it was consumming(alcohol). I grew up in a country where i new no such a thing as show your ID to buy a beer, and yet me and lots of people from my country didn't enjoy drinking all that much. A pepsi or cola, some jokes and a walk arround the park or just sitting down on an alley and talking about life, was fun. So i suddenly found myself in a clture where drinking a lot, smoking and shopping, or scheduling a time to meet people was a prety common style of living, accepted and embraced all arround. Sometimes i had to control myself i what i was saying because i found people giving weired looks and saying i think too much and too deep. So i had to make some changes. It was becoming heartbreaking hard for me to keep living here without beeing completly miserable.

First, what i thought might help...i changed my thinking all together. I became fun to be arround. Fun person to take shopping and afterwards drink something. And you know what? Sometimes, late at night, when putting my head down to sleep, i was crying. I wondered why that was. I mean, i had friends, by that time i had a job, i had things, so financialy and emotionaly i shouldn't have had any reason. I thought that was something realy wrong with me, possibly loosing my mind or something:). So i went to see a psychologist. I gotta tell ya, i was out that door the moment she said i need to take pills because i am depressed. Didn't pay her eyghter. She barely listened and she was ready to prescribe me a punch full of pills. I mean, i was screwed. That moment i thought not even friends i gotta pay, can't help me. I had one option: to go back to my country. And i was ready for it! Packed and all...i mean i was severly unhappy. Thought i was missing my familly. Sad to admit, i'm a grown up, and never was a cry baby or mommy's girl.

Before living though, i had the luck to find something that changed my life forever, in the best way possible. I found this movie, in fact a documentary and watching it one night, a light bulb came into my head. I was unhappy because i was not myself. Along the jurney and effort put into beeing liked here, integrating in this culture, i have lost who i was and what i stood for. I found that happiness does not come through others, places we are or people we meet. It comes from inside out. First you have to be content with yourself and then you will spred that energy arround and others will roam arround you, feeding on the goodness that's within you, exposed to be shared with people. Sadwoman, i have to tell you how important it is to be yourself and not change no matter where you are. To know your boundries, your limits and hang on to them like it was no tomorrow. Indeed, in order to be happy in a country where competition to be someone is not that fierce, is a hard but doable thing. And it starts with you, it prolongs to your husband and then to others. You ahve to have a huge personality and know who you are and what you are about. And then, all you have to do is spread the word to the others. Pills don't help. Don't do it(not unless you have a desease that shows in a medical photo)...Everything else can be fixed. Like NickD said, fresh air, beeig arround nature and keeping yourself busy and very important things to feel better. A job will give you the feeling that you can stand on your own feet, so do that. That gives you more confidence than anything. I mean, if you find something not right in your life, you need to have at least one thing you can depend on and that is the job. Man can cheat(god forbid), woman can cheat(god forbid to that too), but what you have in your wallet is no lie.

Another thing that helped me was accepting the fact that i am a regular joe, just like everybody else. You know, in your country as well as in mine, people pay attention to other...what they wear, what they do, etc. So we kind of feel a bit important. Well, here they don't care. If you take care of you, let that be done for you, not for others to admire. Once you admire yourself, others will notice too. Keep beeing a sexy woman. That never goes away. A clean cut, elegant woman who shows she loves herself and cares about how she presents herself is more important than you think. Even if people don't notice...once YOU notice, others will too. So do everything for yourself and live your life as if the camera was set on you and walk down the street and smile as if a big director was making a movie about you and your glamorous life. Admire yourself, smile and you will see how much better you will feel. Switch the attention from your husband on to you and then project the goodness in you over your relationship.

We are very lucky. Unfortunately it took me a few years to find out just how lucky i am. A fast good move to feel better would be, fisrt get a job and second feel good(concentrate on what you ahve arround and not what you don't have). There is a saying i keep telling myself whenever i am depressed or upset, a wise man said it- "where attention goes, energy flows".

Hope this helps a bit

[sadwoman 0]

Your advice helps a lot. Thank you so much ZIIA, as well as BRENTANDZENIA who helped me so much through PM, and everybody else who took their time to stop by and share words with me. You all have no idea how much you helped me just in a few days. I feel much better and with open talk to my husband and new activities together we are TOGETHER working on helping this transition that we are going through, me more then him of course.

Personal stories helped the most because I see I am not the only one and I am not going crazy. It is hard. It will be hard for a while. Bottom line, I am not on my ground in my comfort zone, but I have amazing person by my side who is worth of this and will help me. Probably what I was resisting to accept is that my life will never be the same again, but it can be better and greater if I am happy first with MYSELF and keep growing and building myself in side out. You are all right, only then I will have happy marriage and kids and start shining to other people as well. This was kind of a free therapy from friends who I don'n know and never will meet, but who helped me better then any therapyst that would fill me up with pills (good one ZIIA!). I am very happy that there are good people here who are willing to share their life stories and at least by computer send some positive energy to other.

This post HELPED me, as well as PM I received. I know there are many many people who feel very sad and lonely in the beginning of new life. I hope for all of us it will work out for the best. Thank you all and God bless

[zhenia and brent 0]

Its wonderful to see that VJ made the differences that you needed. We all share simmilaities. VJ, and YOU TOO, have helped me out with a few of the things that I posted here. Life is good, avoid the pills (like ziia said). Trust your husband and work at it... if the paths you have taken before have not worked, then its time to change your path to achieve the same goal. Wonderful news you posted. I was worried after I had not received your PM reply from our last discussion. I am glad you went to your husband with the issues! Tell him I said hello!

[ziia 9]

I am glad my experience helped a bit. Sadwoman, you are not alone, no matter how lonely you feel sometimes. Always, remember that.

[morocco4ever 63]

So does this mean VJ is going to start to pay us consulting fees? (Just kidding)

Seriously I am glad that you talked to your husband about this. I know that some people are taught to "suck it up" and hide their feelings. That is so wrong. If he loves you he will be there for you, and he proved that he does. He sounds like a gem!

The time will come when you do feel at home here. And it doesn't mean that you have to give up all of your old cultures, just find a way to incorporate the old things that you loved with the new things you will learn to love. But you have that sweetheart next to you, how perfect is that!