Worried about coping/struggling with anxiety as I get older

[widge]

Hi all,
I am wondering how well people come to terms with ongoing anxiety/panic as time goes on and how many people feel they have developed managing strategies that carry them through the bad times and whether things have changed for them over the years with how they view and cope with long-term anxiety conditions?



I have suffered a general anxiety/panic/sometimes depressive disorder for pretty much my whole life but am blessed to have been supported by a loving wife (who I sometimes feel I don't deserve!) and my local gp/health service. I have, to all intents and purposes found ways to manage my long term 'GAD' (my Doctors name for it all) to the extent that I have (with some degree of effort and struggle) managed to function throughout a fairly demanding but mostly fulfilling working life with the help of (usually) low level but constant medication (Diazepam/or 'beta-blockers' for debilitating panic- sparingly - and Mirtazipine for long term depression. I have had many episodes of acute panic and depressive episodes and have had to occasionally take time out when things overwhelm me.........but have sort of come to realise at the age I am that management is key and eventual cure is not always a given.

I cannot be sure whether this is a helpful or helpless attitude to have?

I suppose I have really just put my effort into coping and learning to live with it all........and have reached a point where this is a more viable way to exist than hoping one day I might be magically relieved of all my self doubt, constant fear/panic and tendancy to introspection and depression.

I am now 60 (I know that still makes me a youngster to some!:blush:) but find so many of the same things STILL trigger absolute despair for me but I feel it is becoming even HARDER to 'bounce back'.
Has anybody else found the same thing as time goes by and does anybody have any wisdom or coping-ness for these feelings? Have you altered your perspective of how things are as time goes on?

In many ways...managing to keep working and 'in the world' keeps me more or less 'ok' most of the time...but anxiety is increasingly affecting me harder and makes me feel physically more 'ill' each time it rears its head....which is a bit of a 'catch 22' situation. I find I am making poorer decisions at work and when dealing with others around me and punishing myself more than ever when I feel low or incapable..or even just a pathetic waste of my own and others space!

Certainly-the 'mistakes' I make in life these days seem to knock me back harder than ever.

I am in a position where I could 'semi-retire' - will be short on income - but my bigger fear is that without the 'getting out and 'doing' aspect of my life I will just continue to decline until I become reclusive, permanently ill/depressed and a sorry mess! I know I am lucky to have such a choice compared to so many but wonder if others have been scared by this sort of inevitable change of life pattern....?

My work is my life and passion-I find the thought of 'retiring' alarming but find it harder and harder to 'hold my end up' in the big wide world where I seem to have to struggle so hard to just stay even and my fear of messing up if I just try to keep on keeping on is mounting daily.



Sorry to witter on......you know how it goes when thoughts and worries tumble around your head during darker moments.
But-

Any wisdom gratefully appreciated - and all best to all.......

W

[Darksky]

Well I have no solution but I understand completely.
I am the same age as you and retirement is a concern. I run my own business but it is very physically demanding with a hell of a lot of responsibility. My aches and pains tell me maybe it's time to move on however, I am far better when I mix with staff and customers. Isolation does us no good at all.

I have a wish to retire into the country which under normal circumstances would be heaven but I feel the isolation would be a nightmare for an anxiety sufferer. So I just sit still and do nothing but I can't stay here for ever.

[lior]

Three things I want to respond to here:
1. to accept or to not accept this is how things are always going to be
2. what retirement could look like
3. negative language in your post

3. You're talking yourself down. This is surely the result of how you feel right now. This feeling shall pass. Can you work on not putting yourself down? e.g. "...I feel low or incapable..or even just a pathetic waste of my own and others space!" I'm sorry you feel this way, and it's good to express it.

Once it's written out, can you find a way to say something additionally like "but I know it's not true that I'm a waste of space, it's just the 'black dog' talking." Sort of, an antidote, so that you don't remain feeling bad about yourself.

2. Retirement doesn't have to mean social isolation, and it also doesn't have to mean you don't make yourself useful. People often volunteer after they retire, and their skills and knowledge can be very valuable to younger people. You just have to find the right fit, including being able to work at your own pace. I know that I would value the time of an older person in my small business for occasional consultancy. You will find a new pattern of living when you retire. You will be able to organise a life for yourself that works with the grain of what you need to be your best self.

You might not have made a big life change like this many times before, or you might have done - I don't know you. But if you haven't, rest assured, it is possible to re-design your life to be the way you want it to be. You can do this.

Also - as far as I understand, it's common to be afraid of retirement, particularly for men, who often have their social networks tied to work.

Forget about the word 'retirement'. What do you want your life to be like in 5 years? How can you get there? Who do you want your friends to be?

1. I'm 28, and I accept that I am going to go in and out of being depressed and anxious my whole life. I accept the likelihood of dying by suicide, relative to other people.

Accepting this is liberating for me, and it's helped me prepare. As you say, management is key. I don't think there is a cure. This is the condition of my life. I think it will get better rather than worse. I can see how far I've come over the last few years. I've learnt strategies for dealing with things as they come.

Like you, I have been able to just about hold on to participating in the real world. Sometimes I wonder if other people realise how much us tormented people are scattered among them, invisible. Their colleagues, in the shopping queue, in the street... we look normal. But, inside, is overflowing with pain. That's what it's like for me, anyway.

Accepting that I am a person who occasionally goes through periods of inner hell has been the right path for me. Knowing that I am not the only one helps.

Knowing that I could have died already, and will die one day, means that I make the most of now. Having been suicidal actually serves me, now that I have this wisdom.

I don't feel helpless. I feel empowered. Seize the moment. I'm not depressed right now, and I likely will be later, so I'm relishing all the joy I have.

Not accepting my periods of torment while I'm in them would just be another horror to cope with.

[braindead]

I am 69 and retired a 59 THE DEPRESSION MONSTER gave me one of my many breakdowns but this time put me in hospital. i was a bricklayer self-employed and made great money has the anxiety made me a robot at laying bricks, i have worked through mini breakdowns, stupid at times has it made it worse but 6 pints of STELLA always solved the problems. Since retirement, i have been FISHING , bird watching, bike riding, always with my camera, visiting lots of garden centers with the wife, and looked after my 2 terriers and have a 160-gallon aquarium with rare cichlids. BUT even with all that i am in the middle of an anxiety and depression wipe out that has lasted 16 month and 7 med trails,you get time off in retirement but mental illness never retires:wacko::wacko::wacko: