Hello from someone who thought he was cured decades ago ...

[verdant]

I am 55, male, within sight of possible early retirement - by a lot of people's standards, quite privileged - though my retirement plans are possible because I have lived alone most of my adult life so no children... no holidays either - holidaying alone upsets me. I also have a very modest lifestyle - bicycle as transport, wholefood vegan diet - which has also ensured good physical health, though I am only recently back from a detour into fish and cheese in my 40s that led to daily cake and soya custard and moderate obesity.
My retirement plans suddenly seem to be on the scrap heap.


I also spent almost nothing on my house - all I did was demolition work - never completed anything - so it is in a bad state - as well as being full of hoarded junk which I'm trying to make a start on.
It's the second time I've had to empty it - the last time was 20 years ago.

I have mild OCD - leaving the house is a half hour ritual of pointless checking - and often photographing and videoing whet I have done - and this has started to interfere with my work.

.. as has the recently increased anxiety as I start to deal with the state of my house - which in some ways parallels my dealing with the state I left my body in after about 10 years of excess food consumption ..

And as I am forced to "look down" - or back, one major new bit of suppressed history has emerged - the most difficult yet - as unlike the childhood sexual abuse and my mother's failing to deal with it when I was 9 years old, and the terribly destructive relationship in my 20s that continued as a destructive "friendship" into my 30s, this was something I did largely by myself - or rather didn't do, and the party concerned is no longer there to apologise to ...

I am reluctant to go down the medicinal route - Prozac seemed to help in my late 30s when I felt I had genuinely clinical depression ..
I have just started experimenting with propanolol (beta blocker) just before bedtime so that I can avoid heart-pounding anxiety to accompany the self-destructive stewing on the past when I twice wake needing a pee 3 hours and 6 hours later (I eat a vast amount of green veggies in the evening and am a middle-aged man) ..
So far it has been interesting - dramatic dreams - the latter part of the night still a bit of a mess in terms of sleep ...

... I have always had to have ambient music playing - the radio doesn't work so well - though since I'm learning a second language, all-night French radio drama has sometimes helped a bit ..
What I find most reassuring usually is real life spontaneous human voices - but (Paltalk) voice chat rooms tend not to attract the most balanced of people (witness my own presence there).

I have "come out" to my boss at work and it's a people -oriented workplace so they will help make time for me to get counselling ... taking the propanolol has made "mindfulness" exercises make sense to me - though as yet I can't tell when I will find a space - both physically or mentally/emotionally when they will be an option.

Perhaps when the weather warms up I will find somewhere in the countryside I can cycle to ... getting out on my bike has been one of the few times I can find a bit of quiet in my head - 20 years ago it was ironically several hours into an all-night rave ...

Mostly as I alluded to earlier it has always been about me running away from myself and the past - lots of abandoned enthusiasms .. and a constant craving for an impossible healing relationship which got me into trouble twice - and hurt others ...

Oh well ... probably a load of disconnected gobbledegook, but I wanted to get it down and posted - I have tended to avoid doing this sort of thing as almost everything is a trigger.

[venusbluejeans]

Hiya verdant and welcome to NMP

Why not take a look at our articles on our home page, they contain a wealth of information and are a great starting place for your time on the forum.

I hope you find the as site helpful and informative as I have and that you get the help and support you need here and hope that you meet a few friends along the way

[unspoken]

Hello and welcome.

You seem to have a lot of concerns on your mind. I don't think anyone is ever able to say that they are immune to mental illness. Some people experience it for the first time at your age so experiencing it again doesn't mean you're going backwards. It's good that you've been able to speak to your manager at work and that your employer is understanding. Have you managed to see a counsellor yet? In some ways talking about things can make it more difficult in the short term but if you manage to talk it through with somebody who is helpful it can really help. It sounds like you've had a lot of difficult things to work through in the past.

I can empathise on the clutter aspect - I'm only 27 and only have 1 room of my own but I still seem incapable of keeping clutter under control.

I hope you find this forum helpful.

[verdant]

Have you managed to see a counsellor yet? In some ways talking about things can make it more difficult in the short term but if you manage to talk it through with somebody who is helpful it can really help. It sounds like you've had a lot of difficult things to work through in the past..

It's knowing where to start - I have a phone number for the Employees' Assistance Programme who I can speak to about free counselling sessions..

Following encountering "Mindfulness" practice, I have found myself getting interested in Buddhist practice again- something I thought I was done with decades ago. - but I feel a desperate need for some sort of "scaffolding" - I feel so vulnerable at the moment as I see just how little progress I've been making.

Going back to the weekly MIND meetings doesn't quite seem to fit ....