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Does anyone feel old and useless with age?

Depression & Anxiety | Last Active: Mar 22 4:21pm | Replies (192)

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@sueinmn

When you ask how to get back to normal, I can identify - but my PCP recommended a different approach - a Pain Rehabilitation Clinic - that taught me to live deal with the things I can, and strategies to cope with the things I cannot change.
I had to throw away my "I can so do it all" mentality and replace it with the realization that "I can only do what I can do. I need to let go of my anger/resentment/sadness and accept my limits."
Now I have a new "normal" that looks a little (or sometimes a lot) different than I expected. This has been a process, involving medication, meditation, study, PT, daily exercise, a better diet, deliberate distraction - and an awareness of limits.
Do I still hurt? have bad days? or bad nights? get sad or angry at the things I can no longer do? have a personal pity party when I can't deal with limits? Absolutely. But I have tools for coping, most of which involve taking time to use some mediation, deep breathing, hot showers and stretching, eating something easy & healthy, then getting out of my own head and staying in the world.
It helps to focus on what you can do, more than regret what you cannot.
Have you tried any guided meditation or hypnosis to relax you and help you sleep? This was a big one for me, made everything else a little better.
Sue

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Replies to "When you ask how to get back to normal, I can identify - but my PCP..."

Hi Sue,

Every morning I get up(can’t say wake up since I have chronic insomnia and hardly sleep, even with the help of sleep tea, sleep patches, sleeping pills) and walk my dog, have breakfast, meditate which I’m still in the process of learning because my body won’t relaxing enough to enjoy properly. So I try with a heated eye mask at the same time. By then my stomach starts hurting, every morning. Is it anxiety? If I only had to deal with anxiety, I could accept my new reality of aging and the illnesses I’ve already been suffering with but this is just a constant struggle all day, everyday. How to reprogram my brain when the negativity is so loud. Figuring out how to do acupressure, some exercise, breathing, reaching out to people, online shopping, therapy. Still not coping well because of the pain. Thank you for your kind reply