I can relate to your feelings. It’s incredibly scary to feel like this. As part of my wider health anxieties, getting older and facing the future terrifies me, and it can be all consuming to the point where I am unable to function. I have lost count of the times I have been convinced I am dying. It is a terrible thing to experience.

Having said that you are on medication, presumably you are therefore in discussions with your doctor, which is a really positive thing. One of the important features I find is putting my trust in the health care providers, accepting that I need help, and then allowing them to work with me.

Has your doctor suggested any form of counselling? Whilst I fluctuate in the severity of my anxiety and depression, counselling does help me. I’m working back through all of the things I worked on with my counsellor earlier this year, and it is helping. It’s not perfect, but sadly there’s no “silver bullet” solution for these things.

As an aside, I am a great believer that there is no such thing as “too late”. 51 is still incredibly young, and you can, with help, find a way through this, no matter how bleak life seems. Never give up hope, even on the darkest day.

I hope your medication starts to give you some relief from the suffering over the coming weeks.

Reading self-help books improves my state of mind. I recently read Russ Harris’s “The Happiness Trap”, within which I found some really useful stuff.

Best wishes, Jeff.