[Marylin]

This is the emotion that consumes me at times.I am afraid of so many things,not being able to physically do things,get chores done,look after myself is my number one fear.Then the fear of dying.I also fear getting involved with a man who turns violent and controlling versus fear of being alone forever.I think i'd rather be alone than live with a violent man.

Other fears involve my cats dying and me losing them,my mother dying,then I am all alone in the world with absolutely no one to turn to if I need someone.
I can't stand that thought,cos then my sister will be my nearest relative and she tried to kill me twice,she sabotaged my home and argued non stop ,played mind games to drive me to suicide,so the prospect of her being the only one left fills me with dread!My mother is 86 so it is certain I will face this someday.

Fear even follows me through everyday interactions,I have social anxiety so fear strangers,I fear getting the taxi to go anywhere,I fear traipsing round the supermarket, I fear getting the lawnmower out to cut the grass,I fear being alone at home,I fear the postman knocking on the door.I fear all the above on quite a few days of the month.Other times I do it without fear but the solitude hurts a lot too.
I go back and forth between fear and loneliness.The only cure for the fear is love,when I feel love from others the fear evaporates.When I am with my niece who I love and whom loves me I feel no fear,except perhaps the fear that one day I will lose her.

How do others here cope with fear and loneliness?

[Skeezyks]

Hello Marylin: The Skeezyks fears a lot of things too. As he gets older, he is beginning to fear losing his independence & falling into the ungentle hands of strangers. He also harbors quite a bit of fear regarding money... continuing to have enough to live on between now & the end, whenever that is... But the greatest fear the Skeezyks wrestles with at the present time is the fear of being forced out of his cocoon of solitude.

Although the Skeezyks is married (& fortunate to be so) he otherwise keeps entirely to himself. (He has aged into his retirement years.) The Skeezyks ventures out into the world as little as possible. He has no extended family, friends or acquaintances by choice. No good has ever resulted from the Skeezyks having anything to do with anyone, in real life. The thought that, in some way, he might be forced back out into the real word is more frightening than the Skeezyks would be able to convey in mere words... Loneliness is not so much of a problem for the Skeezyks. Would it be nice to have friends? Sure... but there's plenty of water under the bridge to demonstrate that this is simply a bad idea. The Skeezyks doesn't really do anything in particular about any of this. It all just is what it is. He simply strives to accept things as they are in the present moment. Plus, he does his best to simply stay out of the world's way...

[Marylin]

Hugs to you from me Mr Skeezyks,I guess it is true,thing are what they are,what is is.
Fear keeps us prisoner,past hurts are stored in our bodies and we heed the message of those wounds,don't do what you did in the past to cause this pain.I happen to believe we can clear the wounds,heal them and then move fearlessly where we have trod before and obtain a more positive outcome,but with advancing years this gets harder.

I know how to deal with my fear sometimes, to be positive like I am in the paragraph above and clear the hurt,so I am light ,at peace and care free.I am sad for you Mr Skeezkys......I am the same as you, a solitary soul doing my best and staying out of the world's way.It is sad because in theory I have all the answersGod bless you Mr Skeezyks and thanks for supporting me on here.Marylinx

[*Laurie*]

Hi Marylin, When I was younger, I was very fearful at all. I was quite courageous, in fact. Since hitting my 50's (I'm 53), and after too many losses (people and animals), I have become very fearful. I also worry about losing my cats...I constantly think about death, how death will come to everyone, and so on. I try hard to practice being in the moment, but I guess I'm not very talented at it. I'm also very lonely and isolated - a year ago I began living alone for the first time in my life & I feel like I'm in solitary confinement. Yet, I am shy and can't seem to feel very comfortable with making new friends.

I wish I had some magic words for you. I don't, but I will say that you're certainly not alone, and that the feelings you've described seem to happen to most of us when we're in our 50's. It sucks.

As a child i was fearful. We lived on a huge 440 acre farm and there was so much going on it got to be overwhelming. I grew up and moved away and then i feared less. But there are moments i think back or dwell on something. It is a horrible experience and i feel for you. I only know that i love up my cat or talk to someone on the net or phone and i feel better. Do what you must and it will pass (((hugs))) blessings and tc

Marylin,

I hope that someone will jump aboard with suggestions for healthy coping skills because my techniques of dealing with my fears, isolation, doesn't work well at all.

I've lost all of my family through either death or abandonment. Friends as well. I probably broke when my landlord made me give away my cat. I can't think of him without crying.

I'm afraid of so much and so many things. It would be simpler to name the few things that I don't fear than to enumerate those things that I do fear. One of my greatest, and maybe silliest, fears was dying alone. Of course I'm going to die alone. The longest that I could possibly go without being found is one week, though. But far worse is this living alone... I'm not exactly certain how I came to be so alone. My thought processes no longer work well enough to get from the seldom-lonely 1997 me to the always-lonely 2016 me.

It may be good that you're at a point of worrying about your potential fears and potential loneliness; maybe you can be saved from succumbing to them. If you allow yourself to get old and find that fear and loneliness are are your life, it may be too late.

I'm dull, dry and numb and not too energetic at the moment and, since my social fears are new to me and they've not been much of a topic of discussion in therapy, the only thing that I can even think to suggest trying is "exposure therapy." Start small – such as getting out your mower – and slowly work your way up to your greater fears.

I've been told that this works, just too far gone to try it myself.

Because I'm so entrenched in loneliness, I've never given much thought as to prevention. Or stopping it before overtakes. I think that you've actually found the balm for both fear and loneliness: love. It's far better than fear and I think that I may be at the start of having an understanding of what "self-love" means so I may be inching closer to understanding love over fear.

Love over loneliness seems obvious but I don't know how it would work in the real world. The more people that I lost the more that I withdrew because losing hurt. I wasn't willing to leave myself open to more hurt, wasn't willing to love again. So they started dropping off, one by one, and I kept going further and further into isolation until there was just Henry and me and Henry had to leave.

As you'll read in other messages here, you can get to a point where you don't feel worthy of anyone's attention, so it's difficult to be open to any new relationships. It's too late for me, but I think that I can advise that widening your circle of friends before these, quite natural, losses occur makes it easier to deal with loss that leads to abject loneliness. No one will replace your mother, of course, but the empathy and love of three friends can go a long way in soothing the pain.

Sorry that I'm so messed up myself that I can't offer any fast and hard suggestions. I think that if I had thought of and acted upon my suggestion in re loneliness that I may have been able to, at the least, have one or two remaining acquaintances.

This will sound trite, maybe sound as if I'm trying to organize my own little pity-party, but I don't want anyone to feel as bad as I feel. It's better to hurt for someone else than just for ones' self, though; makes me feel less selfish, I guess.

From the feelings that you've described, I think that you've caught the symptoms early enough to come out as a survivor.

That's a very, very good thing.

CBT? Exposure therapy? these have been helpful for me.

Originally Posted by rcat

CBT? Exposure therapy? these have been helpful for me.

Exposure therapy make sense to me. It got my step-grandmother on a plane to the UK and back when she was in her mid-80's. The guy who took a group through the process was actually an airline employee. I don't remember much that she told me about it but I remember that at the 1st or 2nd (and subsequent) sessions, they had to arrive at the airport in the manner that they were going to make their actual departure and with suitcases packed. I thought that was cool.

I just can't 'do' exposure therapy right now. If I'm going to try to, for instance, just sit at the front door and look out of the glass, I need someone that I trust to stand beside me. I don't have that now.

And I guess that I need to be working on other things, too.

[Marylin]

Thank you all so much for your responses and for sharing your experiences and giving advice.

I'd like to think it is never too late Ciderguy,so I hope you will try and meet new people,hurt can heal you know and then there will be room for love anew.

Laurabeth I think you are right, trying to live in the here and now is the way to conquer fear of death,they say those who truly live have no fear of death!

Be the real you, the genuine person inside ,is the way to defeat shyness.

Thank you OmegaLamed ,I will do what I must.

Ciderguy, if there is no one to stand by your side for now ,imagine your best friend from the past is right beside you and try to make the moves to introduce new people in your life and I promise to do the same.

Love and hugs to you all!Marylin

Originally Posted by Marylin

Thank you all so much for your responses and for sharing your experiences and giving advice.

I'd like to think it is never too late Ciderguy,so I hope you will try and meet new people, hurt can heal you know and then there will be room for love anew.

Laurabeth I think you are right, trying to live in the here and now is the way to conquer fear of death,they say those who truly live have no fear of death!

Be the real you, the genuine person inside ,is the way to defeat shyness.

Thank you OmegaLamed ,I will do what I must.

Ciderguy, if there is no one to stand by your side for now ,imagine your best friend from the past is right beside you and try to make the moves to introduce new people in your life and I promise to do the same.

Love and hugs to you all!Marylin

Marylin,

I gave up on love, except that in my memories. I’m not in any position to meet new people and for twenty years the hurt has not healed. Just when I think that I’m getting closer, I get whacked on the side of the head with a baseball bat.

My best friend from the past died this weekend. Another neighbor and I found him, blue, purple, yellow, laying across his bed at about 4 p.m. yesterday. Even through this year+ of craziness, he still called, he stood by me, he understood. We were supposed to meet in the apartment lobby on Saturday morning. He didn’t show, didn’t answer his phone, etc. We got a master key and found him. There for 3 ½ to 4 days, probably. Not really the ‘type’ to be my best friend, but as good as they come. As compassionate as they come. We had a plan to get me out of the house regularly.

I literally have nowhere to go to meet new people. I wish that was not the case. I have a very vague hope that I may be able to go to Sunday mass again each week, but the woman who once took me is, yep, dead now, too.

When those around you are dying every 4 months, when transportation is more than just a bit problematic, when your ‘best current’ friend was covered in flies and larvae when you had your last glimpse of him… things get sort of complex and it’s probably not the best time to go looking for friends and lovers.

Marilyn - have you sat down and considered the evidence these things will happen. Write out a list. But then, write out a list of evidence these things aren't likely. The second list is likely to be longer.

Here's a worksheet:

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&sourc...6EPlci75bs18Dw

and here's another worksheet on catastrophic thinking:

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&sourc...0xRixFeWNRfmsg

[Marylin]

Ciderguy.I am so sorry to hear about the death of your close friend and how you found him covered in flies and larvae.That is horrific and I understand that this is not a good time for you to seek other friends.I know you need to grieve.I am sorry you had plans to get to Sunday Mass too but lost another friend who was going to take you.Please keep talking to us here for support.i do understand the logistics of being unable to get out without help,I have limited mobility myself.I am sorry it has taken me a couple of days to reply to your last post.I only log onto this site twice a week.
Please let me know if you'd like to chat,send me a PM and I will reply.My sympathies again for the loss of your friends.I hope you can recover from your loss.