[Ygrec23]

Been in therapy now for eighteen months, round about. Psychodynamic psychotherapy. Originally focussed on family history from a devpsych point of view and covered that fairly thoroughly. Relatively recently started using some CBD techniques to focus on practical problems. And they're working well.

Then, a couple of sessions ago, my description to T of some trait of my father's caused (1) T to look at the family situation in a very different way, and (2) caused me to see a large new way of viewing my difficulties. This was a bad thing. Not bad in the sense that it was untrue, but bad in the sense that the huge expansion of pathological territory that it opened up to view made me terribly doubtful of ever having sufficient time to make even a dent in my difficulties before I die.

I had kind of hoped, before, that I'd spend a couple of years in therapy, get patched up somewhat, and then have a decent five or ten-year period before the degenerations of old age (and even death, since on Dad's side we're not long-lived) made a pleasant life even harder than it is now, considering that we have no material assets.

I've never posted here in Depression before. That's just not how I would have described my problems. Nor has T ever mentioned that she thought I was depressed. Now, it's just the addition of this large area of pathology that brings me down and down and down, which I assume is what depression feels like.

Hopelessness I've been familiar with since I was a baby. Also worthlessness from the same time. But no T, including present T, has ever seized on me as a classic depressive. Oh, I've tried anti-depressants from time to time on the usual pdoc scatter-gun philosophy (as well as anti-psychotics, though I'm not psychotic). Never had an effect one way or the other.

What do you do when you're old and you don't have much time left and the stack of psychological things-to-do just gets bigger and bigger? The way I feel now, if I had the money (which I don't) I'd just use substances to fog my way to death. I don't feel like killing myself. More like just sitting down and not moving.

There are an awful lot of nice young people here many of whom will be sympathetic with my situation. But I really have to wonder whether young people who aren't in the T business can really respond to my questions. If you think you really can shed light on the problem then go right ahead, even if you're 17. But I'd particularly like to hear from those of you who are over fifty or so. If you think you've got something constructive for me to hear. Take care.

[Perna]

My stepmother carried around an interesting magazine article that talked about older men and depression; I didn't find anything like that but I did find these which you might find interesting:

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/ma...ticlekey=23375

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publi...erly-men.shtml

[pegasus]

So do you seriously believe that it is the 18 months of therapy that have caused this depression in later life?

I'm not going to state my age but I do work with older people. Many people find CBT to be helpful in addressing the hopeless and worthless feelings. Writing a list of triumphs through out your life and the challenges that you have conquered can give you a different view. You can also examine what other things you would like to do in the future. Just because you are older does not mean you are finished, it means you have the experience to enjoy more!

Try not to use 'substances to fog your way to death' that just buries the things you should be dealing with. Often we think challenges are going to be a problem and so we try to ignore them when infact the process of facing that challenge and dealing with that challenge can actually turn out to be a good experience.

Regards, Pegs

[Perna]

Originally Posted by Ygrec23

What do you do when you're old and you don't have much time left and the stack of psychological things-to-do just gets bigger and bigger?

You turn them into a life-project!

One doesn't really know how much time one has left; I've read where up until age 60 genetics matters but after that you are your own person. I'm struggling with some of the same issues you appear to be too with getting older; I just realized the big difference and why I feel I am "wiser" than I was in my youth is that before retiring, one is looking forward; you look forward to school, job, marriage, family, becoming a master at one's calling, even working to save enough for retirement and retiring successfully. But then you retire and what is there in front? Not a whole lot other than working as hard as you wish on health and fitness abilities, enjoying friends and family, and puzzling it all out -- as well as taking up any new or old interests one has and having the luxury of spending as much time on them as one wishes (with nice naps in-between sessions perhaps :-)

Now I'm looking back, I can see this 60+ year glorious expanse behind me, know what I "should" have done etc. That's a whole different perspective; I thought I understood older age, I mean I watched my grandparents and parents age and die, etc. what's to "understand". You read the articles about failing abilities and think you know but then the constant aches and pains set in and you begin to realize (again in my case, always again :-) that reading is not the same as experience! You cannot "know" something you have not experienced (or tried, in the case of whether you like/do not like a particular vegetable :-) Now I get it and only had to live 60+ years for that experience.

What is so bad or wrong about having psychological problems, perhaps depression to work on in your old age? How is that different from my anxiety over my husband dying before me (he's 7 years older than I am) and how will I cope anxieties? I don't understand our finances; I "understand" them, have an accounting background and work history as well as a couple college degrees but I don't work with them and don't know how my husband's complex spreadsheets work or much of anything about investment; he's been working to invest well for us for the last 15-20 years; how can I ever understand that so when he dies or is disabled suddenly I can cope?

I imagine I'll cope. I do have 60+ years of coping experience, I'm an expert at coping and imagine you are too, Ygrec! Too, I know me better now and know I can tackle my anxieties and work on their center and make my own plan for what I'll do and learn enough of where the money is and how it shows up; it's not like it is going to suddenly change just because my life will so drastically change? My fear of my husband leaving me alone is not related to my money suddenly acting strange and walking out on me :-) I'll have a year or probably a whole lot more before what my husband has studied to make work well starts to gradually slide and I have grown sons and brothers, brother-in-laws and a couple family lawyers and accountants I can ask for help from if I need it; lots of people I can and do trust to help me if I study the situation and find I cannot understand it.

What is different now, Ygrec, that has changed in your life in only a year's time? Only how you think about things and that's all you, and you can change that again, on a whim if you want. You can decide to take up sea shell collecting if it strikes your fancy and plot how you'll get to various beaches to collect different kinds (for awhile, 20 or so years ago I ended up collecting "sand" from different beaches and had one friend who would faithfully bring me a baggie back from whatever beach she'd visited; all my other work friends thought that was funny so started bringing me sand too from their vacations :-)

I'm fighting with my doctor about high blood pressure and love the experience :-) The blood pressure cuff, the sphygmomanometer, causes excruciating pain on my arm which shoots my blood pressure up, you see the problem? So, I take and record my own blood pressure for 2-4 weeks before I go see him with an expensive, computer wrist model and make him accept those numbers. They aren't the greatest though, because of age, but I like them better than the medication options at the moment and studying blood pressure and the meds and how to naturally lower it, etc. has been a great "hobby" for the last couple years, that and other aspects of my health.

Getting older is certainly not all fun and games but it never has been, for any one at any time. I think your "coasting" for 4-5 years dream is just that; don't think that ever happens for anyone? I have "enough" money and a great marriage and home and friends and family but I'm definitely not coasting; have worries and anxieties and difficulty sleeping and times I think it is all going to come down on my head like a card house!

[pgrundy]

I used to feel this way.

I'm 58. I was hospitalized this past January after thinking I had 'beaten' PTSD and depression years earlier. I even took myself off meds, lost 25 pounds, started walking daily--changes I have maintained.

Well, an unavoidable family tragedy knocked me into an episode that was truly frightening. Went to my GP, got the wrong meds, and ended up in hospital. It took me a LONG time after I was released to get past the feeling that I would never 'win'.

Now I look at it all differently. Some people have MS or cancer, I have this. I am living with this, not fighting it. It's part of who I am and I have to accept that, but I also know it isn't ALL that I am.

My spouse said, several months after I got out of the hospital, that he'd thought about it a lot and he realized there might be more, that I might not have been seeing my past very realistically. He is very supportive, but it shocked me to hear him say that. I had to admit he was probably right.

My pdoc had said from the start never to go off meds, that it was very serious and if I went off of them I might feel great temporarily but then something very, very bad WOULD happen... it would just be a matter of time. He was right, I was wrong.

Now I have a support system in place, meds, therapy, friends, work. I have to put my emotional health first and I do, and things go better that way.

I think I know what you are saying and why you feel the way you feel. But if you shift the way you look at it just a little, it's not really all that bad. It's not like all of life is terrible, it's just what it is. It's manageable. Not always easy, but manageable.

Hang in there.

[Ygrec23]

Thank you, pgrundy. What you say is taken seriously and appreciated. It's amazing (at least, to me) that a simple change in perspective can get you as far down as I am. And that's all it is. I thought I was pretty close to my goal, for which I've worked hard, and then, click, it's as far away as ever.

Manageable? I guess. I can't think of very much that isn't. Even if you have advanced cancer they can (if they will) pump you full enough of painkillers to deal with it. But "manageable" doesn't mean "hopeful." It doesn't have that flavor of freedom to which I was aspiring for the past year and a half.

Like getting, at long last, to the top of Everest. And, no, if I can't "peak out" in some way respectable to myself (if to nobody else) then I just don't care any more and would be happy to live on substances, grease, salt and glucose. Sorry.

Originally Posted by pgrundy

I used to feel this way. I'm 58. I was hospitalized this past January after thinking I had 'beaten' PTSD and depression years earlier. I even took myself off meds, lost 25 pounds, started walking daily--changes I have maintained.

Well, an unavoidable family tragedy knocked me into an episode that was truly frightening. Went to my GP, got the wrong meds, and ended up in hospital. It took me a LONG time after I was released to get past the feeling that I would never 'win'.

Now I look at it all differently. Some people have MS or cancer, I have this. I am living with this, not fighting it. It's part of who I am and I have to accept that, but I also know it isn't ALL that I am.

My spouse said, several months after I got out of the hospital, that he'd thought about it a lot and he realized there might be more, that I might not have been seeing my past very realistically. He is very supportive, but it shocked me to hear him say that. I had to admit he was probably right.

My pdoc had said from the start never to go off meds, that it was very serious and if I went off of them I might feel great temporarily but then something very, very bad WOULD happen... it would just be a matter of time. He was right, I was wrong.

Now I have a support system in place, meds, therapy, friends, work. I have to put my emotional health first and I do, and things go better that way.

I think I know what you are saying and why you feel the way you feel. But if you shift the way you look at it just a little, it's not really all that bad. It's not like all of life is terrible, it's just what it is. It's manageable. Not always easy, but manageable.

Hang in there.

[pgrundy]

Right. I would never insist that you feel happy about it. It sucks.

There is life beyond it though. Some days I even see it as a kind of reprieve from 'normalness', which seems to me overrated in the extreme. If someone is pushing me too hard to be normal (which doesn't happen so much anymore), I have an instant 'out'. Sorry. No can do.

But yeah. It's not like it's all roses and running along the beach. It always bugs me when people say their cancer was a 'gift'. I'm thinking, really? A gift? A nice bottle of perfume is a gift. Cancer sucks. Cancer is a serious and painful illness. And so is this, really. It's mostly painful and inconvenient.

[unaluna]

Have you tried a mood stabilizer like topamax? that and prozac are getting me thru the months, and they are both available in generic ie really cheap. wasn't it you who told someone else here, the only difference between you today and you yesterday, is that today you have a name for who you are or what you do or how you feel, words to that effect? You're still the same person, nothing has really changed. I get what you mean, of course, the feeling of the backpack had a false bottom and now what have we here!

Well, you were gonna be carrying that backpack the rest of your life anyway; now you have the option of dealing with that stuff, offloading it onto T. AND we are motivated in a way the kids aren't. I think the more time we spend in T, the shorter the wait at the pearly gates. It's about getting your "house" in order, whatever your belief system. I don't think my T is EVER going to stop and "coast", he is going to LIVE every last minute of his life. He is really an inspiration. He said the average age of T's right now is 66 (his age).

You are extremely intelligent. you can easily do what I did, which is google your way through your issues. there are tons of articles available online, or get them at your public library, or borrow books from your T. on the nimh website, one article will bring up 50 or more, you can get all shades of a subject. even just the abstracts are enlightening, we're smart, we can get the gist from a well-written summary. this knowledge doesn't fix your depression, but it helps you see where you stand in the world, and that helps a lot in a place where everything is relative.

[ECHOES]

Ygrec, does your T call this depression? I'm asking because when I am feeling sad or hopeless or I'm realizing the time lost (that if I had been in good therapy might have lead my life in another direction, or that the time to get what I needed - when I needed it the most - is gone forever) there are times I swear I am too depressed to go on without medication. T and I will talk about it and once or twice she even made me angry because she doesn't think I am depressed. I am responding to treatment and we can get through it. (As I really don't want medication, this is fine with me)

So I wonder if some of these things will feel better, in time. I believe you said to me once, when I wrote about not having much time left and wondering what good therapy could do, that all we can do is be in the time we have now and do what we can. That all we have is now.

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by ECHOES

Ygrec, does your T call this depression?

No, no, Echoes, it's just me.

I'm asking because when I am feeling sad or hopeless or I'm realizing the time lost (that if I had been in good therapy might have lead my life in another direction, or that the time to get what I needed - when I needed it the most - is gone forever) there are times I swear I am too depressed to go on without medication.

No, Echoes. I've never found anti-depressants to be of the slightest use, and I don't think I'll change my mind now.

So I wonder if some of these things will feel better, in time. I believe you said to me once, when I wrote about not having much time left and wondering what good therapy could do, that all we can do is be in the time we have now and do what we can. That all we have is now.

For all I know, Echoes, EVERYTHING feels better in time (particularly after you're dead). And yes, I DID say to you that all we can do is be in our time now, but I DIDN'T expect another five ton load of depression to be dumped on me after having said that to you! My WISDOM, such as it may have been, did not extend to further exacerbations of unanticipated misery! Take care.

[Rohag]

In view of the new pathological perspectives, have you reviewed your treatment goals with your therapist?

Originally Posted by Ygrec23

...if I can't "peak out" in some way respectable to myself (if to nobody else) then I just don't care any more and would be happy to live on substances, grease, salt and glucose.

Does your therapist know this, know how you feel?
What is your vision of "peaking out" respectably?

I cannot offer you advice, Ygrec, for mine is not a depression success story and the nature of my depression may be different from yours. As interesting as insights into my remote past may be, I have no confidence they will produce realistically actionable results in my present.

Nevertheless, I keep puttering along at a low level. This puttering is not what I regard as respectable, but the meds and depressive loss of affect mollify the sting. Maybe I'm not much different from one fogged on the way to death.

History is interesting and instructive. Yours, and that of your family, may be exceptionally so.

[CantExplain]

Hi Ygrec!

You've obviously had a bad experience and it has made you angry and sad. But it is still very recent. You may be stronger than you think. You fell, now, that this changes everything and you will never be happy. But after some months of healthy grief, you may find that you do start to feel better.

I consider that I have beaten depression. But I still get sad and I'm sure there are some very dark days ahead. The point is, I will be sad over some external event (eg the death of a loved one), and it will pass. It's not like the sadness is part of me and never goes away.

Maybe you won't recover and maybe you will. It's simply too early to tell.