[Brokenboneda]

Hi,

Late 30's female here. I am beginning to notice inevitable signs of physically aging, as the years slog forward. The mirror reminds me - every day - that I am a slowly decaying organism. Yes, I am human. Yes, I am an aging animal too.

I waffle between avoiding the mirror completely and obsessively searching my reflection for new signs of aging. I am preoccupied with hopeless thoughts: I wonder what decay is occurring within my body, that I can't see. I think about how I will be increasingly invisible, burdensome, and less useful. I wonder if life going forward will only become sadder because my body is passively regenerating less.

Can anyone relate? How do or did you approach this hangup?

[Skeezyks]

Hello Brokenboneda: I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral! I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

I'm sorry you are experiencing this difficulty. You mentioned you're female & in your late 30's. I'm a 70 year old male. But I know what you mean. In my case, I feel the chilly breath of the grim reaper on the back of my neck daily! Actually though, there is quite a lot to be said for aging. And from what little bit I've read on the subject it seems as though us older folks, by-&-large, are a pretty contented lot. So that's something to look forward to.

Yes we may not be as pretty as the young folks. But, hopefully we've acquired at least some small modicum of wisdom along the way. Plus we've more-or-less come to terms with our personal bugaboos & figured out what does & does not work for us in terms of the way we live our day-to-day lives. And then also, because we're older, we've reached a point where we no longer care whether anyone else likes how we live or not. There's no longer the need to "fit in", nor the interest. At least that is how things have developed for me. And from my perspective this is all good.

So, anyway, I don't know if any of that is of any consequence to you. But it's all just my attempt to suggest that, while eternal youth might be a wonderful thing to have, since aging is the name of the game for every one of us there are things about it we can actually embrace & look forward to. Besides, since you're now in your late 30's, you have a l-o-n-g way to go before you get close to where I'm sitting (in my comfortable old rocking chair, of course!)

One forum, here on PC, that may be of interest you is the women-focused support forum. Here'a a link:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/women-focused-support/

And then here's a link to an article, from PsychCentral's archives, that may be of interest:

https://psychcentral.com/blog/face-i...al-with-aging/

My best wishes to you...

[Brokenboneda]

Thanks, that was a really thoughtful and informative response! Nice to meet you - I'll read through those links that you included.