What Do You Do When Your Life's Over and You've Blown It

Hmmm, Ygrec. I guess some folks do behave differently on PC sites than in real life. That's always the risk on dating sites, for example. I see that you aren't too sure about some of the statements I made earlier about being able to overcome "strange" parenting. I agree that parenting starts at day one, and your parents definitely were unusual. So, it could very well be that you might have some problems with very subtle social skills such as appropriate non-verbal behavior. However, that's something, too, that your therapist can monitor and help you with. I honestly can't say that you will be able to correct all the quirks that your parents taught you, but much can be done, if you remain hopeful and keep at it.

I'd like to think that I'm pretty much "me" here. I have to keep some of myself under wraps in real life. It's risky, I've discovered, to go around blabbing to everybody that I have a mental illness!

I know I still have work to do. My first therapist, over 25 years ago, acknowledged that other people would see me as "strange." Two therapists back, the therapist got the idea that I was a therapist myself! (Is that a compliment? Ha) Use whatever time you have left. You will get better!

how about volunteering at the senior center on Sunday afternoons (or alternate Sundays even)? That's least likely to interfere with a future work schedule, and as you say, it would give you pleasure.

I wanted to address the title of your thread. Elderly people are looked/treated differently than elderly in China and Japan. I don't think that's fair...we've been conditioned to think we're not valuable/capable just because of age. It's even worse for women. I think this way of thinking has to change because the baby boomers are seniors now.

My girls take piano lessons at an 80 yr old couples house. They coordinate the choir for the senior center and also the Philippine community center. I really admire them and even envy the energy they both have. Don't let your age stop you from thinking about the future.

No, Payne1, I don't feel I disagree with what you said about overcoming bad parenting. If you start out your overcoming early enough and intensely enough, it can work quite well. One of my brothers, Gil, was told when he was in tenth grade that he needed a full psychoanalysis. And so, for all his high school years and then for all his college years, he saw a qualified psychoanalyst for five days a week. It lasted seven years. And it worked. He would never talk about it at all, but he wound up in very good shape after starting out in pretty poor shape. As for myself, my concern is that I'm too old to really change my life that way. I'll do my best. I'll fight the good fight. But I do have my doubts. Take care!

I agree with you, lynn, regarding the treatment of older folks, though I must say the worst problem with that is in getting a job. I've been trying for several years now and I can tell just by walking in the door and scanning the floor whether or not a particular business hires older people. That doesn't stop me from applying but, amazingly, those very places have chosen not to hire me. Ageism is a very big deal, particularly now when they're talking about raising the social security age again. If they raise the bar on social security, they're going to have to do something about jobs for seniors. To do one without the other is just to increase the elderly homeless population. Something has to be done. Take care!

Yes I feel it just absolutely overwhelmingly. I also feel like if I'd gotten the help I needed, my life could have turned out so differently. I blame myself for not getting the help too. But something convinced me I didn't deserve help, or that I was just "X" (insert Bad, Stupid, Hopeless, etc) and that was who I was and too bad, sucks to be me.
I felt like living life fully was for others, and not me, and what I needed to do was just get used to it.

I get so overwhelmed by it now. The fact that there is no time now. That there is time for some change, but not great change because this is IT. I feel like I'm right back to 'get used to it'.

I raised my son alone and I used to say, this is his time, and when he's grown, then it will be my time. I only had resources for one, was why I thought that way.
But he struggled, and took a while growing up (imagine that ). Now there is no time left.

Same boat. But I don't blame myself for not getting help. I spent years and years with different T's but I myself was entirely unable to participate, and they didn't pressure me. One T called me catatonic. And I heard him, knew what he was saying, and couldn't react to it, even to acknowledge that he'd said it. I didn't even think about "living life fully."

If you took the entire spectrum of sensory and intellectual inputs with which each of us lives every day and subtracted, say, forty percent of them, your impression of the external world would be very, very strange. Everything, and in particular human conduct, would seem like an abstract impressionist painting.

So, I didn't think about "living life fully," just tried (and never succeeded) to understand what the hell was going on. I knew something was very wrong but really hadn't the faintest idea what. It's only been in the last three-four years that reality has broken through, slowly, bit by bit. And imagine, all this time, all my life, I've been able to talk and write with great facility, so almost all people never realized anything was wrong until they got to know me better.

Yes, that's it. Same thing. I'm making progress and, probably, by the time I get into a nursing home I'll have things a lot more figured out. Does that help in a nursing home?

No time left. Yeah.

Take good care.

I surmise that who you are here is who you really are...and that the you IRL is the one who shows the suffering, even perhaps unconsciously, as you beg or wish for social interaction that will make you feel better?

I have only a very few regrets....but they are genuine regrets, to me, and not just things I wish had happened differently, or not at all.(My whole life is of those!) For example, one regret I have is not buying into TANDY at 25 cents a share...when a friend of a friend started the company. (It was a group of leather tanners I bought craft leather from who made this offer. I laughed at them.) Now that's a real regret. I have 2 other similar ones.

I consider them "real" regrets because of the situations being truly choices... making what I thought was a rational decision...that of course would have fared me well if I hadn't chosen the way I did.

NO time left? You are here, now...

So, you learn that you are more likely to get your needs filled -- when you no longer have needs. Or, if you can hide them sufficiently.

Interesting points. Like going to a banker in the old days. As everyone said, they'd only loan money to people who didn't need it. As far as hiding it is concerned, I don't think I've ever figured out how to do that. No, I have no hope other than therapy. If it can't be done there, it can't be done. Take care!

from your previous replies to your thread: brings to mind of having an attitude of gratitude...even when others have more.

you mentioned you haven't been able to get a job for some time now. in my career i could read the body language of an applicant before they even shook my hand. are u expecting to get turned turned down that it gets in the way during the interview process? are you expecting to return to a job that qualifies you with your previous experience? r u willing to step down a notch or two to get your foot in the door?
perhaps you have done the positive things already. idk. but thought i use my expertise to ask you. no offense meant.

as for your lifelong struggles. i'm sorry you have never been able to move on to a happier place. more serene. it must take up a lot of your mental energy.
i agree with lynn too. doing volunteer work will help you help others. it usually comes back full circle.

If I understand you correctly, madisgram (and I'm not certain that I do), I don't think I've ever really envied other people's material achievements, but I have indeed envied their mental stability, insight, understanding, wisdom, etc. Of course, I would have loved to be able to travel more, but then I did travel an awful lot before I was thirty, since I was a kid really. Actually, though, I do envy people who have a good old-fashioned delicatessen right around the corner. (NO, I am NOT making fun of you!)

Quote:

you mentioned you haven't been able to get a job for some time now. in my career i could read the body language of an applicant before they even shook my hand. are u expecting to get turned turned down that it gets in the way during the interview process? are you expecting to return to a job that qualifies you with your previous experience? r u willing to step down a notch or two to get your foot in the door? perhaps you have done the positive things already. idk. but thought i use my expertise to ask you. no offense meant.

No offense taken. Well, umm, yeah, I do expect to get turned down. I've been turned down every time until now. And no, I don't expect to get a job that has anything to do with my prior experience. I'm willing to be a bagboy at the supermarket. But I seem either to be overqualified or too old for everything that's going. Hell, I'd be happy changing the oil in oil-change places.

I'd love to do volunteer work. And as soon as I get the bread on the table thing down, I'll also be doing volunteer work. Take care.

If we live one day at a time, as advised, then the idea of short time to live, or near the end of life, have much less meaning. Not worrying about the future, but being mindful of today... we all have enough time to do that.

Hello, Ygrec! Sorry to be late responding but it demanded thought, which is something I do slowly so I don’t have to do it again.

Since meeting you I’ve suspected you’re a hyperintelligent being from outer space trying to make your way in human society. I’m glad to learn I wasn’t incorrect.

Though I’m not quite a “senior” by strict reckoning of age, I have outlived my usefulness (and doubt I was ever useful). I am not, however, as overwhelmingly burdened with regret and sadness as you. For that I can thank several things, the first being my meds. Ah, meds! They haven’t restored me to productivity, but they have been entirely effective in making me not care I’m unproductive. They do a fair job of keeping the primordial beneath the surface with only a few eruptions (***Trigger***) now and then.

Additionally, looking back on life, its joys and regrets seem impossibly intertwined. Were I able to reach back and untie them, would all disappear?

We may share some things in common. I, too, made some early, foolish choices. I unwisely chose my parents, two people who were wrong for each other. Then, I totally botched managing my early childhood socialization. I look back on my years 0-7 and shake my head in shame. What was I thinking!? I thoroughly failed to guide my parents, especially my mother, in rearing me properly. Oh, and on top of all that, my timing was off. Somehow I chose to be born too late. My failure to enter history in time to fight and die in the Second World War is a deep source of repressed mental anguish (no, I’m not kidding).

Rather than being from outer space, I see my early failures setting me permanently out-of-phase with people. Constantly being a little off has taken its toll. I know what it’s like to be strange, to have no confidence in a world that demands confidence. All societies have ways of enforcing their norms. In some, people like me are gassed. In other, “gentler” societies, we’re swept to the fringes, put out of the majority’s mind and misery.

“Uh oh. Different. No soup for you! Next!”

Avoiding the fringe means learning to fit in, that is, unlearning myself. But, ‘knowledge in youth is etched in stone.’ I stretched myself on the Procrustean bed of life, and now I’m maimed. I tried. I try no more. Am I awaiting death, or has he already come?

How’s that for a coloratura performance?

Oh, friend Ygrec! I’m a pessimist, and I fear you are correct. You’ll gain a few tools to increase your social functioning, but, as you understand, they will be but prostheses. No amount of therapy can replace your first years of life.

My concern is can you reach your comfortable? If anyone can, you can, helped by the professionals and in spite of them. The trick is discerning when to heed and when to respectfully ‘take things under advisement.’

This thread is full of goodness, but we must cultivate our garden.

No, but YOU would, Rohag, at least the Rohag you know now.
The person you are today is the product of all the prayers and works and joys and sufferings of your life, every element of it.

The Rohag (or SAWE) of tomorrow? ah, that's something we can have an impact on.

Rohag, Rohag, Rohag. I do believe we just may be on the same wavelength. Yes, I know "what it's like to be strange." As to "being swept to the fringes," yes and again yes. "Knowledge in youth is etched in stone." You betcha. "Gain a few tools." Right, all too right. "No amount of therapy can replace your first years of life." Most definitely. "Reach my comfortable." ??? If I can ever get this economic thing worked out I believe I can "reach my comfortable." "Cultivate our garden." Ah, yes. Candide. The best of all possible worlds. A wonderful title for the autobiography of any of us here on PC. I do thank you. And I do believe your head is screwed on right. Whatever THEY may say. Take care!

I may repeat what's already been said, sorry
-- I just read your first post.
anyway-- I feel I've missed so so much of my life and I dont' get a do over.... like about 70% of my life I've been "absent" , it seems --

but what I try to do is be thankful for TODAY. I tell myself how lucky I am that I still have today and as far as I know I have tomorrow. My sister that has passed doens't have that, a niece may never live the length I have, as she has an inoperable brain tumor, I've not been told I have three months to live, I got to see my kids get all the way through school(unlike a woman I knew when my kids where in preschool, her daughter was in class with my son- the woman died, never getting to see her daughter growup) maybe I don't remember a lot or felt a lot and maybe I didn't finish college or keep a job long.. but--
--
compared to many many others I am fortunate to have today and probably tomorrow and for that I am thankful.

I hope you can seize the day and SEE a tree with new eyes(in a way you've never seen it before), or a flower or feel the wind in a way you never have before. ......

maybe instead of thinking one only has 5 -10 years left-- thinking that one has many "todays" left and treasure the present.

maybe I'm a bit mushy or too simplistic ...
but... that's what helps me anyway.

best to you Ygrec

fins

No, fins, you're not at all mushy or simplistic. Today. It's hard to just do "today." "Today" (for me) is rough, real rough. If "today" were half decent, no problem. But, for me at least, "today" is so covered with faecal matter that it's not really a refuge. Maybe someday soon it will be. I certainly hope so. Thank you for your post. Take care.