[internettie]

I do a lot of research on my issues (PTSD being one of them) and had never come across this before. A T who is filling in for my regular T told me about it.

I had been talking about how I just never see myself growing old. I feel that I am sure that I will die early in life (I'm 48 right now). I have a difficult time making plans for the future and when prompted couldn't name anything that I find interesting or that defines me. There are some things, but they just don't come to mind easily.

This sense of a foreshortened future makes me live day to day, just getting by, with no plans for the coming years. I guess I feel like I don't deserve anything including a life.

Does anyone else have issues with this? Has anyone else heard of it? Just wondering if anyone has worked their way through it.

*nodding head* Yes! I can totally relate, internettie.

I lived my whole life (since the age of ten anyway) thinking/knowing I would not live past 42. That was the age my father died.

Then one brother died at age 38 and another one at 42 and I was CERTAIN I would die too, especially after being diagnosed with a weird blood disorder.

I remember being interviewed for a position at work and I was asked, "Where do you see yourself in the next five years?"

I was stunned. I couldn't answer. I had no idea. I never looked that far ahead.

[internettie]

(((((Orange Blossom)))))

I remember being a little kid and being terrified that I would die. I thought that was normal. Turns out it's not.

I definitely couldn't have answered the 'five year' question either. I'm not sure I could say what I'll be doing in the next 5 months! The only planning I do is for my funeral or the funeral of those I love.

[skeksi]

My T asked me about my future early in my treatment and I, too, had nothing to say. I always figured my life would just...end at 20. When I passed that milemarker, I didn't really know what to do with myself. Still don't.

I have set myself a couple of long-term professional goals, but I still expect my life to be cut short at any moment. It makes meeting someone and starting a family impossible to imagine

[splitimage]

I have the same problem. My T says it's really common with CPTSD. For a long time, I never believed I'd live to beyond 30, but I have. I still have trouble envissionning a future. I've seriously thought about su on my 40'th birthday, but know I won't.

I finally did something that I'd put off for years when I was drinking, and talked to a financial planner about retirement - still 20+ years off. Turns out with some investments I made when I was younger in my predrinking days, and my monthly investment plan through work, I should have a decent post retirement income. So unless something completely unexpected goes wrong - I should be ok.

It's weird too that my life hasn't exactly turned out as I envisioned it as a kid, and since I've gotten sober, I'm finding it a bit easier to think about having a future, but it still feels really strange. Right now I'm thinking in three year increments - mainly because I think I need to stay in my current job 3 years so that it will look like a stable period on my resume.

--splitimage

[deliquesce]

oh wow, thank you for starting this thread. i hadn't heard about this before either, but i'm relieved that others go through it also.

i never thought i would live beyond 21, 22 maximum. i'm 24 now. i am still surprised that i am up and running, i should have been dead. i feel like i am stuck back there - at that age - still doing things 20 year olds do, not growing up, not wanting to grow up. my friends (who are my age) are all working, moving out of home, travelling the world, going out every night. myself - i am still at uni doing the same degree i was since 18, still at home, never travelled, no friends to go out with. and i dont want to change. i dont want to leave home, or travel, or get a job, or anything. i just want things to stop...

like skeksi, i have professional goals, but i doubt i will achieve them. and the rest of my future is such a blank for me, that it feels like... why bother.

sorry for the emo post. but thank you once again for starting this thread.

Originally Posted by internettie

The only planning I do is for my funeral or the funeral of those I love.

I hear that too. Being around junkies most of my life has made me very hypervigilant, especially where breathing is concerned. As a kid, I had to make sure people were breathing before I went to bed, or I would wake up in the middle of the night to the dreaded "gurgle" of an overdose.

That is why watching my mother die of lung cancer is doubly painful, because I watch her struggle to breathe and it triggers the past. I cannot do anything to help.

I asked T the other day what my purpose was. I fought so hard to keep my family alive but in the end I couldn't save them, and now I can't save my mother. That was what I thought my purpose was, so I can't help but feel like a failure.

[skeksi]

Splitimage:

I finally did something that I'd put off for years when I was drinking, and talked to a financial planner about retirement - still 20+ years off.

Oh, wow, I never made that connection before! My mother is always hounding me to meet with a financial planner, and I always brush it off.

[internettie]

Thanks for all of the honest responses. (((((everyone)))))

(((((Orange Blossom))))) I'm sorry that you feel like a failure. I feel that way too. But I doubt that we are failures. I know that my perception of myself is way off. It sounds to me like you did everything you could possibly do, especially when it wasn't you're responsibility.

skeksi, I totally get that. I've been married for 20 years but think it could be over at any moment. Never had any children of my own probably because if I can't see a future for myself, I couldn't see one for a child either. It does making any plans impossible.

splitimage: I'm glad you were able to talk to someone about your retirement. I don't have one. I cashed them out because it seemed that I wouldn't need them down the road as much as I needed them at the moment. They never amounted to much any way. I always wanted to be a school teacher as a kid but never knew what to do to make things happen. I always had dreams but never had plans.

deliquese, I can relate. I tried higher education but never got anywhere with it. I just never thought ahead. Like I said, dreams but no plans. And you're welcome. I'm glad this thread has been useful.

Orange, I'm sorry about your mom. I sat with my mom for 3 days while she died. It was very frustrating to not be able to do something, anything. In the end the only thing I could do was hold her hand in death (which I had never done in life).

For me there has been no career plan, no children, very few long lasting relationships. As long as it's right there, in my face, I can think about it and cultivate it, but once it's gone away, I don't even think about it. I always thought it was interesting that when I went somewhere to visit, I never missed home, husband or friends. And the longer I was there, the more I would forget about home. I never really thought of myself as living in the present, but I guess that's all I've ever really done.

Originally Posted by internettie

Never had any children of my own probably because if I can't see a future for myself, I couldn't see one for a child either.

(((( internettie ))))

I understand that as well.

I knew I was not emotionally equipped to have kids. I never wanted them to feel the pain and sadness that I did. I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't screw them up either.

I didn't want to be a wounded child raising a wounded child. It didn't seem fair.

I sat with my mom for 3 days while she died.

Hugs for you.

In the end the only thing I could do was hold her hand in death (which I had never done in life).

We seem to have a lot in common.

[skeksi]

As long as it's right there, in my face, I can think about it and cultivate it, but once it's gone away, I don't even think about it.

Oh, this rings so true to me. "Out of sight, out of mind." I'm so programmed into *not* attaching that now I wonder if I *can*.

[Can't Remember]

I'm 28 and have never been able to make plans any further than a week or so in advance. I too never know what to say when asked the "where do you see yourself in 5 years" question. Its nice, and sad, to know that I'm not alone.

[internettie]

I was just out for a quick drive and had a few minutes to think. I realized that I have trouble even with day to day things like planning meals, trips and outings ahead of time. My husband is always giving me a hard time because I never make plans for us. Or when I do make plans I quickly try to find a way out of it. Not sure what that's all about. I just know that I have a difficult time making plans with anyone. It's also hard to save money. I have a budget but thinking of putting away money for something in the future is hard (like Christmas next year). I'd rather just spend it now.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I can see why it doesn't make sense to me to decorate for Christmas. Doing something ahead of time just doesn't work for me. I always thought it was procrastination but now I'm thinking it's that I want to be sure that I'll be around to enjoy whatever it is that I've done. I put most things off until I absolutely have to get it done. Planning ahead just isn't my thing.

skeksi, "out of sight, out of mind" is it exactly. I also don't attach. I've been married for 20 years and I still don't feel like it's a lasting relationship. Right now I have more long lasting relationships than I have ever had, but I just can't seem to appreciate them as being long lasting. Nothing lasts forever.

[internettie]

Originally Posted by Can't Remember

I'm 28 and have never been able to make plans any further than a week or so in advance. I too never know what to say when asked the "where do you see yourself in 5 years" question. Its nice, and sad, to know that I'm not alone.

(((((Can't Remember))))) I'm glad you don't feel alone.

[internettie]

Sorry to keep replying to my own thread. lol I was posting on a different topic and realized that I'm not attached to my own grandkids. I don't think of doing things for their future or plan to spend any time with them (they live in a different state). I'm not getting on myself for this, just having an 'aha' moment.

Yes, I thought I would die by 15 & then when I wasn't hit by a car I tried to kill myself. My mother was bipolar & did all these suicide attempts & did finally succeed when I was 15 (coincidence?) & she was 45 when she died so I figured anything after 45 was "icing on the cake." I'm 54. My kids are grown & thriving. I've managed to not make any suicide attempts for many years due to not wanting them to experience what I did losing a mother that way until 2 1/2 yrs. ago I went into a sudden deppression & did an OD. Still trying to recover from doing that.

Not sure about the future. Just want to be stable & enjoy life like "normal" people do. I'm sick of the inner turmoil.--Suzy

[phoenix7]

I was always sure i would die on my 21st birthday - prob due to going to a friends brothers party when I was 15 and he was 21 and he died that night in the night -

as to making plans - i sway between thinking id better do something or i will be financially whats a nice word for it.... badly off?! and only being able to manage to survive this minute so i cant plan for the future. P7

[MINIME]

I have thought this also. Like very year I cant believe that i lived another year.

• Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
• Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
• Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
• Significantly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
• Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
• Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)
• Sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)

http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx32.htm

[phoenix7]

im all seven, guess i have a way to go, I hope we can all have better futures, a future, I wish i coul fix everything but i cant - my old T was forever telling me that im not superman as only he had the power to turn back time - kept telling him no im not superman , im WONDERWOMAN!!! or buzz lightyear, never give in , never surrender! and he would just smile and say - not superman! - so i cant turn back time - all i can do is send these

[LynD]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who deals with this, I have obsessed over 'dying young'.

[Christine1123]

Originally Posted by internettie

I do a lot of research on my issues (PTSD being one of them) and had never come across this before. A T who is filling in for my regular T told me about it.

I had been talking about how I just never see myself growing old. I feel that I am sure that I will die early in life (I'm 48 right now). I have a difficult time making plans for the future and when prompted couldn't name anything that I find interesting or that defines me. There are some things, but they just don't come to mind easily.

This sense of a foreshortened future makes me live day to day, just getting by, with no plans for the coming years. I guess I feel like I don't deserve anything including a life.

Does anyone else have issues with this? Has anyone else heard of it? Just wondering if anyone has worked their way through it.

Yes. I don't feel like I'll live to be 30. My husband had his birthday this month, he turned 22 and I kind of got scared. Like knowing that we're actually getting older...I know 22 isn't old but it's just a reminder that time is passing as much as I don't notice it.

my parents always told me i would be dead by the time i would be 18...so when teachers would ask what i wanted to be when i grew up i would say: alive. (always kind of threw them for a loop...but yet not one of them bothered to probe what i meant...go figure.) i didn't have a disease...they just meant they would kill me by then.

fortunately i managed to survive...damaged but alive. even made it to college by way of a scholarship..otherwise it wouldn't have happened...but even tho i graduated there was no real plan of a career. again after a few years of crummy jobs, i fell into a perfect career for me which i managed to stay in for 20 years.

it involved moving around frequently and not much looking ahead career-wise which obviously was okay...and then i got stuck taking care of my invalid mother from hell for many years..which sucked and while i worked any chance of my career moving forward came to an abrupt halt.

now i am disabled and retired. i still can't plan ahead. either long or short term. it amazes me that i am 50. don't know how that happened...i should be dead (between my parents, suicide attemtps, illnesses, etc)can't imagine being 55 or 52 or 70.

when i was a child thinking ahead to each year seemed so far away and such an impossible thing....never mind being an adult. i never imagined myself being married or having children..i just figured i would be dead so why even picture those things. as an adult i guess those same ideas just followed me thru...never married or had children...never really even gave it any thought...altho the constant abuse as a child and young adult might have played a pretty strong factor in that too.

never really looked at it this way before...

[internettie]

stumpy, you reminded me of something my mom used to say about me: "once people get to know you, they won't like you". There's no future in that, is there?

[phoenix7]

stumpy im glad you proved your parents wrong! and internettie, I dont know you very well but I would definately say your parents were wrong too!