Defenses are weak

Look, Mac, from all of your threads one thing is more clear than others: you don't interact with women near your age. Of course you are lonely and feeling defeated - you aren't in situations to meet potential partners.

You need to find places and activities in your community where you can meet other retired individuals. This is gonna sound odd possibly, but you could always start by visiting a senior centre in your community. Not retirement centres, but senior centres where they host activities. If naught else, you could ask them for available resources to help guide your search. Try going to your library and any other community centres. You still don't seem to have tried online dating. Find volunteer opportunity. Find clubs.

There's no point in indulging your misery. Do something about it.

I think what artchic was saying is if you aren't in a good place yourself ( mentally or emotionally or otherwise) relationship isn't going to fix it. It's not going to fix anything. Also we typically attract people at our own level. When we are unwell we are very likely to attract people who are also unwell.

Also you got to be busy with other things in life. You have to enjoy things and be able to offer something to the other person. Hobbies? Work? Studies? Helping others? Nobody says you should give up on relationships but do you have enough to offer to other people ( don't mean money)

If you are retired and have free time why don't you volunteer? Or get a part time job?

My mom is 70 and she battled cancer all last year. And still she isn't old. She is out and about. My dad is a pain in a neck lol and he is older than mom but he still plays sports. And gets into hobbies and drives us all crazy with his hobbies lol but 60 isn't old.

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I discourage you from drinking. Bad idea

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Hi again Macd, you mention that you're retired and staying occupied is part of the problem.

Can I turn this on it's head? You are 60 (relatively young), you have reasonably good health, you had a good career (and skills that will come from that). and you are time rich... You have so much to offer society. There will be volunteering organisations crying out for your time, skills and energy. Perhaps this can be something connected to your past career, or perhaps you would prefer to try something new.

You have options, lots of them, you have the potential to have a very fulfilling second half of life.

Thanks everyone I need to get the demons to calm down a bit before I can get motivated again.

Precisely. I like support, but there is a thin line that can be crossed over where one starts to feel patronized. I responded really for one reason and one reason only -- and that was to say drinking is a bad solution. As for all the rest...you will figure it out. I take back any advice I gave you except just don't drink. lol. PS For those who point to their parents or other people they know...maybe wait until you get there to give advice. There is a stigma attached to aging that one must work hard to overcome. One has to work hard to not give into it. Being alone when aging is absolutely tough...and to bring up other people who are married and aging is missing this person's whole point. Being single as one ages is its own ballgame. It takes a unique kind of strength and well, it ain't for sissies. So please, everyone, stop giving examples of other married people who are aging and how they do it. That is not this person's situation.

You know the toughest part is the abandonment and lack of justification. I don't believe in any God so it's hard to rationalize the suffering when you're alone. It would be nice to wake and think I was going somewhere nice after all this crap - that ain't gonna happen. So I just keep falling and never landing. Someday I will just go blank and that might be a relief but I won't know. The problem is I'm really bitter and unimpressed with life. Yesterday somebody told me an acquaintance was pregnant and all I could think was good lord I hope the child doesn't follow my footsteps. As far as I can tell all of this is just the luck of the draw. If I hadn't been fighting social anxiety for the first part of life I probably would have been a much different person. So you spin and you crash and you spin and you crash and everything you lean upon disappears. Amen.

Social anxiety sucks, and life is hard, but there is no other option but to fight our fight the best we can until the end. I've thought about that a lot.

It seems that you still have some negative thinking patterns. I understand where they come from, but they aren't helpful for you. Are you doing anything regarding your social anxiety? and do you have depression as well (depression usually goes side-by-side with social anxiety because of the isolation and loneliness)?

Hope you'll feel better soon, and things begin to change in your life, regardless of what comes first (it can go both ways).

At some point we lose the narrative that is our life. For some this doesn't happen until moments before death...but for others it happens earlier. Finally, there are those who have not had much of a life narrative. But, in general, we all keep a storyline going. When we lose that plot there is a feeling of emptiness. Depression is like the demon that tells us, "It was all a fairy tale. In truth, life has and always will be a joke."

I believe we have to fight for the narrative and the meaning of our life. I also believe that transformation is possible at any age. I think that those of us who are having a hard time aging must realize that society is not equipped to handle its many problems, and everyone could maybe step up and try to lend a hand to improve the situation.

It isn't only people with MI who suffer as they grow older. I had a neighbor, a widow, and a lovely woman, who was suffering from social isolation. I went to my other neighbors and said if each person on the block committed to visiting her one day of the week she would have visitors every single day. Although they thought it was a good idea, everyone was too busy, of course.

I believe transformation is possible at any age. For the self, the world, and beyond.

Depressed people see the world as it is more accurately than non depressed people. It's called depressive reality. When not depressed, we put this colorful glasses and see the world through them. Society doesn't help people proactively, unfortunately, but re-actively (even then, it fails in my opinion because of the lack of empathy). If people waited for help while in their isolation or sickness, probably they would die and no one would know or even care. Sad but true. The question is: given this harsh reality, what we can do to adjust to it? Obviously we cannot change it.

I'm not atheist. I'm nontheistic. I love the myths of religion, the great stories, the parables. I like to read how others have made sense of life.

I think of depression as a demon. It just wants to suck the joy out of everything. This demon acts omniscient.

You sound depressed. The way you express yourself is how I think and feel when I am depressed.

I am fighting my way out of an 18 month depression and the worst aspect of it has been the bleak self-absorption, and the nihilism. Even if my depressed mind insists nihilism is closer to the truth, I am not happy with it. I would rather be in a somewhat deluded, but optimistic state.

I have wrestled with this concept of depressive reality. I think it is a sticky wicket. If people adhered to it they would not try to go beyond expectations. Depressive reality negates the magic. By magic I mean the alchemy of the unexpected. Depressive reality probably depends on patterns. This happens. That happens. But life isn't actually like that. In evolution surprises constantly happen. So even though when I am depressed I feel it is a more intelligent outlook, I no longer believe this is true. Depression is an insidious demon.Intelligent, but heartless. Life is both heartful and creative. In reality.

Absolutely. That's why depressed people don't get better (not easily anyway). They're stuck in the current reality. They cannot believe in change. "Normal" people have optimism bias, that's why they get beyond the current reality, and change it. Depressed people don't have this bias.

I'm not depressed physically. My nerves are just hyper active and my gut keeps churning. Also, there is some psychological paralysis, i.e. I can't get out of my chair. And there's always the circular thinking, i. e. would of, should of, could of. I've been taking Zoloft for years - it helps the stage fright but it can't make your dreams come true - too bad.

Yes I know that circular thinking well, it can paralyse, sap motivation.

I'm glad the Zoloft has helped the anxiety, have you had a check up/med review recently to discuss how things are with you?

What do you mean by you aren't depressed physically? It sounds like anxiety still holds a grip in your life. Can you approach people and talk to them in non formal settings and being relaxed?

I hope you're doing and feeling better today.