I’m a 37 year old IT Cloud Engineer, I have a great job, great house, love my family, but recently I lost my dad to cancer after a 16 year battle. My brother likes to say cancer had to cheat to win, it was all because he broke his back and had to be taken off his treatments for to long. Cancer is a fickle bitch…
Prior to losing my dad, I lost my best friend, who apparently dropped dead in his backyard. I don’t know the specifics and frankly I don’t want to know. Either way, these events effected me, and I started having massive panic attacks and anxiety issues, constantly afraid for my health even though there’s nothing wrong with me. It took a few months of therapy to realize I needed medical help.
I was put on antidepressants and everything changed, I was a human again for the first time in like a decade. I was happy, I was successful, but now, idk if I’m just having a midlife crisis, or if maybe I’m just feeling depressed again, but I just feel lost. I’ve lost one of the few people in my life I’ve modeled my success after, my father, I lost the other person I could hang out with and empathize with, I have my wife and I love her to death, but my friend had been that person that was just there to hang out and make you feel better, and now they’re gone. I’m still struggling to cope and it’s just really hard and I need a place to vent.
Anyone have any ideas on how to cope and move on as well as control the anxiety without the need to be medicated?
TL;DR: Lost my dad and my best friend in the course of two years and it’s been rough. Now I feel lost and confused constantly. Cloudy brain and I just don’t want to be complacent in life and need some advice. Thanks for reading.
Edit: just wanted to say thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I’m going to take the advice I’ve been given here to heart and try some new things to try and give me some direction. Thank you all again so much for the help, it really made me feel a lot better.
Hi.
Look into mindfulness practices. Do some art. Hobbies etc. Music is my preference. Also, try to appreciate that you get to experience anything at all. It’s a wild ride, enjoy it all. Don’t fight your feelings. You only get to experience these kind of things rarely, and they have the potential to bring you closer to your self. Appreciation and happiness are perspectives, and they are largely down to choice. How do you want to feel? Practice that. The human mind is a crazy, malleable thing.
I self medicated for long long time. Seen death up close, both people close to me, and random people. I’ve been through my fair share of trauma just like you, and roughly your age as well.
Death is completion of the cycle. Life is really a beautiful thing, and the fact we can be aware of such things make it even harder, messier, and even more beautiful.
End rant.