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.

  • @HandOfDoom
    1•1 year ago

    I’m having a similar issue.

    I lost my mother when I was 13. But, at that age, I was too young to understand the fragility of life.

    Now, at 30, death scares me a lot. I had to deal with loss a few more times and it finally got to me. Now I am old enough to be able to understand what a “lifetime” is. When we are young, we don’t have this knowledge: life looks like it will go on forever. But it won’t.

    I’m just starting to accept that my loved ones won’t be here forever. And this shit is scary as fuck. But we need to learn to accept this truth and live with it. It can also help us to value life more, to be grateful for things we used to take for granted.

    And we need to take care of ourselves, physically and mentally, so we can live, as we too are dear for our loved ones and they need our help.

    I’m also dealing with anxiety, depression and panic attacks. Here’s what helps me when I panic:

    • Calming ASMR videos (Bob Ross is my favourite, in fact I have one of his videos playing right now as background while I work. Sometimes, if I feel bad, I just pause what I’m doing and watch him paint for a bit);
    • If Bob is not enough to calm me down, I do some breathing exercises (I was skeptical at first, but it works). Try this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiUnFJ8P4gM

    We have to be strong, but it’s also okay to be weak. It’s okay to cry if we need to. Just don’t give up, because there’s always good things in life to make all the suffering be worth it.