Over 35's only! Does it get better?

[яemus]

Over 35s

Have your anxieties/ agoraphobia improved over the last 10 years? Do you run at the same level of anxiety now that you did when you were late teens/twenties/early 30s? Has anything improved? Do you feel you blend in more easily? Does it get better?

[Mina]

I haven't voted because I'm not 35 yet, but I wanted to contribute if that's OK?

I remember as a teenager everyone had to wear fashionable clothes, to go clubbing and so on, because having friends meant "fitting in". As someone who is nearing 30 I feel that making friends is slightly easier now as people seem more likely to accept others as they are e.g. if you are funny or have an interesting hobby, rather than judging on face value only. Would you say this is true in your experience?

However, there is certainly the added pressure of having to achieve certain things by the age of 30 e.g. sorted with a career choice or getting married. At least when I was 20 no-one else I knew had achieved those things either so there was no pressure on me. I've lost count of how many people ask me these days why I am not yet engaged and when am I planning on having children - I mention this because it can affect people's self-esteem and stop us accepting invites to social events e.g because I have attended parties where everyone had a professional career and I felt unable to contribute to conversation about people's work. The embarrassment will then cause me to avoid socialising with that group of people again.

Everyone I know who is in their 30's has promised me that suddenly they felt able to stand up for themselves at work or with their family and stopped caring what people thought of them, please tell me that's true!

[GhostOnMagneticTape]

It's ultimately down to you to make the effort to improve life and learn coping strategies, I used to think things would be better after I turned 30 but my work situation made me worse and I suffered a break down when I turned 35 after quitting my job.

Looking back at my adult life so far, I've realised I kept on putting myself in the wrong stressful jobs, mixing with the wrong people, indulging in bad habits and so on. Now, at 37 I feel more wiser, with more knowledge and experience behind me but my anxiety still hinders me greatly in wanting to better my life, mind and body. Trying to break old habits and the cycle is very hard... but the solutions are simple, it's just a matter of me getting off my backside, confronting my fears and applying the coping strategies when I am anxious.

[Progress]

I would imagine reactions purely to getting older are very individual. Maybe some do just snap out of it.

I think more commonly it's about spirals, upward or downward. If things are going badly and anxiety gets the better of you it's bound to be upsetting, and since you imagine it will be the same next time then the anxiety increases and for that reason alone it will be bad again. I must have spent a long time in that phase.
The trick is to try and reverse the spiral. I can remember having social situations that probably were just about OK but didn't make me feel great. I would tell my therapist and he would try to make me see the positive in it. I may not have enjoyed it but at least I hadn't felt terrible. This was my first glimpse of being able to reverse the spiral. I told myself that if one time was OK then the next time could be OK too. It wasn't always the case, but the other thing to do is to accept and try and brush off those 'one step back' times. I guess that something in my subconscious told me to persevere with it and maybe one day I would actually learn to enjoy it.

I probably went through quite a few years where most of my limited socialising was just about bearable but not enjoyable. But by having some social life I was able to learn at least a little about the 'real world'. But some of the things I learnt about myself through these interactions were very difficult to take; my 'bad' side that I'd buried. One of the toughest things was accepting the things that I discovered, and I now realise they're pretty minor really.

So to answer the question, yes it has got better for me, but it takes work. The passage of years themselves is not enough. I had a social thing yesterday when I wasn't sure how I would get on. But sitting in the pub next to a couple of others, a rapport just seemed to happen and I really enjoyed it. Put a big smile on my face. I couldn't have dreamt of that some years ago.

[SHYGIRLAJB]

Its a tricky thing to answer, really. Surely it depends on certain treatments and things you have. Not base it on an age.

[Phool]

I am finding its getting worse. I am 38.

I had a big breakdown age 31 and another one age 36. Some things I manage better but I lack any motivation or optimism abut the future and that gets me down. I just don't see the point of living at the moment.

[Between The Bars]

when I was in my teens to mid twenties, i had a complete social life and never even thought twice about leaving the house!

I've always had anxiety and depression, but back then i was able to manage it/work my way through situations etc

but it was 7 or 8 years of going to raves and taking stuff that I shouldn't of been that really destroyed my mind!

there was plenty of warning signs, but I just ignored them!

I'm paying the price now though! big time!!!

[Sea]

Well. My social anxiety has not really improved at all as I have got older. However, what has improved is my control over it. The older you get, the more choice you have about the level to which you expose yourself to social situations (and the less peer pressure you are exposed to). So, compared to teens and 20s when I was stuck at school and University and faced a whole heap of anxiety and social pressures every day then I would say my life is now much easier. But this is largely because I have developed considerable expertise in simply avoiding socialising. So, with age has come the ability to avoid.
Does this mean things are better? Yes, in some ways. But I also have zero social life and am therefore sometimes unhappy. I'd rather be simply unhappy, than unhappy and anxious I guess, heh, and so avoidance is acceptable for me.
When I am faced with social situations, I still feel just as anxious as I did when I was a youngster, though possibly I am slightly more adept at concealing that from others now...
In summary, I don't think my SA has improved with age, but I think my learning to deal with it has done (i.e. through avoidance).

[яemus]

Mine came to a head at about 33, gradually got better thereafter.

[firemonkey]

For me it's got worse.

[Mr Spud]

I'm finding it's getting easier as I get older. Certainly there is less pressure to conform. When I was younger there was obviously more peer pressure etc. and a tendency to feel an outsider if you didn't fit society's "norms". As you get older I think you come to realise that this is less important, both to yourself and other people. Nowadays I can accept that I will always be an outsider to some extent, despite by best efforts, and I shall continue to plough my own furrow.
There are issues where I tend to think back and remember lost opportunities and occasions of abject failure and humiliation but by and large I'm gradually starting to accept the skin I'm in.

[GhostOnMagneticTape]

^ Agreed, conformity is less of an issue when in 30s and beyond.

Though saying that I think some people feel that they must be married, have 2.4 children, house, car and all that by the time they reach 35+ something... screw that.

[Mr. Nobody]

for me it's got a lot better,..
can't believe how much I've improved in the last few years,

but, having said that, it's only in the last few years that I've actually managed to seek proffessional help and be constructive about recovery from SA-Depression-Low Self-Esteem etc.

so, you could argue that I could have done that at any time in my life and it's not necessarily that recovery gets easier post- 30's etc.

I think you just have to take recovery wherever and whenever you can get it, and for me it's came a bit later in life than I'd have liked t.b.h.

hopefully with the internet and more awareness coming of these issues, it'll be easier for young people nowdays to get help as and when they need it.

in my late teens and twenties, my avoidance of everything and complete denial of my issues didn't help of course,..

[Zardo]

Originally Posted by ***1103;emus

Over 35s

Have your anxieties/ agoraphobia improved over the last 10 years?

A bit.

Do you run at the same level of anxiety now that you did when you were late teens/twenties/early 30s?

I'd like to think I'm less socially anxious now but in practice I've found I'm not.


Has anything improved?

No

Do you feel you blend in more easily?

Well I feel I can blend in the background more and I get ignored more easily.

Does it get better?

Not in my case.

[SHYGIRLAJB]

Originally Posted by mark101

Worse for me,always been painfully shy and just awful in social situations but i did get a job and keep at it for 17yrs.
Hit 30 and split up with my gf and the last ten years have been a gradual decline,4yrs ago i was told i'd have to go out alone and get my own work in construction since the guy i'd always worked with couldn't keep me with him due to Self employment tax laws changing.

When he dropped that on me i knew my only option was to quit,i was scared shatless at the prospect of walking onto building sites alone and ringing around trying to get work.
I told everybody on site that i was sick of the building trade and i'd be getting a local job,the deadline came in May 4yrs ago and i bought a bag of weed and spent a couple of weeks stoned all day and sunbathing.

After the job was gone the intense isolation began and i realised i had nothing left in life,no purpose.
Started drinking too much and wound up trying to top myself but anyways my mental health is probably worse now than ever.
Feel embarrassed or ashamed to be 40,never married or had kids and it wont be too long before my sisters kids start settling down and i'm just gonna be this weird loner uncle

[catlover]

Originally Posted by Phool

Some things I manage better but I lack any motivation or optimism abut the future and that gets me down.

Sorry to hear that. Just want to say that your presence on this forum makes it a better place.

Originally Posted by mark101

Feel embarrassed or ashamed to be 40,never married or had kids and it wont be too long before my sisters kids start settling down and i'm just gonna be this weird loner uncle

And sorry about that as well.

[MrMr]

Well, I miss the age requirement by a whisker being a tender 32, but it seems to me that if we take a view of self determination then the future can get better, worse, or stay the same, as the result of the little choices we make every day.

Alternatively, if we take the prevalent view that the experiences of others are indicative of a pre ordained future, then we are at the whims of life, which may chose to deliver us blows, or grace, or most likely, more of the same. If this happens, we may develop ways to cope with what we dislike, or find it harder, depends on the tendencies of the individual.

I realise the weight of issues can make self determination sound trite and naive, it seems borderline casual and irritating when someone says you have the reigns on your life when it feels like you have anything but. I understand that, spent much of my life there in my own way.

After years of denial, then a rough patch when it all fell apart, I now find myself having learned and slowly making better choices and my life is slowly, bit by bit, starting to improve. I'll probably make more mistakes along the way I'm sure, and there have been hard moments for me throughout, but I'm trying to move forward nonetheless and recent months have born that out so far.

[яemus]

I got a similar result on SPW (once we removed the cheating votes), there's hope I guess. Wonder how a 45+ vote would go?

[Pink*Lady]

Originally Posted by Phool

I am finding its getting worse.

[lonely_mummy]

I voted worst.. when I was young I got away with my shyness, I had friends. Now, I learnt to cover up my shyness (I barely blush as an adult) but I don't do a good job of hiding. Instead my nervousness turned me into a strange person, may seem rude as I am too nervous to talk (I can't speak in a group of more than 2), unable to talk normally, can't think of anything to say, say the wrong thing that I didn't mean. Some people take it the wrong way therefore I can't make new friends.

[desi99]

I think it gets worse.When I was younger and in school or college I had friends . Gradually with time I lost all of them due to moving away. Now at the age of 43 i am alone with zero social life. As you get older its hard to make close friends.

[peat]

I voted its gets better as I can do things now that I could have never done 5 years ago.
Go to post office, bank, phone up places etc etc but on the flip side the fact that I am back on this forum after 4 years away suggests its rearing its ugly head again :-\

[diplodocus]

Better but not through any natural aging process, just that I've had more time to work on my issues. You don't get better by osmosis. I think in some way there are more pressures as you get older because you are expected to be more confident and have your life sorted.

[icky]

i dont think my sa has got any better but i do think my understanding of sa has improved over the years. having the knowledge to overcome sa has made me more determined to fight back.