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.
I’ve tried to meditate in the past, but I never feel any difference and whenever I look up meditation apps they always ask for a subscription to even the basic meditation information and I just can’t justify paying for something that can truly help a person’s mental health in that manner. It just feels scummy, like these apps are saying “I see you’re depressed and have anxiety, if you pay me I can make you feel better”.
You definitely don’t need an app to meditate!
Meditation is about focusing your awareness on the present. That’s it. Anything else is just window dressing to help you do it. Thích Nhất Hạnh has a good book called Peace is Every Step that is a good guide on meditation beyond the normal “sit down and don’t move.”
Journaling is another free way you can work out your thoughts and maybe put them in some order. Consider that you knew your dad and best friend for a very long time, and what you remember of them is still real. Write to them, and write responses to yourself based on the advice you think they’d give you.
I don’t know if they’re still doing it, but Balance gives a free year to try it out. I mean, do you expect a therapist to work for free just because it can help?
Of course I wouldn’t expect something for free, however a therapist won’t turn you away if you’re going through a mental crisis and need help. What I expect from meditation apps is to at least provide tutorials on how to get started, and if that really helps then they offer a subscription for further techniques and resources. Most if not all apps do not even provide that, they show your what they offer and say here’s a 7 day trial, after that we’re billing you. What if part of that anxiety are financials and you need help to clear your mind and get things organized? That just adds to they pile, that they will charge you later. One could argue that’s what a therapist does, but they’re not going to turn you away right from the start. Idk, I get what you’re saying, and you’re not wrong, it just feels wrong to me.
I mean, a therapist will likely only help if you’re on the edge of a building or holding a gun to your head. They won’t help if you’re looking for the same level of help you’d find from a meditation app. They’ll refer you to make an appointment. And i even agree because them offering any off the cuff advice is probably not a great idea.
I get why it feels wrong, but I dunno. Most of the apps I tried usually offered a month and, like I mentioned, Balance offered a year. I just am not in a place where it helps but I definitely plan on trying to return later if I ever figure some other stuff out first.
So I guess, I dunno, if you think meditation might be helpful, at least give Balance a shot. They legitimately give you a full year. You don’t even need to set a reminder to cancel. You can just stop it from auto renewing immediately.