Turning 30, struggling with anxiety/depression, and other issues

Hello and welcome to EC!

The main problem that I got from your post was that you tend to focus on how young everyone is compared to yourself. At your age, 29 going onto 30 is far from old, i mean sure you may not be a 'twink' anymore but thats not a big deal. You have your whole life ahead of you. I think on average, gays normally start accepting themselves and start to come out in their early 20's so you were actually on trend.

I've have seen so many stories on EC of guys much older than you in their 40's and 50's who have only just accepted that they are gay or have made the unfortunate mistake of being married to a woman, essentially living a lie but have found the courage to divorce. However they took things in stride and they strive to live a happier life they always dreamed of.

The most important thing that you must deal with is that you need to stop looking into the past and clinging onto your failures because we cannot change it. Its best to concentrate on the present/future since you can shape it into however you want. You've got to make the most of what you have now.

I think baby steps are a good starting point here. If you want to get into shape then it will take some effort. Join a gym if you haven't already done so and maybe go like once or twice a week to get things going. Perhaps you have a friend that would be willing to join you for motivation?

If you want a social life then have a look at all the clubs in your local area. What interests you? Perhaps join a book club if you like to read? or maybe an LGBT club to meet other gays? Also the more people you meet, the more chance of finding that special guy.

I have no idea what to say about your professional life sorry...

I hope you stick around EC and surround yourself with like-minded people.

Stay strong! (*hug*)

 

Maybe you’re discounting the positive outcomes so you won’t have to deal with a negative shock. If it actually turns out that the negative outcome is the true one, you’ll already expect it, so won’t be let down. If it’s the positive outcome, which it probably is in most cases, then you’ll have a positive shock. The trouble is all the worrying about the negative outcomes, and missing opportunities because of it. I’ve had this problem (especially when people I’m attracted to are involved), but I’m trying hard to change it.

The youth thing is probably a normal reaction to age milestones after 18 (or 21), but if you think about it, most of us will probably live to be about 80. If we become adults at, say, 18, our adult lives will last 62 years. From that perspective, even age 50 is only about halfway through. Being gay might make it harder, especially if you’re attracted to ‘twinks’. I’m a bi ‘twink’ myself, and on the gay side I’ve honestly only ever been attracted to other ‘twinks’, which does make me nervous when I think about the possibility of a gay relationship. I find it hard to imagine a guy being attracted to me as a non-‘twink’, and vice-versa. On the straight side, though, I often find older women attractive, so I’m sure there are gay guys with similar views.

I’m a postgrad too, so I know how hard it can be. Where I live, a full education through doctorate is 8 years in theory, but at least 9 or 10 for most people. At times, it can feel like you’re wasting your youth, when some of your fellow students started working in high-paying jobs after 3-5 years, and settled down, but you’re still a student. If you also have to move a lot (e.g. after each degree), it can make things even worse, since you feel like you can’t even settle down. I went through a rough patch, but it really changed when I got a strong signal of a good job offer after I finish, that won’t require moving home yet again, and I got to the point where I had enough knowlede and leeway to feel like I could choose the direction for my career after I finish. All the anxiety and stress just vanished, and now I’m really motivated. I don’t know how the system in the USA works, but if you can get some certainty about your job application, and decide what you want to do, it might help to motivate you.

As a last point, judging yourself by comparing with others will never come out well. There will always be someone who’s smarter, fitter, more attractive, more successful, younger, etc. As an atheist, I believe we have to give our lives purpose, but that also means we can decide what the purpose is. If you decide your purpose is to be as good as or better than everyone else, then you’ll fail. On the other hand, if you can make a difference, even only a small one, for the world or people you care about, then you can make that your purpose, and go for it.

 

Hey Scyld. Welcome to EC. :smilewave

Let me just say that you're story could have been written by me. Not only do we think exactly alike, I just turned thirty a couple of months ago. For me the whole turning thirty thing forced me to go back into therapy. I panicked as I realized that my life was slipping away from me, and that I'd let so many good opportunities go by because I was too afraid to seize them. My life isn't where I wanted it to be.

The best advice that I can give you is to consider therapy for your anxiety and depression issues. And don't hunt down a therapist who is just a pill pusher. I suggest Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is what I'm doing.

Also, something that has helped me a lot in recent months was learning to stay focused on the present. I spent a large amount of time worried about what COULD happen or what DIDN'T happen - I was either living in the past or preparing for the worst-case scenario future. Meanwhile what was going on right now was passing me by...

In fact a lot of my anxiety comes from excessive worrying. "Oh my god. What will this person think? I'm going to make a fool of myself, I know it. I need to prepare, to work harder." The worrying led me to become an insane perfectionist.

Things were so bad that when I tried to find positive thoughts to motivate myself to overcome obstacles in my life - I failed miserably. Positivity was something I didn't do well - if at all. What I discovered was that I only tried to be positive after I had already become negative, and I was just using positivity as a way to counter the negativity. Since by that point I was already starting to feel anxiety, it was pretty much a losing battle.

The only thing that has worked for me is telling myself to stop as soon as I caught it happening. The moment I catch myself starting to go negative, or I start to sense myself drifting off into the old familiar thoughts the first thing I do is say: "Stop." Like seriously, sometimes I even catch myself saying it out loud. I don't try to think positive. I just tell myself to stop, and remind myself that I don't think that way anymore. I try to focus my attention back on what I'm doing at that very moment.

Frequently, though, I find that when I'm at my worst is when I'm idle. That's when my mind has time to click and start to worry. So, one of the best things for me to do is to focus my attention and mind on something else. If there is literally nothing else for me to focus on, I try and focus on not thinking this way anymore... basically trying to drown out the critical voice in my head with other thoughts. I cut him off and shut him down.

When I'm in a more emotionally stable place, that's when I try to focus on something positive. Going positive for me has to be a preemptive strike against negativity. It has to be the first thing I think about, and if it isn't I go back to telling myself to stop.

Recently, I've had someone reaffirm this in my life. A direct quote from her, "The point of power is in the present moment. Don't look back. Don't look forward. Stay in the moment. ... Where you are is perfect. Whatever you're going through it's a life lesson that needs to be learned."

I think that's true. Life is full of hard and tough lessons that we have to learn one way or another. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, as they say, and at the end of the day I think our struggles make us deeper and more rounded as individuals. I mean, I can look back over my life and some of the hardships I've faced and its clear at how they shaped me into the person I am today. And while I may not be as perfect as I'd like, I know at the end of the day that I'm a fairly good and decent person. I also realize that the greatest obstacle to my happiness and success isn't someone else - it's myself.

 

First of all Hi!!! :smilewave

Second of all I am not the only one!!!! Man I thought I was the only one dealing with this kind of identity issues hear. Growing up sucked same for me, College I was kind of a nomad focusing on studies and when you have a learning disability crippling you now and again doesn't help much either and being socially awkward and you can't tell your folks why. >>;;;;

I'm 27....granted I'll be 30 in three years...BUT let me tell you this. Talking to someone IS GOOD!! Believe me when I say that. My brother actually told me about one that he once saw just to ease some anxiety and I swear that is all I need now and again. I'm see a therapist every few weeks just to ease my mind and you have no idea how great it is to get some of the stress off your back. Just having someone to vent for at least a good hour or so is the best thing in the world.

What I also suggest being from one person who also has anxiety/depression is to find a way to make use of your time. Find a routine that you can create and try to stick with it. Don't try to force yourself, if you forget one day that's no big deal, shrug it off and pick up where you left off. Don't over do it, overdoing it tends to lead to frustration and complications and higher anxiety and that's the last thing you need. Always find something to do...where it be walking thinking, drawing heck even thinking aloud because you're at least doing something....^^;;; You're hearing something. But that's a last resort right there. XD

As for turning 30, I've had those moments where I keep thinking OMG O_O my life is over I'm so OLD AHHH!!. *insert panic mode* STOP!! And think. It's not over. It's JUST Beginning when you think about it. Plus you did mention earlier you like to play video games and such right? Well look at it in the gaming sense. You are Level 30.

I hope anything I said, does make sense or at least helps out in some way. Stay strong!!

 

Hey there! And welcome to EC! :smilewave

First of all, I’m jumping on the bandwagon: I had to check if I hadn’t accidentally written that post myself. Obviously a lot of the finer details are different, but it does look pretty similar to my coming out (mainly focusing on study/research, only accepting it at around 25, taking my sweet time to do anything about it even after coming out, and having the feeling that there was indeed a massive amount of time wasted that I could have spent on socializing/meeting (gay) people)

Already a lot of good points were raised by the others, that I do agree with. If you're the over-worrying kind (I'm one of those too), then it's tempting to only see the negatives, but the truth is that you still have all the time you want/need to still achieve whatever goals you set in your personal or professional life. In fact, thirty is really the time when you start having a convenient routine, when you start having financial freedom, and the opportunity to really do whatever you want to do.


An anecdote that helped me deal with this: one of my friends is the opposite of me (and you). He came out when we were 17, wasted very little time in coming out to everyone else he knew, and then became a fixture in the local gay scene. Over the years, while I was studiously working at my engineering degree, and hoping I would still one day wake up straight, he would move from gay society to gay (and straight) bar, meeting people, dating guys, and generally living the traditional student lifestyle.
Obviously, when I came out to him, comparing our lives was a pretty evident topic to discuss.
…and it turned out he was jealous of me. About how I took my time, could do everything free of hghschool/college peer pressure, and how I could use the extra experience in life to avoid many of the dumb mistakes one would make at an earlier age.

Jealousy was very much not what I expected, and the grass is always greener on the other side (so he might not have been seeing the drawbacks), but whenever I feel like I wasted time, I think of that again: there are definite positives to coming out when you’re having a better idea of what you want in life, or when you have faced some other issues and hardships. You’re more likely to be level-headed in exploring new experiences. And as this thread attests, you’re far from the only one doing this in your late 20s.


I do much the same for my other anxieties, by the way. There are many examples of when I jumped to the worst possible conclusion, and where the situation turned out to be totally innocuous. (and in fact next to no examples where my fears were right). So when I find myself overanalyzing, I always try to remember one other similar situation where I thought something similar, and was totally wrong.
It doesn’t perfectly alleviate the momentary panic, but it is better to focus on those than on “what if’s”.


In any case: I think you’re actually doing the right thing right now: trying to get out more, and taking baby steps towards being more social and meeting more people. It’s not a miracle solution, but it seems you already got way farther than you ever thought you would be 5 years ago.

And, as Lad123 says, it might also be worthwhile to see if there’s other venues you could try. Clubs are geared towards a younger crowd, but many people in their later 20’s develop other interests. So other gay societies or groups might have a crowd closer to your own age and interests.

And, of course, as you see, we have no lack of people in a similar situation here, so I hope you’ll stick around to post. I’m sure we can offer some help and friendship henever you need it!

 

if you're looking for someone to chat with feel free to write on my wall.

 

Hey--

We have somewhat similar stories. I am also a science PhD with a sucky thesis. Unfortunately, I didn't question my orientation until my 30s during my postdoc and didn't really come out until recently in my late 30s, after a long spurt of anxiety and depression.

Recently I went on sabbatical and I was back in a graduate school environment for 6 months. What I learned (or, more properly), is that almost everyone in graduate school doubts themselves and doesn't feel much hope for the future. I think that's just part of it, and part of the mismatch between the ideal world of science and the reality of it. It seems so noble at the time, but it's not what it turns out to be in the end!

You should take up mindfulness meditation; it's a great thing, and it has you focus on the present rather than the past. Anxiety is the intolerance toward uncertainty, and mindfulness is the acceptance of it, as well as the compassion toward oneself to accept it. I recommend The Mindful Way through Anxiety: Break Free from Chronic Worry and Reclaim Your Life. I really helped me a lot. I do hope you deal with the anxiety issues; that's what helped me come out, and I feel a lot better and far less hopeless than I did before.

There's nothing to be gained on beating yourself up on what you did on the past. I wish I had done things differently, but these are things I can't change. Focusing on what I can do now and how I am now really helps. Yes, it isn't easy, but I don't think it's necessarily easy for anyone. Mostly, I am focusing on creating the opportunities to meet people and planning what I can, and doing the best to accept the uncertainty life brings. There are plenty of single people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, although it's harder outside of school to meet them, and you have to do more than in your 20s, and make the time to do more. Certainly it is possible I could be single forever, but without doing something, I will certainly be single forever.

And mostly, be patient with yourself, and be patient with others. Things will not change over night, but they will change.

 

Hey Scyld, welcome to EC

Your story sounds quite similar to mine in some ways - my teens and twenties sucked big time. But believe me, things can and do get better. I'm 31 now. Just a couple of months ago I was really struggling with my sexuality. Now, having embraced it finally, I have a social life for the first time in my life, a new circle of acquaintances who are rapidly becoming friends, and above all, high hopes for the future.

Sure, life now isn't without it's anxieties - like you I start worrying if I don't get quick replies to messages, but I'm learning to deal with that sort of thing.

Hang in there dude, trust me - if I can turn myself around, there's hope for anyone.

 

When I went into therapy earlier this year in the first session my therapist asked if I thought of myself as a perfectionist. I told him no, because I had the exact same thought that you did. "Look at my life. I'm a giant failure, obviously. I'm far from perfect, and no matter how hard I try I can't even do something simple right. I'm destined to screw it up no matter how hard I try."

Just to be clear, perfectionism has nothing to do with doing things right or perfectly. There is no such thing as perfect, and because of that a perfectionist is always destined for failure. A perfectionist will NEVER achieve their goals or ambitions because their ambitions and goals are unrealistic.

Perfectionism has nothing to do with healthy striving for self-improvement. It is, at its core, an attempt to try and earn acceptance and approval from others.

Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, live perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgement, and blame.

It is self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal. Additionally, perfectionism is more about perception - we want to be perceived as perfect. Again, this is unattainable - there is no way to control perception, regardless of how much time and energy we spend trying.

It is addictive because when we invariably do experience shame, judgment, and blame, we often believe it's because we weren't perfect enough. So rather than questioning the faulty logic of perfectionism, we become even more entrenched in our quest to live, look, and do everything just right. Feeling shamed, judged, and blamed (and the fear of these feelings) are realities of the human experience. Perfectionism actually increases the odds that we'll experience these painful emotions and often leads to self-blame: It's my fault. I’m feeling this way because "I'm not good enough."

Perfectionism is a shield that we lug around thinking that it will protect us, when in fact it only leads us down a self-destructive path of depression, anxiety, addiction, and life-paralysis. (Life-paralysis is what happens when we're too afraid of taking the risk of putting ourselves out into the world, so we miss opportunities, and abandon dreams due to a fear of failing, making mistakes, and disappointing other people.) When a perfectionist fails at something, they're not just failing at that one thing - their entire self-worth is on the line. A failure at something therefore directly reflects on who they are as a person.

I think it's important to point this out, because a lot of people assume perfectionism is like some inner drive toward self-improvement or success. The complete opposite is true, and in fact research shows that perfectionism actually hampers success. The difference between perfectionism and healthy striving is this: healthy striving is self-focused - "How can I improve?", and perfectionism is other-focused - "What will they think?"

One of the most insidious ways it manifests, at least for me, is shading over and covering up things about myself that may be shameful, embarrassing, or something that may lead to me being judged in a negative light. As an example, asking for help or admitting that something is wrong is extremely hard for me. "They'll think I'm stupid if I ask for help with this, maybe I can do without it or figure it out on my own." "If I admit that what was said offended me, then they'll just think I'm a wimp and a crybaby. So I'm not going to say anything." "Soandso could probably do this, and if anyone knows that I can't do it as well then they'll know just how worthless I really am." "Nobody can ever find out about that. If they find out, then they'll discover just how big of a fuck up I really am."

As you can see, for me, perfectionism often means silence. It means I withdraw myself from other people, or at least keep them at a healthy distance, because I'm afraid that if they got really close they'd see just how "imperfect" that I really am. Of course, the reality is that I'm no more or less perfect than anyone else, but in my mind my failures and shortcomings become exaggerated to epic proportions and it ends up distorting how I view myself.

I'm not saying you're a perfectionist though - just to be clear. That's something you'll have to decide for yourself, or with a therapist or something. I just know that your reaction was the same as mine earlier this year, and after I realized what perfectionism actually was, it was like being slapped in the face. Everyone experiences some degree of perfectionism, though, some more than others. For me, it was crippling and debilitating.

 

I know you replied to my post earlier on, but many things got said in this thread in the space of a day. Quoting all of those would be messy and unreadable, so I'll offer my thoughts as they are.

In addition to Aldrick's post about perfectionism, I'd also like to cite my own tendency towards "impostor syndrome". (click the button to expand, it's a long story)

Spoiler

You see... I mostly live my days in the terrible knowledge that sometime, any minute now, people will figure out I'm really an abject failure. Not a failure in the sense of other people failing, no. Other people mess up, learn from it or fix it, and go back to being successful. They become better through failing.
But I... really did nothing worthwhile in my life. My thesis was lots of research to produce a stack of paper to rot somewhere in a uni library. No one's going to use it, as it's really a big list of things that don't work at solving that particular question.
At work, I get by purely on lucky guesses and otherwise jumping responsibility and doing the bare minimum, while I could be doing so much more!
When meeting other people, I'm always expecting them to sometimes realise I'm not all that interesting, and that it's really pathetic to only start trying to be outgoing in my late 20's

Every time I have to do something, I really go in expecting that this will be the one to do me in, in which people will discover the abysmal depths of my failure and call me out on it. It always feels like putting my head on the chopping block.
...then only to be quite amazed when it's over that no such thing happens.

You'd think I'd eventually grow wise to the fact that if I really were a failure, people would have found out by now. That if my failure were so enormous as I think it is, even mediocrity would be outside my grasp. That people wouldn't stay friends with me if I wasn't good friend material.
And that I'd sometimes stop always feeling like I'm barely "getting away with it".
That the only possible conclusion is that I'm doing quite OK. That maybe I'm not a genius, but still quite good at what I do.

But while I am to the point of realising on an intellectual level that things aren't so bad, I'm still struggling with feeling it. Occasionally it even drives me to lament my failure at not seeing I'm not a failure :dry:

I guess being gay did have some part in it. "Being straight" was the one thing I can say I legitimately kept failing at! :lol:

To me, it seems you're doing the same thing: you're not really different from other people in your capacity for success. You're just prone to redefine success in ways that put it out of your grasp (ex post facto if need be), and to see any situation you're in only in the ways in which it can fail.
And then I can say: "dude, you're a PhD student, which is an achievement in and of itself, and in any lab I knew about, taking 7 or 8 years for it was not exceptional at all!". I'd even be right. But you'd have to allow yourself to see it.

I do, actually, have a strategy to overcome this. It is, in a way, close to Olin's mindfulness meditation: I try to completely focus on the present, and pretend the past never existed. I assume the world was made five seconds ago (allowing for pre-loaded memories of past events). I just came into existence, with some problems I have to solve, but I'm otherwise not at fault or to blame for them. All past experiences are just a library to find solutions in.
And quite often, that's when I find the courage to say "okay, let's get this show on the road!"

Actually, in the case of my thesis, it did involve putting my head on the chopping block. I talked to my supervisor and said: "hey, I know I'm not exactly in good shape here. Too little data, too broad in my literature, and my chapter on materials and methods has omissions you could drive a truck through. So I really think we should schedule a couple of hours to work through this together: where we are and where we need to go to make this a defensible thesis!". Turned out to do more good than trying to "hide" my "failures" ever did. She was perfectly happy, apparently, at my desire to move onwards instead of chewing over and over on the data I had. Wasn't exactly a revolutionary thesis (and as mentioned above, I retroactively consigned it to "failure" afterwards anyway), but it got the job done.

Yeah, it's a struggle. And it takes time and some discipline to force your mind out of the failure obsession. I can say that in the span of a couple of years, I did improve dramatically in that respect, though.

So: try it sometimes: you're a space alien beamed down into the body of Scyld. you can use his assets and his memories to hammer out a solution. Go for it! :icon_wink



As if this post isn't long enough: thoughts on the "gay front" of things.

Well hey! Seems they don't believe it's only for the really young ones! If they find ways to have fun there, maybe you will as well!

I am thinking that if there isn't anything you can immediately see geared towards gay men (besides clubbing).. then you might want to do some other hobby and just be out and open about your sexuality while doing so. I met precisely all of my gay friends in the pursuit of other hobbies. It's slower (only one in ten of the guys you meet that way will be gay), but at least you can be sure you'll have shared interests (conversely: in a gay club, 100% is gay, but you might only share interests with 10% of those).