Anyone else getting older and feel like you've seen it all? That there's just a certain point where life becomes unmeaningful

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

This is something that's been bothering me for a long time. Ever since I was about 23 years old, I could noticeably feel the decline in life, and realised the best years were behind me, so now I am just waiting for it all to be done. I know it is a very normal part of aging for things to become repetitive or habitual, the conceptualisation of time completely changes with maturity.

I first started working when I was 16, and had to endure so many bad, physical demanding jobs. I never got to have a "normal teenage life", was never invited to parties, never went on dates, didn't have a friend group, was constantly bullied and ostracised, groomed and sexually abused, so my teenage years were spent simply surviving.

At 17 I first became ill with chronic fatigue and my health snowballed downwards from there. A year or two after I became sick, which no one cared about of course and believed it wasn't real, I was working in another crappy retail job, and they kept telling me that eventually I would get stronger, the pain would lessen etc but it never did and years later my body is completely messed up, I have multiple spinal problems causing me a great deal of pain if I try to live any semblance of a normal life, and doctors won't prescribe anything except useless paracetamol.

Throughout my young adult years, every family member I knew except one died or cut me off/wanted nothing to do with me. I dealt with abuse after abuse. Major surgery, more health problems. I thought I finally found some friends at university but it was too good to be true, and I realised no one is ever going to relate to all I've been through.

Now, the later 20s are creeping up on me, and I'm surrounded by the reality that most people my age are focused on careers, buying houses, marriage and kids, none of which interest me, especially when my body is so tired and messed up, and I'm stuck in a marriage that makes me feel horribly about myself. I genuinely feel like I've seen it all, I have traveled, tried many different things like learning new hobbies and skills, tried for years to cure all my health problems, tried to connect with people, and life is so dull and repetitive, and always getting worse without fail.

It feels as if at a certain point, university ending for me, life just became incredibly aimless and dull. I know for the rest of my life I'm going to be mostly cooped up indoors, struggling to survive, and forced to work low wage terrible jobs because my body can't handle full time work and no one wants to hire a disabled person anyway unless they are completely desperate and in part time retail settings. The double hit of being autistic and physically disabled makes me one of the most undesirable people on the planet.

I am just waiting to die at this point. Whenever I searched online to see if anyone else was talking about this, I noticed so many older adults on places like quora and Reddit telling people to, "Join the club. Aging sucks." I can certainly agree, at least in my situation.

 

[Shrooms]

Just so you know this is just my opinion not a suggestion so do not take anything of this as an actual thing you should/could do. Sounds like you're going through the motions and most people settle for that, so I see 2 options. Option 1 keep living find the smallest meaning in everything and take it all in. Option 2 take action and either make big life changes or CTB. I have found life mostly meaningless so I'm just waiting to complete a couple things before I go.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm so sorry for your situation. I feel like ill health in particular will make everything a million times harder.

I'm not sure if everyone loses interest in life with age. I know of some people who haven't. It certainly becomes harder the older you get though (physically- in my experience.)

Plus, I think it's also about knowing yourself better. By an older age, there's quite possibly a whole lot in life we've already tried to get things to be better. Maybe when we're younger- we're more willing to listen to people who tell us things will improve if only we do this or that. But, if we've done them and, we still feel shit- it tends to diminish the hope we have of either trying the same thing again or, trying something new.

I've started my life over multiple times. It hasn't always been totally in vein but, it hasn't exactly been worth it either- ideation has always been there to some extent and it's been massively strong the past few years. It's really felt like finding the lesser of the evils a lot of the time and to be honest, I'm just exhausted with it all. Plus, I'm in my mid 40's. I feel like I'm going to know myself better than any therapist I speak to and, I just feel too stubborn to change now.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

I'm sorry your life is so rough.

I'm one of the older members here (late 40s) and I can't say "I've seen it all" and to me aging isn't a problem - at least not yet. After a big failure in life the circumstances are the reason y I cannot live my life and basically have to rot at home every day. It'll take many more years until I'm too weak bc of age - how could I ever say "I've seen it all" when I had to rot at home in my best years?

Life is so unfair to so many of us.

 

[J&L383]

I'm sorry your life is so rough.

Life is so unfair to so many of us.

Agree. I discovered at a very early age how life can be cruel to some and also reward others, for no good reason. Which led me on a spiritual search to find the answers. The answer I found is that there are no good answers (but everyone is entitled to their opinion). I just try to enjoy the little things, and set the bad stuff aside.

 

[Aonewayticketplease]

Sorry that you are having to deal with this. I have been working in retail security for a few years now and can confirm that it sucks old arse. Hopefully you can find something better soon.

 

[CatLvr]

I am almost 70 and I can't say that I have seen or done it all. Not even close. But I have crossed enough milestones off that if I left today I can honestly say I've had a good life, even with all the chronic pain issues I've had all my life.

I didn't even realize that most people DON'T hurt every day until I was in my mid-20s. Honest to God, I have had unrelenting headaches all my life (because of abuse I suffered at my relatives' hands) and thought that EVERYBODY did. Imagine my surprise when in my mid-40s I had a surgery and woke up headache-free. I am not exaggerating when I say I thought something was wrong.

And yes, retail sucks ass.

I wish I could tell you it is gonna get better but I'd be lying. What I CAN tell you is you will have really, REALLY good days mixed in with really, REALLY bad days, with lots of "Ehhhh" days in between.

The times I have seriously considered ctb-ing have been the days where I thought I had absolutely no worth left in this world. I felt like a burden to everyone. I now know that had more to do with how certain people in my life were treating me and not because I was really worthless. In fact, the exact opposite was true. These people were using me to make their own lives easier, the whole time telling me how lucky I was/am to have them in my life and no one would ever put up with me if they left.

Funny, I was always the one who would wind up leaving because the abuse just got worse and worse until I couldn't take it anymore -- and this is true of my entire family, except my kids. It's true of the man I am married to now. I am staying, but not because there is any kind of connection there. He managed to FINALLY push me too far, too hard and one too many times. It remains to be seen how long he will hang around -- I will not be the one to leave this time -- but until he goes, or dies, I don't really care which one at this point, I am good with my choices in life.

So, in the end, you just have to decide what you can handle and what you cannot. My chronic pain issues are just what they are. On my worst days I seriously think about eating a bullet but I can't. I can't do that to my children, no matter how old they get. The rest of it I can ignore. My parents trained me REALLY well to tune out the bullshit people who tell you they love you but really don't, will say to get what they want from you. I guess I should thank them for that, at least.

 

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

I'm so sorry for your situation. I feel like ill health in particular will make everything a million times harder.

I'm not sure if everyone loses interest in life with age. I know of some people who haven't. It certainly becomes harder the older you get though (physically- in my experience.)

Plus, I think it's also about knowing yourself better. By an older age, there's quite possibly a whole lot in life we've already tried to get things to be better. Maybe when we're younger- we're more willing to listen to people who tell us things will improve if only we do this or that. But, if we've done them and, we still feel shit- it tends to diminish the hope we have of either trying the same thing again or, trying something new.

I've started my life over multiple times. It hasn't always been totally in vein but, it hasn't exactly been worth it either- ideation has always been there to some extent and it's been massively strong the past few years. It's really felt like finding the lesser of the evils a lot of the time and to be honest, I'm just exhausted with it all. Plus, I'm in my mid 40's. I feel like I'm going to know myself better than any therapist I speak to and, I just feel too stubborn to change now.

You have a really good point about the sense of identity and self getting locked in at a certain point, especially if you're a person who reflects a lot and tries to problem solve, it's extremely frustrating if you go to a therapist and get told things you already tried multiple times years ago.

My experience is pretty similar to yours, despite the age difference, but I have been dealing with the mental health industry since I was a child. By the time I turned 18 I'd exhausted the gammut of psychiatric medications and therapies available, and started getting blamed for "not wanting to improve."

For people in our situation, we need some novel wisdom or interventions, but no matter what it seems to be the most basic cut and paste advice we receive from their end, as if we were newly introduced to them rather than having it battered into our heads a thousand times already. I completely feel you about being exhausted, that's precisely my situation as well. I wish there was a way out of it.

I'm sorry your life is so rough.

I'm one of the older members here (late 40s) and I can't say "I've seen it all" and to me aging isn't a problem - at least not yet. After a big failure in life the circumstances are the reason y I cannot live my life and basically have to rot at home every day. It'll take many more years until I'm too weak bc of age - how could I ever say "I've seen it all" when I had to rot at home in my best years?

Life is so unfair to so many of us.

You always have a lot of wisdom too :) I know firsthand how much being stuck indoors all the time gnaws at you and wears you down, and I wish you didn't have to endure that either.

When I wrote this post I was pretty sleepy, so I think I phrased it badly, but I think I meant seeing all that's available to someone in my situation, without the potential to experience much more due to all the limitations. There were things I still wanted to do, and see, but my health and overall life circumstances prevent it from happening. I can relate to feeling like everything failed completely.

Since all my family is gone, and I won't be having children, and everyone I know has gone their seperate ways pursuing relationships and careers, life feels pretty meaningless, dealing with this shot body.

I am almost 70 and I can't say that I have seen or done it all. Not even close. But I have crossed enough milestones off that if I left today I can honestly say I've had a good life, even with all the chronic pain issues I've had all my life.

I didn't even realize that most people DON'T hurt every day until I was in my mid-20s. Honest to God, I have had unrelenting headaches all my life (because of abuse I suffered at my relatives' hands) and thought that EVERYBODY did. Imagine my surprise when in my mid-40s I had a surgery and woke up headache-free. I am not exaggerating when I say I thought something was wrong.

And yes, retail sucks ass.

I wish I could tell you it is gonna get better but I'd be lying. What I CAN tell you is you will have really, REALLY good days mixed in with really, REALLY bad days, with lots of "Ehhhh" days in between.

The times I have seriously considered ctb-ing have been the days where I thought I had absolutely no worth left in this world. I felt like a burden to everyone. I now know that had more to do with how certain people in my life were treating me and not because I was really worthless. In fact, the exact opposite was true. These people were using me to make their own lives easier, the whole time telling me how lucky I was/am to have them in my life and no one would ever put up with me if they left.

Funny, I was always the one who would wind up leaving because the abuse just got worse and worse until I couldn't take it anymore -- and this is true of my entire family, except my kids. It's true of the man I am married to now. I am staying, but not because there is any kind of connection there. He managed to FINALLY push me too far, too hard and one too many times. It remains to be seen how long he will hang around -- I will not be the one to leave this time -- but until he goes, or dies, I don't really care which one at this point, I am good with my choices in life.

So, in the end, you just have to decide what you can handle and what you cannot. My chronic pain issues are just what they are. On my worst days I seriously think about eating a bullet but I can't. I can't do that to my children, no matter how old they get. The rest of it I can ignore. My parents trained me REALLY well to tune out the bullshit people who tell you they love you but really don't, will say to get what they want from you. I guess I should thank them for that, at least.

Wow, almost 70! Even though it's unfortunate that anyone has to be on this forum in the first place, it's cool to hear from someone of your age and experience. You must be very tough to deal with pain for decades and still be able to cope with things, I'm glad you were able to get surgery that helped you even if it came many years too late after you'd already been dealing with headaches for so long.

How did you manage to work and get this far while dealing with chronic pain? That is kind of the barrier I have hit to having any semblance of an "ok" life at this point. I've vehemently decided against having children, so that slims down the amount of responsibilities that I have to manage, but I still have to figure out a way to survive.

And sometimes the pain gets so bad that my back will physically go stiff and no longer want to move and cooperate. At some level, I started to fear going outside due to all the pain and discomfort, the fatigue, and everything. Even things that were supposed to be fun and enjoyable for me, like taking trips, get ruined if the pain kicks in. It's hard for me to imagine more years of this, I'm "only 25" but going downhill fast.

 

[TAW122]

I'm in my mid 30's and personally I already know what is likely my future in the coming decades and I have no interest in trying to entertain false hope or even to see to the end just to appease society or people around me. I wouldn't even say it is meaningless (or unmeaningful), but the amount of suffering I put up with day to day and the challenges just don't justify the small fleeting pleasure that I get. I certainly don't have any plans to stick around to my late years or even twilight years. I don't think there is ever a thing in this world where I would say I'm glad that I'll live through it, but there are some things that make it a bit more tolerable, if I could even attain it (very much likely out of reach though), but it is generally unique to me and not necessarily a tangible thing.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I guess I've seen it all ever since I gained awareness of the type of world I'm in. I don't really want the bad things in life and the things that people consider to be good like relationships don't mean anything to me. I don't want any more of life and I know there's nothing that can convince me otherwise