A brand new source of anxiety and depression

[Sarah]

It's something I've discovered since both finding a medication that actually works for me, and turning 30. I now feel this sense of loss and almost of mourning for all the years that I lost to this ridiculous disease. I understand that 30 isn't old, but hey. I'm on the front end of this new generation of severe early onset nostalgia. Now that I have more clarity and confidence than I've had... possibly ever, I look back at all of the typical teenage and twenty-something experiences I missed out on and realize, sometimes with an extremely heavy sadness, that there's just no way of getting those things back. I simply have to accept the fact that what's gone is gone, which leads me to this sense of grief and loss. It's so bad at times that the most inane things, like an episode of a tv show I used to watch, can trigger some massive anxiety and depression.

I've almost completely moved past the guilt and shame of accomplishing next to nothing since receiving my bachelor's, and even have tentative plans to go back for a master's. But this grief over a dead youth is something I can't shake. Anyone experience similar feelings?

[intheprocess]

My childhood and teen years were taken away from me and I cannot have them back. My counselor says I am very strong to have gotten through those years and that I am successful. I think you are strong to have kept going.

[I am Larry]

It's something I've discovered since both finding a medication that actually works for me, and turning 30. I now feel this sense of loss and almost of mourning for all the years that I lost to this ridiculous disease. I understand that 30 isn't old, but hey. I'm on the front end of this new generation of severe early onset nostalgia. Now that I have more clarity and confidence than I've had... possibly ever, I look back at all of the typical teenage and twenty-something experiences I missed out on and realize, sometimes with an extremely heavy sadness, that there's just no way of getting those things back. I simply have to accept the fact that what's gone is gone, which leads me to this sense of grief and loss. It's so bad at times that the most inane things, like an episode of a tv show I used to watch, can trigger some massive anxiety and depression.

I've almost completely moved past the guilt and shame of accomplishing next to nothing since receiving my bachelor's, and even have tentative plans to go back for a master's. But this grief over a dead youth is something I can't shake. Anyone experience similar feelings?

I experience similar feelings. I am 62 and have extreme grief, guild, and self-condemnation over time--decades--lost. All of the good that I once had, I destroyed by my own doing. I could handle my life falling apart due to a natural disaster or someone else blowing up my life, but to know that I and I alone destroyed my life with addiction is unbearable. I can only blame myself and will do so until I die which I hope is soon. That is my desire every morning: to die today.

You have more time to get some things back but more importantly to create new things than many of us. I love you.