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.
Hey Brother, very sorry for your losses. Unfortunately/fortunately, you and I share some similarities.
I work in cloud/tech, in my 30’s, successful, enjoy my job and my father passed two years ago (suicide) and I also modeled my career off of him.
The loss hit me very hard, all I can tell you is what helped me and maybe it will for you but obviously this will be your own journey. I’m in a very happy place now after a lot of work.
I tried to throw myself into work after my father’s death, realized it was making things worse. I took FMLA after being diagnosed with major depression/anxiety, got on anti depressants, started journaling, quit drinking (used it to cope heavily), began therapy, dove heavily into fitness and took up a hobby my father and I shared (golf) to feel a connection to him still.
I used the extended time off to focus on my grief/recovery almost like a job. I had a routine every day, and between all the above mentioned efforts I was able to get a clearer head, understand the path forward, all the while still maintaining a closeness with my father.
I highly recommend taking this very pointed approach to “recovering” from the loss. Trying to live your normal life while processing all of this trauma is just too much, or at least it was for me.
Shoot me a message if this was helpful and you need/want more info. Best of luck.