Planning For the Future

[SaskiaKC]

I don't know where to post this. I thought I would try it here, since this board is much more of a community than the psychology board I sometimes post on. And I don't post on the horse board anymore -- lots of angry people there, maybe because so many of them don't have horses anymore!

After 40 years of suffering from symptoms of Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome Dysautonomia without knowing what it was, or that it was real, I was finally diagnosed about 20 years ago, but not prescribed any meds. Later on I was, but without being told how they worked, so was afraid to try them.

Now, 20 years on, I have a regular doctor to see, and have been prescribed an SSRI, which helps with the panic and anxiety but hasn't cured it, because there is no cure for the dysautonomia that is the root cause. And now I am retired, so I don't have to struggle with work and commuting and office surroundings anymore.

But I am still trying to improve my life. I am not happy where I live. It is a building, not a community, and I have no community in my neighborhood, which is less a neighborhood than just a locale. I am on the waiting lists for two apartments in two smaller towns where I think there might be more community, from what I have learned about them, but the same panic and anxiety that have made me a loner for 60 years will still be with me, and I am afraid I will be on the edges again, unable to join in and become a member of either community. I don't know whether I should go ahead and try for one of these smaller places, or just give up, be whom I am the way I am, and continue being lonely and unknown but comfortable here.

 

[Diakat]

That’s a big question @SaskiaKC.

I live in a village and grew up in a smaller one hindered of miles away. I work in a big town. I feel part of the community in the village because even without me doing much, just by turning up at the local events I got to know faces and people and eventually sometimes got asked to help or come along to other things.

But smaller can also be harder as everyone knows everything- my cousin cites the example of her baby loss, people would cross the road rather than talk to her because they knew but could not face discussing it. And as a teenager I got fed up of people referring to me as such and such’s granddaughter.

Community can exist anywhere and so can loneliness unfortunately.