Morbid Thoughts

Respect to you TriciaF for you and Millie.

Hey young woman! "wonderful - 80 and going online"!
I'll be 80 next year and it's going online that keeps me going
Milly - you do seem to have a wonderfully positive attitude.

Milly - you are wonderful - 80 and going on line. These young doctors mean well but I do find them difficult to interact with. They are younger than my youngest son and he's coming up to 40.

The thing with valium is that it's very addictive and I'm weaning myself off it at the moment. The doctor offered me a different anti anxiety pill but I decided to stop taking pills altogether - fingers crossed

Wonder if this sort of things runs in families as I know a few people that have suffered from this from quite a young age and eventually realised that other family members were the same. Caused one of them to drink quite heavily. It's only affected me since I've got older but I'm talking about quite young people here. And it's the sort of thing that you don't bring up in conversation generally so tend to think it's 'just you'.

3 am is a really dangerous time. There are things that I just can't help picking over if I'm awake then. I have got better at telling myself not to be so silly because it will all look different in the morning - and it always does!

Milly just a thought, could it be medication related? Some do seem to affect the mind more than others.

I'm hoping light evenings and sunshine will help, I'm not a winter person at all!

I have just picked up on this thread. I thought I was the only one daft enough to worry about a) getting old and helpless b) being left alone. My Mum used to say that she rather enjoyed a good worry! but I certainly don't. That old saying "today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday" is useful at times, and I always berate myself for actually wasting precious time worrying unnecessarily - but these thoughts do creep up on me when I am awake in the night. Certainly looking forward to lighter evenings and summer - hopefully we will all feel better then!

I watched a film last night about a giant crocodile that was going around killing people; fell straight to sleep afterwards and didn't to everyone, though...

How comforting to know I am not alone with my "anxiety thing" as I call it to myself. And interesting to read about there being two personalities.
One half of me panics and gets depressed and the other half tells it not to be so silly, we've been through all this before and its "all in the mind".
My doctor is treating me for high blood pressure, and I tried to get him to give me some Valium or equivalent, but he is young and wouldn't, as I might get addicted (does that matter at 80) just increased the blood pressure tablets, which makes me a bit zombie like.

I too have found its been much worse since my husband died, though I can remember him saying "if you didn't have anything to worry about you'd worry about that" so I must always have been like this.

The best cure is to listen to radio discussion progs. or watch tv or get lost in a book (I recommend Gransnet Book Club) so that you don't think "how am I" have I got a pain, is my pulse too slow, will I die in Hospital or be allowed to stay at home etc.etc.

Ha Ha, yes I also try and think up names to send me to sleep - a lot of people have names beg. with B I discovered.

I have only started to have morbid and depressing thoughts, since I have lived alone. When my husband was alive we always had interesting things to do, and plans to look forward to,I never thought beyond those moments...since living alone I have started new hobbies, joined several organisations, and made new friends. But when the door closes and I am alone again my TV becomes my company...then as an avid reader, I enjoy a good book to read before laying down to sleep....But then the depressing thoughts begin, and the loneliness and morbid thoughts start I wake up every morning feeling unbelievable depressed....once up and active again it all fades away until the next night, and the next, i now dread going to bed I read happy stories, I count my blessings of my health etc....so WHY does this happen..is it part of the fear of dying in the subconscious mind. I expect this is quite common as we become older.

It happens to me sometimes first thing in the morning, especially if I've had a bad night. I lie there thinking, how am I ever going to get through all these jobs? Once I get up and going I'm ok.
And I do talk about dying, but I'm not depressed about it.
Husband thinks my obsession with WW2 is morbid.

I do sometimes at night. Pretty scary when I think I might not wake up. It has stopped me going to sleep.

Miisery memoirs NotTooOld, I couldn't believe the number of shelves in book shops taken up with this genre of writing.
I wonder, if there are two minds, whether one dominates and what happens when they conflict? I was unaware of such a concept, fascinating indeed, I must dig out Gross' Psychology tome from student nurse days....

Strangely, I get less of these thoughts now I am older (67) than when I was in my 30s and 40s. Don't understand 'why'.

It is fascinating.

I've always liked the idea of sub-personalities (normal not pathological).

It's like a committee with, say, the scared one, the whingey one, the assertive one, the confident one etc. and a chair at the head of the table monitoring it all.

PS - it is the idea of these two minds "talking" to each other that really fascinates me.

Hilda - that book and others reinforce some aspects of Freud's idea that I find fascinating - that we have two minds - one is unconscious (from which that annoying thought came) and the other is conscious and is "watching" what the unconscious mind is "saying" and bringing it to book if it is off track - I find the idea fascinating.

Falcon - how much TV is too much I wonder? If you are enjoying it and it is helping you then then what is wrong with it? You are judging yourself too harshly - a CBT concept! You have to imagine what you might say about it to a friend in your circumstances - I am sure you would be kinder.

Oh, Nonnie, I bet you are! Mind you, I sometimes think that being wise is not a good thing. Better to remain in ignorance and bliss!

NTO that explains it, I amy be older but I am not wiser!

Perhaps that's it, just getting older and wiser, knowing more about the world, can bring on sad thoughts. I do think keeping busy and active is a good thing to do although I can't do much of that at the moment being only two weeks and five days post-op (I'm counting!).

I think Falconbird's comment about watching happy TV programmes also applies to books. When I'm thinking of buying a new book on my kindle I always look in the 'Humour' section first and I definitely steer clear of the 'misery memoirs'.

Only very occasionally. I think if it were to happen on a daily basis i might go and see my doc.

Falconbird Gransnet can certainly be there for you when you need to talk about things as we have found these past couple of days from the very brave posts we have been reading,I think worrying comes to all of us and now that the years are passing much quicker than I ever imagined they would I do think about what I will do when I am alone or hubby is on his own these thoughts always grab me during the night when I wake about 3/4am could it be when you resistance is at its lowest do you think.

I think as we get older and have seen a lot (sometimes too much of life) we can become low in spirits.

I've been through too many traumas in the past year and do sometimes think really sad thoughts about life in general and have flashbacks to traumatic events.

I worry about dying alone, having a breakdown, my children abandoning me, my DIL saying I can't see the GKs anymore, being terminally ill, cruelty to animals and children, you name it I dwell on it.

I watch too much TV but then why not. I keep to happier programmes or documentaries where people have come through terrible times and emerged on the other side.

I thought it was mainly because of the way my life has turned out, but maybe it's part of growing older.

My mum certainly dwelt a lot on her life and she wasn't diagnosed as being depressed. although I think she was.

She would tell me over and over again about things that had happened to her and she found it cathartic. I don't have a person like that, but I have Gransnet.

I have them all the time but then I'm clinically depressed. I didn't realise 'normal' people had them too.

I get mine at about 4am if I can't sleep.