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Anyone else rebuilding their life in middle age?

Nat7146

I'm Nat, a 48 year old female autistic, and I have been in recovery from agoraphobia and panic attacks since 2011. I've basically lost 15 years of my life to the extremes of panic attacks. It didn't help that half way through I was made homeless (in 2017). Several years of temporary housing placements and uncertainty followed, and this period of complete instability, decimated what little function I had left. I became totally non functional in 2019, resulting in a 4 month hospital stay. The whole ordeal of hospital, added to and aggravated the already severe PTSD that I was attempting to manage. I now have medical phobia on top of my difficulties as a direct result of that hospitalisation. I've spent the years since that hospitalisation, slowly rebuilding my function and getting some kind of life and function back.

I'm extremely fortunate in that I have stable housing finally, which has massively helped. I also have regular weekly support for a few hours which has also helped enormously. It's taken a long time to get where I am today, but I have gradually managed to resolve some of the worst difficulties that I was left with. My sleep was completely demolished and I basically became fully nocturnal. My appetite was dreadful, and I was binge drinking to manage the panic. 

I'm finally at a point where I have good routines for sleep, eating and exercise, which I'm able to maintain alone at home, mostly now. I'm able to walk very short distances outside (with conditions) compared to several years ago when even sitting in the garden for 5 to 10 minutes was hugely difficult. The depression and overwhelm feelings that I lived with intently every day, have diminished and I've weaned myself off of all the medications I was put on. I don't drink alcohol at all now.  Finally my head feels like it is clearing from the dreadful fog of total overwhelm and heavy medications. 

I've been fortunate to have had 3 years of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, which made a good dent into the trauma symptoms I was living with for so many years. I have also managed to get a decent regular meditative practice going, now the worst of the overwhelming emotions have started to calm down. Meditation is something that I can tell has made a tangible difference to how my mind and body reacts to things. 

I'm at a pretty good place currently with day to day life. It feels like I'm slowly waking from a coma and coming back to life. 

I still have considerable restrictions on not being able to leave my home due to the agoraphobia, but I am working on this. My main priorities now are to maintain my current function whilst adding things to my life to increase function in areas where there are still difficulties. 

I would love to be able to work again and earn my own money, but it's several years away yet I feel. I'm focusing on increasing my interactions online and in real life to become more comfortable with interacting with people generally. Ideally I would like to find some kind of voluntary work this year or next. If voluntary work is achievable, then that gives me confidence for paid work further down the line. 

I would be interested in hearing from and connecting with other people who are also rebuilding their life in middle age, after a long period of societal absence. I'm interested in what strategies other people have used and what they found helpful vs what they found unhelpful. 

  • I was a 60s Type Mod with a rebellious streak for a good chunk of my adult life.  I refused to grow up.  In early 2016, I decided that enough was enough.  I fessed up to the fact that I prefer Germany over England and I dropped the Mod charade and decided to start being myself.

  • in reply to RachelO

    Thank you for replying and it seems we both have perseverance! 

    I'm glad things have improved for you, after such difficulties in your life. 

    I'm hoping over then next year or two to widen my ability to go outside more, and further away. At the moment my outside world options are incredibly limited due to the agoraphobia. I'm glad to hear that outside trips have helped you. 

  • You have perseverance.

    I am diagnosed with autism and have had a history of an eating disorder, most recently anorexia nervosa. The eating disorder started at 15, and I had my first admission at 21 for an eating disorder to an inpatient hospital. For the rest of my 20s I remained with an eating disorder and my mid 20s got very unwell again. I ended up at home with a severe condition at 29 and thought my life was over. Weight gain caused me months to stay in the home because it made me too anxious to go outside. I spent about one year in the home. I continued like this to 34 when I decided to go college. I still had an eating disorder. By 40 I started to reflect and by 41 I had become more unwell again. I went into hospital at 42 and stayed there for 3 years in 4 different inpatient units. It was them who picked on the autism and started treating with autistic traits. I then left hospital and was on a Community treatment order for four years in the community with spells in inpatient. In February 2022 I left the eating disorder services. I relapsed and was agreed to go to palliative by a high court judge and was very close to death. I woke up in palliative and was sent to a medical hospital in June 2023 at 50 years old.

    I spent some weeks in the medical hospital recovering and then was discharged home in July 2023 severely emaciated. I didn’t leave the house much and had some carers come in and just went to church to April 2024 when I decided to do more for my autism because it was moderate in stereotyped behaviours and repetition that staying at home on one thing was not good for me I thought.

    I started to go on day trips in 2024 on a boat Uber, parks and a zoo. I would get transport to the station and catch a train. I would plan the journey and try and go out at least once a month. It helped to jog my memory of my life.

    I started to get better from the eating disorder. I applied for a voluntary job in January 2025 and got accepted as an OT voluntary assistant. I have voluntary work I would to do in a hospital to, my dream job. I had good spiritual advice at hospital by someone nice and would like to do the same.

    What has helped me-my activities, having the time to recover and taking things day by day and not worrying too much.

    I do get anxious about going out sometimes, but like to prioritise things.  Like seeing my parents is important and so is church to me to so I have protected them that I need to go and tell myself this anxiety is not based on fact but anxiety.

    Doing things online like blogging is helpful to me and there are autistic groups in some areas to where you can meet once a week.