to feel I am damaged goods and have wasted my life?

[Wasteofspace1]

Really struggling with the passing of time and the feeling that I have wasted my life. I feel like I'm damaged goods, and that no amount of therapy or positive thinking will put things right in my life.

I'm in my 50's and have never fulfilled my career ambitions, not though lack of ability or opportunities, but I think through fear of failure.

I guess it all stems back to my childhood - had an emotionally abusive upbringing as a teenager, I was a sensitive and insecure child to start with, and then after my parent's divorce my father remarried and the old story, I didn't get on with his new wife, and at the age of 16 I was kicked out of the family home to live with elderly relatives.

Long story short, this all left me feeling desperately insecure and unhappy, and I think has been my over riding priority ever since. Rather than focus on my career after graduating from university, I was only interested and focused on finding a boyfriend who would "save" me. None of this was conscious, its just looking back on it now I realise why i behaved the way I did.

I always shied away from the career I truly wanted to succeed in, for fear of failure, and have always settled for less. After three children, I now work part time from home in a job that is related to the career I wanted to pursue. But I'm now 55 and every day I have that ghastly sick feeling that I have wasted my life and have not achieved anything like I wanted to. I feel that time is passing me by and it's too late to do anything about it.

This is all exacerbated by the fact that my husband and I are separated and my daughters are growing up fast (in their mid to late teens), and soon I will be faced with an empty nest. I am terrified of this prospect, and am becoming increasingly anxious about it. I feel such a failure, and desperately insecure once again. I feel I'm all washed up at 55, with no career, no partner, no financial security. I'm such a fucking waste of space.

How do I come to terms with the fact that I'll never be the person I wanted to be, and live with these terrible regrets?

It’s okay to have these feelings. However it is very difficult to underpin why, and by looking back it can just feel negative.

You don’t talk about your Mum for example. Could you not live with her when young? How is your relationship with both parents now?

I did not get on with my step Dad, and moved out myself at 16. However I made a real effort later in life and we’ve had a great relationship ever since. I see that I was as much to blame as he.

You have three kids! That is great. Some people have to live with the fact that they did not have any. Maybe could not. We are lucky.

You are separating. So am I. Horrible isn’t it. It’s okay to feel rubbish. But it won’t last. You’ll get there!

Intheblackhole yes, you are right. I have spent a lot of my life feeling quite fearful. I was a fearful child, and my traumatic childhood did nothing to allay my fears, turning me into a fearful adult. However, I realise that I need to put the past behind me, and can't blame everything on what happened to me when I was a child. I need to forgive myself, accept that i had a tough upbringing, but now focus on what I'm going to do differently. I have had counselling in the past, with varying degrees of success - I am certainly very self aware, though I find that self awareness doesn't necessarily lead to the necessary change required in one's life. That's where I'm at now I think. I'm all too aware of my weaknesses and insecurities, and the reasons for those, but I now need to find the confidence and strength to make the necessary changes.

Perhaps counselling or therapy might help in this regard, it's certainly something I'll look into, and the self development courses you mention blackhole, thank you!.

spontaneous oh god how bloody unfair snd dreadful for you xx

Waste actually I have to say I am sneakily enjoying just getting a quiet breakfast and walking the dog. I gym it and help out with reading at the local school and doing charity work.

Dh has always worked away so I am pretty good at coping alone. I have grandchildren care one day a week too.

You keep your confidence high and keep looking forward. sometimes a good rant on here really helps

Op this might be no good to you but I googled "how to stop ruminating", and read a lot of things like this:

psychcentral.com/blog/8-tips-to-help-stop-ruminating/

It helped me change my mindset. Really did. I have other issues...but I've stopped dwelling now and am doing my best to live in the present.

I don't mean that one specific article helped me btw! I read a lot of things and really thought over why I was doing what I was doing and how if I waste my time thinking about what could have been etc, I will ruin today and tomorrow.

Mydoghatesthebath Thank you, it was a tough time. By the way, my dogs are not keen on baths either

I think that the prospect of my kids leaving home is making me feel like this - or even more so. That part of my life is over, and it's painful to come to terms with being surplus to requirements. Well I'm ten years older than you sitting here doing Easter homework with one of the GC, the other one is watching TV, he's been annoying the younger one so had to referee that fight. I've been booked for "holiday" with the two younger grandchildren when their parents are off on a holiday and then a wedding.

Enjoy the lull before the storm. Surplus to requirements? I doubt it, the best is yet to come.

Wintertime4 Unfortunately I wasn't able to live with my Mum as she had moved abroad with her new husband, and I couldn't live with them as there were no secondary schools in that country at the time. That just emphasised my feelings of insecurity, the fact that I had no home to go to. I used to go out and visit her in school holidays, but that was all. She was very dismissive of my troubles, and if I tried to confide in her, would dismiss them by making out I was exaggerating the situation. So I wasn't able to rely on her, and my Dad had booted me out the house as I didn't get on with my Wicked Step Mother (she really was).
Mum died several years ago now, but my relationship with my Dad is good. He has even apologised to me for the way I was treated when I was a child, and the fact that I came off worst when he remarried. he regrets it now and says he should never have married his wife (my step mother).
I do appreciate the fact I have three lovely kids, and how difficult it must be for those women who were never lucky enough to have them - if they wanted them, of course.

You have so much ahead of you

Instead of looking back, could you project forward to 20 years and look back to what you wish you could do now, whilst young enough?

(Bear in mind you have brought up three kids - that’s amazing in itself!)

Could you make baby steps first? Join a weekly exercise class and eat well? That might boost your energy for the bigger stuff like a change in job.

spontaneous how awful for you, that must have been utterly utterly devastating. But how fantastic that you are now living a happy life, despite the shock of your husband's sudden death. You are very brave, and I admire you.

Goals, goals, goals! Start with tiny ones, write them down and be honest about what is achievable and what isn't - I'm not putting a downer here but retraining to be a doctor might not be feasible at this stage say but being an ...(i dunno!) accountant could be. You can't rewrite history and there might be things you regret not doing (haven't we all) but you've got children you've brought up who love you. Don't think of it as empty nest think of it as time/space to focus on YOU now.

Hi OP, you sound far from "damaged goods"! However, I understand where you are coming from and can relate to some extent. I think you recognise how high your standards are and wonder if, whatever heights you'd reached in your career, you would really have felt that you'd succeeded or whether some ultimate goal would always (in your mind at least) have eluded you. By most people's standards you sound very successful. I was brought up to believe that unless you came top, you hadn't tried hard enough - telephoning home from university and delivering the news that I had a 2:1 was met with silence and then "not a First, then?" from my father.

If you didn't feel loved after your father's remarriage, it's not surprising that you went out of your way to find love and security of your own. I went the other way and was career focussed, largely because I didn't think anyone would want me ..

As for the empty nest - I've lived with my DD as a totally sole parent in every way since she was born. Her leaving for university was a shock to the system, and I made sure that the first weekend I had alone, there was hardly any time spare for me to miss her. I'd never had so much as a man stay overnight during those 18 years - fast forward to 18 months later - I'm getting married in July, have set up a business, volunteered for various charities, reconnected with old friends - and am sitting as I type with DD home for Easter. We have always been close but appreciate each other more now - I certainly don't feel surplus to requirements and know that she loves being at home.

Think of all that you have achieved already and that this is the beginning of a new chapter - you sound as if you have a lot to offer.

Wasteofspace1 Thank you. I just hope my story will convince you, you are anything but a waste of space.

calledyoulastnightfromglasgow great advice, I have been thinking that, projecting forward 20 odd years and thinking what I'd say to my 20 year younger self!

Firstly, you have some major achievements to be proud of. You’ve successfully raised children. You’ve managed to keep living and to hold down a job, despite your fear of failure and general anxiety. You’ve done all this without the help of a secure childhood and parental encouragement.
So stop viewing yourself as some sort of failure! You’re a unique human, loved by God, with all your strengths, weaknesses and foibles.
Second, don’t fear your upcoming empty nest. Your kids will not die, they’ll just be living elsewhere and you will still visit each other. You will learn to enjoy the peace and selfish pleasure of slobbing happily in front of the tv in your nest after work, with nobody pestering you to make tea or wash socks!
Thirdly, take some time to explore your own wishes, needs and worries. Don’t rush into dating until you have learned to love and value yourself. Think about what will make you happy- maybe you still want to try for the career goals you had when younger, or maybe you have some new ideas.
Fourthly. Go and fail at something. Anything. You will discover that it’s not the end of the world! Nobody will judge you except yourself. You will learn more from failures and mistakes than you ever do from success. And you will learn to stop fearing failure. After that, the world is yours for the taking.
Big hug and good luck! God bless.

I think hormones leave a lot of be desired when you get to this age. They can give rise to feelings of lowness and that tired drainedness that makes everything feel so much harder.

I am a couple of years older than you OP. Brought up five kids, on my own after their dad left so no wonderful career, rented house. Last child left home some eighteen months ago and at first it was hard. But I changed my job so I work in a tiny local supermarket, where I meet and talk to people every day, I write books when I'm not there, moderately successfully (in every way except financially!). I live on a shoestring, but have learned to love my own space and company. Are you maybe catastrophising the future as a lonely dead end? It's really not so bad, as long as you have a degree of good health and a sense of humour!

I’m a similar age and I wonder if it’s the hormones making th8ngs seem worse than they are. I am normally very level headed and calm and I was quite shocked at how I was fretting over something the other day -

X post !

We clearly think way too much about our hormones, UpOver!

It’s just I’ve never been susceptible to hormones so when it hits you it’s a bit of a shock. I feel knackered, achy and fretful for several day a month. I really thought something was wrong with me until I realised.

Lobster OMG, that's amazing, how did you go from no man for 18 years to getting married in the space of 18 months?? You must be utterly elated. Not that getting married/having a man is the be all and end all, but most people, if they're being honest, would prefer to have a partner.
What galvanised you into action? Was it the empty nest syndrome? You do sound very focused and energetic, not sure I could match you in that regard!
I think that feeling successful can be relative. Many of my friends are high achievers, and have amazing, well paid, interesting jobs, which I am envious of. Of course I compare myself to them - unfavourably - and it ends up with me feeling utterly inadequate and berating myself for not having made better choices.

Of course, to others who are perhaps less "conventionally" successful, then I may not appear as much of a failure as I think I am. I have a good degree from a RH university, and work in an interesting and much sought after industry. It's just that horrible nagging feeling of knowing I could have done so much better if I wasn't dogged by fear of failure the whole bloody time.

It's not too late. My aunt studied medicine whilst she was in her late 40s.

Do you know what do you want to do?

You are being quite unkind to yourself. Imagine a friend was in your shoes, what would you say to them? That’s the first step, you need to learn some self-compassion. There are some good books on it (when I get home I will dig out the ones my psychologist recommended). Essentially it boils down to being kinder to yourself and focussing more on your successes.

If you had reached the “pinnacle” of your career you would have undoubtedly sacrificed time with your daughters and would be regretting that now.

Agree that now is a classic time in left for reflection, as your daughters turn into adults. You’ve got two choices, wallow or plan! (Wallow a bit, then plan, is probably the most balanced)

There are lots of things you could still accomplish. How about some kind of volunteering? School governor, charity trustee, or ssomething more hands on. I’ve got a huge longing to get involved in fostering children/ young adults. I can’t right now as have four children (2 step!) but as they turn into young adults and leave home it is something I am considering doing.

Oh and by the way I was ' one of those women who gave up their career ' for 15 years and relaunched it!
You are never too old to develop and change