Opinion: Does It Get Easier As You Get Older?

[HappyKoi]

Anxiety and depression isn't limited to one age group; kids, teens, adults, and seniors can all be affected by it.  I've had problems with anxiety since I was a kid.  However, I have found that my anxiety and depression have become easier to manage as I've gotten older.  When I was a teenager and young adult, my anxiety and depression manifested not only as sadness, but as moments of rage and frustration that resulted in self-harm, angry outbursts, and an eating disorder.  Now that I am a bit older, my anxiety is a bit easier to manage.  I don't have the anger problems that I used to, I don't self-harm as much, and I can manage some of my bad days a little better.  I went over a decade without treatment, and I am wondering how much of this is just that I am getting older, my brain has matured, and life has taught me some coping skills.  Does anyone else find that they have an easier time managing their anxiety or other illness as they've gotten older, or has it stayed about the same since you first began experiencing it or were first diagnosed?

 

[Alex]

Maybe it has more to do with experience than age? I feel it also has to do with the support you have and the willingness to make changes. I recall when I was at my lowest I knew I had to make changes because things weren't going to get better by chance.


It's like getting over a relationship break up, in time the pain gets less and you learn to cope with it better in future. Yet, the memory will always remain if only to serve as a warning to know what to look out for in future.

 

[kgord]

I think it does get easier in my opinion. It seems like the older you get the less you worry about what people think. It is something you develop with age I think, a confidence in yourself. I think some people struggle with these issues all their life, but it seems like the older you get the more you realize what is important in life. It may not be everyone's experience, but I think that it is mine. So, be that as it may in general, anxiety may lessen with age.

 

[misszerable]

I tend to agree that it gets easier as I get older. I used to be very impatient. Whenever I want or think of something, I'd like to have it right here and right now. I get sick and anxious when something does not go my way. Although I love them, I easily pick up a fight with my siblings because I was irritable when something goes wrong. In other words, I have a lot of issues that I didn't know how to deal with back then. Now that I am more experienced and have a better understanding of myself, I am no longer as anxious or agitated. I know better how to wait and control myself. I've learned to distract myself by taking up other activities. 

 

[Aree Wongwanlee]

No, I don't think it gets any easier as I get older. What happens is that one set of anxieties are replaced with another. For example, when I was very young, I was always anxious about getting the right person to share my life. When I got older and I was married, I didn't have to worry about that. Instead, I worried about bringing up my children properly. When my children grew up and had their own families, I no longer worry about them. Now I worry about myself more. I am still able to get about on my own. I worry about the day when I can no longer get about on my own.

 

[Allenafaith]

I guess in some ways it gets easier, you learn how to deal with it better. I am only 16, I was diagnosed with anxiety this year but I know I've had it since I was around 11. I didn't realize what it was at that time, though. I'm taking Lexapro for my anxiety and depression and it definitely helps me a lot and I'm slowly learning how to cope with it better. I'm sure it'll get better the older I get. 

 

[sidney]

Oh I have gotten definitely better when it comes to managing my anxiety and other negative emotions. I remember having less tolerance and I would succumb to negativity and pessimism easily, and I would get anxious over the most mundane things. But now that I am older, my anxiety strikes less nowadays, and it definitely excludes petty stuff. I also have become a more positive person compared to before where I was such a pessimist.

 

[mauricioq]

I think so. When you're growing up you're also gaining more and more maturity, and you also have a lot more experience so you know how to deal with the situations better. You need to go through thing to learn, it's like that every time if you look to your past.

 

[fuzyon]

It depends.. really. As you grow older things will get more stressful. If you're a teenager and suffer from depression don't think that in the future you'll be okay without working on yourself. You'll have kids to take care of, parents to attend to, a job, bills and so many other things that you can't even imagine. Sure, you'll gain experience and be more mature but that will only help yourself for 50 of the way. Start building your new-self in this exact moment instead of waiting for the future.

 

[Laneorexorcist]

Hmm... I don't really think that I am old enough to answer this question since I have been struggling with anxiety and depression since about 5 years. But I have noticed that I don't get that intense? anymore when it comes to stages of depression or anxiety. I still harm myself now and then, but I have created new forms of doing it without people noticing it... But it's still much less than I used to do. I also have a couple of coping mechanisms and I have acquired theability to know myself a little bit more now, so I know how am I going to react and how am I doing to feel better, and I take advantage of that. 

 

[Choochoo]

For me it does get easier but the problem is that some other type of problem or anxiety would just pop up since the core of my behavior which is worrying and being anxious is very deep seated in my experiences from childhood, so no matter how many problems I solve my default setting would always be to see the negatives of everything first. I think with good support and an efficient system as well as practice, you can get better at it, but maybe just don't expect too much if you are not addressing the root and instead just patching up the symptoms. 

 

[Aree Wongwanlee]

I think anxieties will always be a part of our lives. Perhaps we need to have anxieties to feel alive. It's like having some pain. If we don't feel any pain, maybe we are not able to feel anything at all. Same with anxieties. To worry is to think. If we are not worrying at all, then we might want to know if we are thinking at all.

 

[DDNatureLover]

I wouldn't say it gets easier, or at least it hasn't for me. It has evolved, however. Experience and coping skills that are learned can help us to cope, but there are also certain challenges we encounter as we age that can also exacerbate our anxiety. Chances are as we get older, we'll start losing people we care about, and for many, our health takes a hit. In some situations, my anxiety was worse when I was younger, such as the many social situations I found myself in due to school, work, family and social interactions, and I've limited those over time, but am now faced with new, different challenges. 

 

[djanx]

I am sure it does. I mean I am not old, but I certainly handle emotions and situations better now then I used to when I was a teenager. Of course, when something really new happens, I still kind of take time to adjust. But, yeah, it does get better as we age. It's mainly because of experience. I mean if you live a life with fewer problems early on, you'll have a hard time later if you face problems. So, it has more to do with experience.

 

[Surrender]

I don't know if it is easier but it is different when you gain maturity. A lot of my depression and anxiety when I was younger had to do with incorrect assumptions, like life is fair, you get ahead through hard work, a good education equals good pay, good people win the end, etc. etc.  I really believed stuff like that and it would blow my mind when I'd see contradicting evidence, and it would really depress me when I thought I was playing by all the rules yet not succeeding at the game.  Now I think differently so I am not as easily triggered by life events.

 

[janemariesayed]

Dealing with anxiety does get easier as you get older, or at least it should do. It helps if I think good thoughts rather than destructive negative ones. I have learned that when I think negative then all sorts of other negative things can happen so when I catch myself thinking negatively I stop and tell myself good things instead. If there are problems looming I can get quite depressed but the actual trigger is not the recent problem, the trigger is actually the past event still affecting me to this day.

 

[clair02]

In my opinion, it absolutely does get better as you get older. This of course depends on whether or not you have been trying to ease the anxiety or if you have allowed it to rule your life unchecked. If you have been practicing techniques to help you feel better and to resolve your issues, then there is no reason to think that you wouldn't get better as time goes. This has been the case in my life, and my situation now compared to ten years ago is absolutely amazing. 

 

[explorerX7]

I believe tas at as many persons become older, life experiences may have prepared them to better be able to cope with issues that would be a real bother in the past.They would have gotten wiser and had learned that stressing over issues would do no good and instead being being alarmed, it would be wiser to seek a way out of the the problem. Experience teaches wisdom!

 

[Alexandoy]

I discovered my anxiety when I lost my job. I was 35 at that time. It was like being dizzy at first before feeling the numbness of my hands and feet. I was fortunate to have reached home before that first attack. 


When small problems would come my way, I would easily be attacked.  Oh so many instances to mention. But now I feel stronger against the anxiety attack and I think it is because I am getting used to it.

 

[WorkAtHomeGal]

I don't think it gets easier to manage with age, just because I am older and I will share why from my personal story that not a lot of people know about. I will admit though when I was a teenager I was way more shy and way more easily upset. I think back then I was crying in my room 4-6 times a week most weeks, it was terrible. I obviously had good weeks but not always. I have found as I got older there was a period where I stopped doing a lot of things I enjoyed and found myself sleeping or laying around and sighing a lot and just unable to get out of this crippled feeling I had happening. I would cry sometimes but not always. Thoughts of suicide were a problem bigger when I was a teenager but as an adult during my worse anxiety or depressive states I still had those thoughts. I was very unhappy when I worked at the corner store in 2009. I hated that job and didn't like waiting on people or dealing with rude customers. It was innocent at first I would buy a scratch card bingo or crossword at later part of my shift at night when I had nothing to do. Eventually it turned into a gambling addiction where I went into $4,000 debt on my Visa. At first I was trying to win back money I spent and later it became a coping mechanism that made me feel less depressed or anxious it worked but left me feeling guilty.


Thankfully those days are over and I no longer gamble. The only time I gamble is if I play bingo with me mom because that is a controlled environment where she knows how many cards I bought. Bingo comes on TV weekly but I play it 2 times a month or less as a activity with her. So looking at my story this way it kind of seems like things got worse when I got older. But now I am on anti depressants and in therapy and slowly trying to make things better.