Life tends to get busier and busier as we get older. We are often met with increased stressors and responsibilities with children, a career, an aging family, debt, health problems, and so much more. All of the stresses and responsibilities can make life much more challenging. In turn, the challenges may cause someone to withdraw from life as they get older, just as a means of preserving their own sanity.
In many cases, these issues may be causing “situational depression.” As Healthline informs us, this is depression caused by a temporary or permanent situation in your life that you find yourself in. In many cases, situational depression may cause someone to withdraw from their life as they get older because they just don’t have the emotional energy to deal with stress. It gets exhausting after a while. Here are some common behaviors associated with this withdrawal.
1. They experience a lack of energy to socialize.
Even extroverts need some emotional energy to get the ball rolling to socialize. They still have to muster the energy to actually go to where the people are. People struggling with life often lack the mental, physical, and emotional energy to start activities, even activities they really enjoy.
An extrovert may be well aware that they’ll feel better if they socialize, but instead choose to avoid people altogether. An introvert may struggle harder because they know that they are going to hemorrhage social energy in making the effort.
Granted, not everyone wants to socialize all the time, and that’s okay. And it’s not uncommon for your social circle to naturally shrink as you get older. But it can become a problem when they’re regularly turning down invitations to socialize, even with close friends and family members. As they withdraw more, they may also quit participating in group or community activities that they are involved in.
2. They lose interest.
Indifference to hobbies, activities, or issues that once mattered to them is a strong sign of withdrawal and low mood. Many don’t realize just how insidious depression is. Humans are emotional creatures. Much of what we do is based on the emotions we feel.
The Cleveland Clinic tells us that indifference and apathy, medically, are defined as a lack of goal-oriented activity. Much of what we do is driven by our desire to meet a goal, like the successful feeling that comes with completing a task.
You may do a thing because it feels right or good to do it. Alternatively, you may choose not to do a thing because it feels wrong or bad to do it. Losing interest, however, is just an absence of any of those emotions. Most people will choose not to act if they don’t have emotions that inspire them to act.
That’s why there is such a clear connection between indifference and withdrawal. If you don’t care about anything, then you aren’t as likely to engage with life. A person may engage out of obligation, but obligation will only take you so far. Sooner or later, the withdrawn person will find whatever excuse they can to get out of the obligation.
3. They neglect health and self-care.
It requires more energy than you might expect to take meaningful care of yourself. A person who is withdrawing from life as they age may not see a reason to bother caring about themselves or their well-being. They may not see a reason to groom or take care of themselves if they are utterly indifferent to how anyone else would perceive them.
Why bother if you’re not going to be seeing anyone else, anyway? The withdrawn person knows they aren’t going to be socializing, so self-care doesn’t matter for social acceptability.
It’s not just about grooming, hygiene, and self-care either. It can also extend to medical care. They may just stop caring about themselves, so they stop going to their doctor’s appointments, taking medication, or doing other activities related to maintaining their health. They may also ignore medical problems because they just don’t care. What difference does it make?
Unfortunately, I had a grandfather who did exactly this as he was getting older. The fact that he was withdrawing really became apparent when he stopped practicing the hygiene habits he had for decades, such as shaving every other day and putting on his cologne regardless of whether or not he was going to see anyone.
It’s one of the more noticeable things that a person who is withdrawing from life may do.
4. They experience emotional withdrawal and numbness.
Persistent feelings of sadness, apathy, and hopelessness can cause someone to withdraw from their life. Arguably, one of the worst of those negative feelings is emotional numbness. Numbness is awful because you can be fully aware of what positive emotions you’re supposed to be feeling, but you just can’t get in touch with them.
That emotional tug-of-war can be a harder struggle as you get older because you’ve inevitably experienced more negative parts of life, with relationships ending, friendships changing, people dying, jobs lost, and all kinds of other issues. At some point, it just starts looking like a better idea to not be involved at all. After all, you can’t be hurt by a loss if you have nothing and no one to lose.
5. They become passive.
A person withdrawing from life will find themselves disengaged from activities and people, in general. Instead of participating in activities that require an active effort, they may instead waste time doing things like watching television, playing games, or just doing nothing at all.
They may also stop standing up for themselves, allowing themselves to be treated badly because they just don’t feel like it matters. They become passive; after all, what difference does it make since they aren’t going to be involved, anyway?
Instead of decisiveness, you may also hear them say, “I don’t know” and “I don’t care” a lot because they just aren’t emotionally invested enough to have an opinion.
6. They resist change.
People withdraw for different reasons, but in many cases, they are trying to keep things familiar. Because they’re trying to keep things familiar, they are extremely resistant to any kind of change. They may refuse to adapt, try new things, or meet new people because that would disrupt the comfort of their unhealthy stability.
Sometimes, they may get more distrustful of people, situations, or technology as a means to cling to that which is familiar. It may be that they are clinging to a happier time in their past. Any change in the present is a reminder that the past is now gone, and they want to avoid that as much as they can. It’s a maladaptive coping mechanism to soothe what’s going on in their mind in the present.
7. They experience increased negative thinking and dwell on regrets.
Sometimes, a person can wind up trapped in their regrets for opportunities that have passed. They withdraw because they’ve become stuck. They’re so focused on what they could have done better that they just can’t find enjoyment in the present or find hope in the future. These negative thoughts firmly take root in their head.
They may talk about how life is pointless, that there’s no hope for them to have a better present or future. Another way people express this is by saying that they feel exhausted, but it’s not necessarily about sleep. It’s about feeling soulfully tired with the world around them.
Final thoughts…
The average person will deal with depression at least a few times in their life. As we get older, we experience more of the negative parts of life, and it starts to wear on us. It’s easy to want to pull back and away, to disengage with life as the shine wears off.
But you can’t let that happen. It can take so much effort to keep putting one foot in front of the other when you want nothing more than to just sit back and watch the world go by. Still, we only have so much time on this planet, and we have to do what we can to stay engaged and make the most out of life.
