TLDR: I'm a 32 year old man who is struggling to cope with getting older SPECIFICALLY due to grey hairs, especially in light of some traumatic life baggage I carry.
About 4.5 years ago, I lost my sister to suicide. Needless to say, that really, really, really messed me up emotionally, mentally, psychologically, etc. It's a pain I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
A couple months after she died, I also found my first grey hair. While it was a mild shock, I had much bigger things weighing down on me, so I never really bothered or cared about it at the time. Even as I saw them multiply a bit here and there over the years, there were never enough to be super noticeable.
During these 4.5 years since, I haven't actively participated in life. I just go to work, come home, sometimes go to the gym, and that's it. No socializing, no dating, etc. Time seems to have flown by due to the monotonous nature of my routine.
But now that I've been seeing a therapist for the past year and due to a job change, I find myself moving back to the city where my friends and family are. I finally feel ready to participate in life and socialize with the goal of "just living" and striving for happiness.
But here's where I'm stuck. I feel like I've been hibernating for 5 years and have awoken to a world that looks completely different. Everything is about Gen Z. Millennials are yesterday's news. Fashion has changed; slim is out and loose/baggy is in. I see so many young adults that make me noticeably think, "wow, they look young." In the past, I was one of them. Now, I'm an older person.
I just don't feel young anymore, and it's really, really jarring to me. And what's really been messing me up this year has been how much more noticeable my grey hairs are. I'm having so much trouble accepting this because they are such a visible reminder of getting old.
While in the past I could see an odd grey hair poking out here or there, now I see clusters of them. Whenever I look in the mirror, I get mild to moderate anxiety over how visible the greys are. I think this is because it seems like the rate at which they're appearing is ACCELERATING. While in the past ~3 years, it was a slow, linear pace, this year, it seems to have picked up. It's gotten to the point of mild obsession where I run my fingers through my hairs to see them and sometimes count how many I can find. And FWIW, it's not like my stress levels have increased this year. I have a great job and WLB. I also eat very healthily and don't smoke or drink.
And the thing is, I don't want to pluck or dye these greys. I want to be able to radically accept them and stop giving a damn. But I can't seem to. It's just a perpetual cycle of angst, anxiety, and sadness for what I have coming: getting older and older and older and older.
I worry about my dating prospects and fear that women will see my greys and think, ew, look at that old man.
How do I come to terms with this? I know many of the people here will laugh and think that I'm still young, relatively speaking, and you're right. But this is the first time in my entire life that I've stopped feeling young. I don't feel old, per se. I just don't feel young. And it's really messing with me. |
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