Wellness

[151949]

I retired younger than we had planned due to disability. I was facing several surgeries on my ankle, knees and hip so my goals then were simple - to rehab and become well and able. That all took up the first 4 years of my retirement. Then DH also retired and we moved to Florida which was wonderful. At our new church we have had opportunities to serve our community as volunteers and we are greatly enjoying the feeling of being relevant and useful.I highly reccommend retirees find a volunteer cause they enjoy doing as most volunteer jobs do not require very long hours and you can work only one or two days a week. We have made friends there as well, which is needed when you have moved to a new community as we did.

[Imadickens]

I'm in exactly same boat! I was forced to retire last year as I was badly injured at work. I spent so much time in bed recuperating that it has become my routine! I don't even like to go to mall or out to dinner any more! I'd rather not eat than go out! Believe it or not, I'm not depressed, it's just too hard to get ready since my fall! I've been fighting major health issues for years, but the fall took my entire quality of life! I hope we both get it back!i seriously don't want to wake up in ten years and want this time back!

[Moonchilde]

---

@Imadickens wrote:
I'm in exactly same boat! I was forced to retire last year as I was badly injured at work. I spent so much time in bed recuperating that it has become my routine! I don't even like to go to mall or out to dinner any more! I'd rather not eat than go out! Believe it or not, I'm not depressed, it's just too hard to get ready since my fall! I've been fighting major health issues for years, but the fall took my entire quality of life! I hope we both get it back!i seriously don't want to wake up in ten years and want this time back!

---

I'm not to that degree, but I can relate. I've never been the athletic sort, but on weekends I would go out and spend all day walking somewhere - museum, park, fair, swapmeet, amusement park, etc. 

About 6 years ago I developed very painful Achilles issues in one leg that I was told were inoperable unless I became totally disabled from it. I limped around to get in to work from the parking lot at work, limped at work, limped up and down stairs (I lived upstairs) and limped to the grocery store - and that was all I could do.

After a year of this, because of the limping and having to change gait generally to accommodate, I developed severe plantar fasciitis in the other foot. Lots o' pain. They don't like to do surgery for PF either. And I knew that if any surgery was done I couldn't have it - lived alone upstairrs, no close-by friends, no family, nada. No way to get to extensive PT and other stuff, groceries, to dr appts (this was pre-Uber). 

So I spent about 1-2 years doing nothing on the weekends but the bare minimum grocery shopping, maybe occasionally hobble at the mall so as not to go completely bats. I spent the time online and watching TV.

As I got better, with progress and a huge setback, I lost the desire to go out even when I could - traffic, crowds & lots of other reasons. Now that I'm in a different situation, I still have some (slightly different) physical issues, and I'm often very content to stay home and eat pb&j rather than go out & have to drive 30-40 minutes to eat and/or shop. I'm not agoraphobic and not really depressed per se, just not highly motivated all the time in view of the pain that's often the trade-off.