Suddenly feel old and wondering if this is it

You've come to post at the right place. I can so identify with your situation. I'm 43 and this started for me in September. I hope you won't do anything you can't take back until you're in a better place, but...we all have to make our choices. I felt crappy the whole time before the Holidays. I had the same feelings about my children getting older, the same need to be visible and paid attention to, the same thoughts about my marriage!

Thanks for the reply. Has it passed? Have you found what is missing? I have been reading a lot of the posts and attending Yoga, positive affirmations, soul searching and the answer has still not come. I just want to get in my car and drive away. The idea of going somewhere, where no one knows me or has any expectations of me seems so exciting. I know I would never do it but I fantasize about it daily. I find myself weepy and withdrawn and I really can't figure out why? Why now? I feel as if I am losing my mind.

Hi Dona,

I suggest that you stop thinking that you're in midlife crisis. Instead, try to think of your life right now as a turning point for a more fulfilling life to come with the balance of your life. Take it as a wake call to live an even more abundant life from now on. Whatever your past might be, let it be past. If there are mistakes you made as we all made before, learn the lesson. If you think your past "half life" was a failure, don't think so, because it's a stepping stone for all of us to receive greater success later in our second half life.

Like Havelock Ellis said, "It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success."

Havelock Ellis said: "It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success."

Samuel Smiles also said: " It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done."

I'm a 38 years old man. haha ... 2 more years to 40! I wonder where in life I will be when I reach 40! At 38, I feel time just slipped away so fast! At this stage, I'm not satisfied with what I've done for the past 38 years well minus years as a baby. I have blogged about my feeling in my blog here

http://lifecrisisguide.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/am-i-in-crisis-what-cris...

Over the past months particularly, I strongly felt a sense of crisis in my life, that got me thinking what was I doing in my past 38 years! what do I want from life? Is working, eating, sleeping all there is to life? Is there higher meaning in life? ... I was asking these questions.... Now I think I am in search of my life goals and try to implement them. I cannot live like before any more. Looking forward, I only have 10-20 active years to strive for real meanings in life. How long is 10-20 years? Not long. It's like you asking how long ago was 40 years? Not long ago. It passed by so fast! 10, 20, 30, 40 years will pass by so fast. So we have to cherish every minute we have to pursue what is there for us meaningfully. Time really flies.

I think now I'm getting more serious about the balance of life left for me to "play" with. This crisis feeling creates a wakeup call in me to live a purpose- and meaning-driven life! Instead of feeling we're hit by midlife crisis, let's embark on new journey of life. This gonna different from the first half!

All the best,
Amos Chan

Hi Dona,

I'm 48 and divorced for over 10 years. I have been feeling this way since about 3-4 years ago. I think what we might be missing is just our youth. Remember when everything was new and neat and the world was there for us to explore? Then we typically all do the usual thing: get a good job, raise a family and perhaps go through some life changes that further develops our character.

While I have been going through this phase for several years, early 2007 was the most difficult simply because I became more involved in the caring of an elderly parent. There have been some real gut-wrenching questions: "How the heck did I get here?, Is this it? Where do I want to be 10 years from now? What am I doing to get there? Am I going to have to keep going down this road alone?"

In the past six months, I have stopped worrying about it so much. I have started taking better care of myself and also changed jobs to reduce the level of work-related stress. While I don't think I am "there" yet (wherever "there" might be), I feel that I have passed the half-way mark. I try not to over-think and actually smile a lot more (even if its forced!). This simple act generally makes me feel a whole lot better about myself.

Regarding feeling weepy and withdrawn, without knowing your age, you might want to get a physical checkup. You might be peri-menopausal (sp?) which might be throwing you off balance. Just a thought.

I wish you the very best on your new journey!

terese

I still don't have a career and I still struggle with feelings of being left out. I believe those are issues dealt to me because of the personality that got dealt me.

But the mood is improving. You might not know it to see me, because It got so I cry a little every day and then I feel better. Except, I haven't cried any tears today, and the first moments of the morning when I woke up, I felt a return of a sense of optimism and zest. (Then I had to get up and it was gone--ha ha!) It was so very nice to have a sunny feeling!

Here's the thing, though. I started reading about ego. Eckhart Tolle's new book about a New World, Finding Your Purpose in Life has been really good to me, especially because our local library has A Course In Miracles on CD and I've been listening avidly to it. I started listening to THAT because I was feeling so desolate. At the end of last spring I had decided not to believe in God anymore. No second coming, no Christ, nothing like that. If we mess up the earth, we just have to live in it. Cut to last month. I was walking the dogs, crying, and then I thought, "I need God." I felt better.

I don't want to push faith. I don't like it when people do that. All I wanted to do was have a belief that there is something whole, unchanging, real. As opposed to my own turmoil.

All this reading has given me insight. I've always known I had quite an ego, but I didn't understand it. I'm finding "stuff" inside me. I've got "stuffing," I guess.

Now what I'm trying not to do is go, "Oh, cool. I have all this understanding. I've got the best understanding EVER and so NOW I'm better than everyone else."
More like, I'm trying to see the health in everyone. And in myself.

So...this is a whole ugly process. Like Ringo Starr said, "It just ain't easy."

hey, I am 61 and i feel 18 and people guess my age at 45; i was fortunate enough to be blessed by the gene fairy, LOL, LOL

I got a divorce after 31 years of abuse, and then experienced a kind of abuse I'd never heard of: Spiritual (abuse): www.churchabusepoetrytherapy.com (faith-based poems of healing, hope and comfort came pouring from my wounded soul). It has been a phenomenon: over 13,400 hits

Elie Wiesel (survivor of Auschwitz) has written to me regarding the poetry; I am humbled and honored.

I have been published with the Ph.D.'s: www.psychiatricjournal.com, entitled: The Transcendent Child on Overcoming Verbal and Spiritual Abuse

Written my memoir: Ghost Child to Triumph (from a child with no voice, to someone who speaks up against injustice)

Went back to school and just won a scholarship (all i had to do was write an essay): I was 1 of 10 recipients out of 1,600 applicants in the U.S. and Canada

i am the moderator of an abused survivors' group...

I've never felt any older than when i was 18 (personality, genetics).......I hope to be just like my amazing NINETY-six year old teacher who still dresses up in plays (as Willie Nelson), and played piano for silent films; she can talk the ears off a brass monkey!

She is amazing; I will be just like her!

Write to me (anyone): wacalice@aol.com

One of my favorite quotes; "If it is to be, it is up to me." i will never give up; I keep writing to Oprah, talk shows, magazines, etc., to get the message out there regarding emotional (verbal) abuse; it is one of thee last best-kept secrets on the planet.

The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans should be required reading for eveeryone on the planet.

Figure out what you LOVE. Do it.

Smiles Alice

See, let's bear with this stupid MLC thing. It's like a gold mine. (I hope.) The things we started in our twenties started to end, and all that roleplaying we did is thankfully over. (Like, I think what happened to me is I said to myself, "Well, we're 24. Now we get married and raise kids... and that was that.) But kids grow up. Adults grow up too.

I'm in the same situation too. What can we do? I'm stuck in my job. My health is suffering. My husband doesn't have a clue. I keep everything to myself now. I've tried to get professional help, but cannot afford it. I don't know what to do. I tried everything. I'm depressed now!! I really need to figure out how to get out of it.

"I've tried to get professional help, but cannot afford it. "

You didn't say whether it helped but that the only issue was cost. If so, explore less costly (or free) services available in most areas. As a fall-back, ask friends for support. Midlife is potentially a very difficult time for the very reasons you listed...relationship, job and health. But almost everyone successfully navigates these years and so will you--even if it doesn't feel like it now.

Wesley Hein
Wesley [at] lifetwo [dot] com
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Hello

I am 42 something and have been divorced for almost a decade. I don't have children either. I am very stuck in my ways. I can't look in a mirror anymore. All I see is an old unattractive woman. I don't recognize myself. I feel invisible. Is this it?

I have lost confidence in all aspects of my life. I don't date, I don't like being in public, and shy away from job interviews because I look old and feel old.

I stopped shopping and buying nice clothes for myself. I am slowly giving up on trying to look decent. I don't do my nails or hair anymore.

I have given up on marriage all together, and that also means no sex. I don't believe in no strings sex.

I think about letting my condo go and moving to a greener place. I live in a cat box called Denver.

I hope I don't have another 40 years being alone. Yikes. This is not for me.

MS

I'm 43, and I think the forties are beautiful years! I've been working on this for fifteen years now: rejecting the absolute belief that you have to be a figure 8 with flawless skin and glowing, shiny hair. I just hate those makeover shows--so violent! My definition of violence is expecting someone to be other than they are, to know other than what they know, or be what they really aren't. I haven't got much! I think of the beautiful colors of wool yarn, the roughness of denim, the glow of wine colors as older lady colors.

You can move anywhere you like, unlike some. I know what you mean by losing confidence.

But I think this could be it--the time for you to discover what's in you, and to choose if you want to shed your old shell. The old ways just die. They have to. It's scary and sad, though. But it passes.

If I had to go out and find a man, I'd just hate it and not want to try. So...I can't identify with that. But I feel like you in so many ways.

I didn't know Denver was a cat box!!! (:-)) Ew. I live up in cattle smell country Colorado.