Submitted by roxxysim on January 31, 2010 - 3:02pm.
Midlife Crisis is a natural process (first identified by the psychologist Carl Jung) and it is a normal part of 'maturing'. However, Midlife Crisis can sometimes feel very uncomfortable, and cause people to seek psychotherapy or counselling, or to make radical lifestyle changes that can be very damaging and are regretted later.
It can help to view Midlife Crisis from the perspective of differing personality types, as this will give you a greater understanding of what is happening.
If you are going through midlife crisis, you might experience a wide range of feelings, such as:
Discontent with life and/or the lifestyle that may have provided happiness for many years
Boredom with things/people that have hitherto held great interest and dominated your life
Feeling adventurous and wanting to do something completely different
Questioning the meaning of life, and the validity of decisions clearly and easily made years before
Confusion about who you are, or where your life is going.
These feelings at mid-life can occur naturally, or they can be brought on by external factors.
One external factor can be debt. The availability of credit has become easier in recent years, through credit cards and telephone/internet loans. This has made it easier to accumulate debt, and many people turn to debt consolidation or debt management services in order to find their way out of difficulty.
Another external factor can be a bereavement, such as the death of a parent - or other significant loss or change, such as redundancy or divorce. These things can cause significant grief which can be difficult enough to come to terms with on their own. But if they are compounded by the natural process of 'mid-life transition' this can make the whole process of adjustment bewildering and overwhelming.
However, even in the absence of difficult external circumstances, there is still an internal process of change that takes place during midlife. If you don't understand that process it can feel like a 'crisis' and as you attempt to come to terms with it, you may find yourself making poor or irrational decisions that you regret at a later date - eg: leaving your job or spouse and throwing away the security that you have built up in the first part of your adult life.
If you do understand the process of midlife transition, it can make it easier (though still not easy) to navigate your way through it.
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Start Here: Our Key Articles About mid-life crisis
Submitted by Greg on August 7, 2006 - 4:51pm.
This "Twenty Questions About Midlife Crisis" section is an ongoing effort to collect all of LifeTwo's best information about midlife crisis in one place. »more»
Submitted by Wesley on January 31, 2008 - 10:29am.
According to a comprehensive study of data from 80 countries, researchers at Britain's Warwick University and America's Dartmouth College have confirmed what people in their forties have known for years, middle age is indeed truly miserable. Researchers discovered that "for both men and women the probability of depression peaks around 44 years of age. »more»
Submitted by Greg on June 1, 2007 - 6:07pm.
Empty nests. Menopause. Midlife crisis. Those are some of the reasons midlife is supposed to cause depression in women.
But as with so much information about midlife, that is at best only part of the story. »more»
Submitted by Greg on May 23, 2007 - 7:53pm.
"Midlife crisis" may be many things -- depression, a reassessment, dissatisfaction, or unease -- but a key contributor can be career issues.
But like so much about midlife, there is little hard data on what happens to midcareer adults. »more»
Submitted by Greg on April 16, 2007 - 9:23am.
LifeTwo has long argued that what many people call their "midlife crisis" is really their normal reaction to a crisis that could occur at any time, but happened to them in midlife. Their "crisis" could be their emotional response to divorce, death in the family, job loss, serious illness, or other trauma. We've held that one such type of "midlife crisis" is actually depression.
Now a new study shows just how blurry the line is between feeling down after negative life events and clinical depression. »more»
Submitted by Greg on February 27, 2007 - 11:35pm.
What will happen when a generation that's been told it's special in every way faces middle age?
It's not going to be pretty. New research says that Gen Y is more narcissistic that prior generations. And that means they aren't well suited to the mid-course corrections necessary in midlife.
Gen Y's midlife crisis may be the largest in history. »more»
Submitted by Greg on June 7, 2007 - 10:34am.
Hundreds of thousands of families will soon see their youngest child off to college, and that means an outbreak of despondent mothers and fathers suffering from empty nest syndrome.
Or does it? »more»
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Our Most Recent Articles About mid-life crisis
Submitted by JedDiamond on March 1, 2010 - 7:44pm.
Jed Diamond, Ph.D. has been a marriage and family counselor for the last 45 years. He is the author of 8 books, including Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Male Menopause, The Irritable Male Syndrome, and Mr. Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable Male Syndrome (May, 2010). »more»
Submitted by hlesbrown on March 1, 2010 - 9:34am.
That is the cry of the "innocent victim" . . . most often followed by, "After all I've done for you!" Does this sound at all familiar? »more»
Submitted by hlesbrown on February 21, 2010 - 11:06am.
If you haven't yet noticed my attraction to silly things, let me now bring it to your attention. I discovered a long time ago that, very often, silly things contain far more wisdom than sensible things. It's one of the great ironies of our universe. Take, for example, that incredibly silly series of books by Douglas Adams that goes by the title The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There's enough silliness (and, consequently, wisdom) in those pages to last a person the better part of a lifetime. Take, for example, the excerpt from the Guide that appears in the third book of the trilogy (Life, The Universe, and Everything) under the heading "RECREATIONAL IMPOSSIBILITIES." According to Adams, the Guide says this about flying: "There is an art, . . . or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."* »more»
Submitted by roxxysim on January 31, 2010 - 3:02pm.
Midlife Crisis is a natural process (first identified by the psychologist Carl Jung) and it is a normal part of 'maturing'. However, Midlife Crisis can sometimes feel very uncomfortable, and cause people to seek psychotherapy or counselling, or to make radical lifestyle changes that can be very damaging and are regretted later. »more»
Submitted by Lisa on January 5, 2010 - 9:29am.
At midlife, some of us find ourselves in a crisis due in part to the feeling that we're living as we will when we're old--we do the same old things every day, looking at that same old face across the table, talking about the same old things, being annoyed in the same old way, and seeing our opportunities diminish slowly as our health problems increase. It's terrifying. »more»
Submitted by Kitara R. Wilson on December 21, 2009 - 8:53am.
By definition, according to the Penguin English Dictionary 2nd Edition sitting here on my desk, a crisis is "a time of acute difficulty or danger..." So if you break that down, to embrace the term "midlife crisis" really translates into "my life is in or is headed for acute difficulty or danger". »more»
Submitted by Kitara R. Wilson on December 21, 2009 - 8:41am.
The more I step into this place of being open about early midlife celebrations, the more women I've noticed coming forward with their stories of frustration and loss. And when I say "loss", what I'm hearing more and more is that they've lost sight of who they are and are frustrated about who they've become. »more»
Submitted by purposeful2009 on November 29, 2009 - 8:06pm.
Where do I begin...this is my first post EVER so please forgive my spelling, rambling, and anything else that may make this hard to read.
I have read some of the postings and decided to ask for help from all of you as my situation is unknown to me. »more»
Submitted by Lisa on November 20, 2009 - 9:17am.
I'll cut right to the chase: I think my parents taught me that love is putting up with a lot of ill treatment and staying no matter what.
My own notion of love was that it would be like having a best friend and lover for the rest of my life, and we would have little problems but we'd adjust. »more»
Submitted by Greg on November 6, 2009 - 12:30pm.
Here at LifeTwo we believe that 'midlife crisis' is often a normal depression that happens in midlife. So anything that reduces the risk of depression also reduces the risk of midlife crisis. »more»
Submitted by hlesbrown on August 9, 2009 - 11:56am.
As I've often written, midlife has little or nothing to do with age. It happens when it happens. It's a psycho-spiritual event, a transformation from adult to maturity, from self-confidence to serenity. The demarcation area (midlife) can be identified by one overwhelming feeling: fear. Even more specifically, it's a fear of 'losing it' (whatever 'it' may be). You don't even have to be able to identify what 'it' is: all you need to recognize the midlife transition is to experience the fear of losing it. Dealing effectively with that fear takes you to maturity; failing to address it leads you to midlife crisis. So, how can you deal effectively with what is very often a nameless fear? All you need to acquire (and, incidentally, this constitutes the essence of the spiritual transition) is a deeper self-knowledge. You don't really 'need' anything . . . you have everything you require.
Want some help? Here's a little exercise that I've put together for you to help you to work through this transition. The instructions are simple: a) Write down your answers; b) Do not read beyond this paragraph until you're finished with the exercise;. c) Work through each of the three phases of the exercise in order. That's it! It should take you approximately a half-hour to complete the exercise. Ready to begin?
- Complete this sentence "I am a _____________" as many times as you can, each time filling in the blank with a different word or phrase (a minimum of 20 times).
- For each of the statements you wrote down in phase 1, re-write each statement with at least 5 different descriptors (for example: "I am a married [descriptor] man [word or phrase from phase 1]."
- For each descriptor-word (or phrase) set, circle the ones that are virtually impossible to change (for example: your height, your IQ, your sexual identity). Make sure that you only circle the impossible characteristics, not the merely difficult.
When you've completed your list and circled the appropriate characteristics, only then read on.
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Submitted by hlesbrown on August 9, 2009 - 11:52am.
No, it's not a misspelling (and yes, I do make frequent use of my spell-checker). As our agrarian past fades from our collective memory, so will the images of pastoral scenes, farm implements, and, yes, even stiles. I even had some trouble finding a decent photo of one (and this one's from England, where the rural life still survives). What made me think of a 'stile' (a ladder providing access over a fence or wall) today was an interview I had last night with Rabbi Ed Weinsberg. Ed faced and overcame the challenges of prostate cancer just a very few years ago, and he's written a book that documents his story (and others) for the benefit of the 1/6 of all men who'll be facing that disease. For Ed, the experience catapulted him to a higher appreciation of faith, love, and even sex.
It's a fact of the human condition: transitions never come easily. They always appear as an interruption in the kind of life we desire and even plan for: a life of security, tranquility, ease, and peace. Yet, as I've written fairly often, the so-called 'interruption' is the reality, the sense of security is the illusion. Our 'common sense' lies to us, and tries to convince us that these disruptive events that come hurtling like projectiles into our lives are obstacles to our happiness and progress. Obstacles? Or, are they, in fact, the steps that take us up and over the obstacles? I submit to you that, just perhaps, these disruptions — even the big and painful ones — are what stimulate change and growth and that, without them, we'd face stagnation and decay. "No pain, no gain" is true particularly because every change involves a painful separation from our status quo.
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Submitted by hlesbrown on August 9, 2009 - 11:49am.
Recently, from a business, personal, and spiritual perspective, I've been doing a lot of meditating on [apparent] failure. Right now, I can't think of a more apropos topic for people facing and experiencing the midlife transition. For one thing, your successes don't precipitate a midlife crisis. In fact, an uninterrupted string of successes can actually insulate you from undergoing the midlife transition, leaving you for longer than expected — and longer than necessary — state of im-maturity. When you're 'blessed' with success, you may be getting what you want, but to your own detriment: not getting what you really need.
I ardently agree with Friedrich Nietzsche that "What does not kill me, makes me stronger." The contrary, may very well also be true: What pampers me, makes me weaker. Getting your own way may, for a time, seem like a triumph; but, is it really? Does it actually move you forward, or does it, more often than not, lead you further into imminent trouble? Do negative consequences hold you back in fact, or are they, rather, 'medicinal blessings'?
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Submitted by amatchmadein7 on August 7, 2009 - 1:12am.
When taken in the context of dating, dress for success takes a different spin. Keep in mind that anytime you plan to attend an event where the majority of those in attendance will be setting eyes on you for the first time, you must do all you can to make a positive first impression. »more»
Submitted by Laurie Israel on August 6, 2009 - 8:46am.
Like many of you other mediators out there, I am always very pained to read accounts of our celebrity brethren who are struggling with their marriages. The media is insistent. The klieg lights focused on these people in distress are glaring. They are experiencing their own personal marital problems, but under a microscope of public view. »more»
mid-life crisis : Books, Websites, and Other Resources
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