mid life crisis - or just coping with real life?

[kizzie]

Not sure if this is in the right place but guess its all interlinked with relationships.

Have started to struggle with the whole 'meaning of life' thing. I realise this is going to sound quite pathetic - and I apologise in advance to those people who have real problems.

Nothing really bad has happened. More just tthe passage of time. So watching my parents get older, DS x 2 now at senior school and time passing so so quickly, losing older relatives and watching them go through dementia etc. Realising that life is short.

I did have anxiety based pnd and have suffered on and off since then - but this doesnt feel like a mental health thing. It feels like me needing to come to terms with the fact that life is fragile, people die - and before that they get old.

I have a lovely DH - we are very close and have a great marriage. lovely Dc's and a good job.

Im 40 - so dont know if that has anything to do with it.

Do you ask yourself these questions about the meaning of life?? Or do you just get on with it??

I know I need a good shake.

Is this what a mid life crisis feels like?

And do I need to buy a sports car and some fish net stockings . Or take up yoga and eat more chocolate.

I dont know what Im asking really - i suppose just to see if others have felt the same - and does it just go away?

Thanks x

Hey Kizzie.

I'm 42 and am always over-analyzing everything and seeking problems where no problem exists.

My dcs are teenagers and very sorted and happy and healthy.

DP is wonderful - works hard, quite well-paid.

We have a lovely life, nice house, just enough £££ for the odd treat.

I have wonderful friends.

Parents (long-since divorced) are causing me age-related worries (Mum is behaving a bit oddly, weight loss unexplained etc, Dad is just a difficult fish and always has been).

I have a part-time job which doesn't really satisfy me but it fits in with home-life but is poorly paid and I wonder what happened to my life sometimes.

I love running and going to the gym and music and reading and meeting up with my friends but I do feel very empty sometimes.

Sounds similar doesn't it?

Yes... I think it happened to me when my eldest left home. Then last autumn my youngest left for university. My dad had died and my mum started looking all vulnerable and not fit to be out on her own.

I cope by trying not to think about it too much to be honest. Plus getting out and about and not letting myself vegetate on the couch too much.

Oh.. and I did buy that sports car (pic on profile)

I think of how lucky I am to have a wonderful husband, a beautiful and intelligent grown up daughter and a generally comfortable and happy life.

I wasted years being miserable and wanting more, now in my forties I count my blessings , the main ones being that we are healthy and happy.

Life can change in an instant, live for now and enjoy yourself.

yes it does sound similar.

I think xmas hit me a bit because my dad had been unwell and he suddenly looked 'older'. he has always been such a strong force in the family but he just needed a bit of looking after. I think seeing him vulnerable really knocked me a bit sideways.

We have always been very close - but fight like cat and dog. and just for a few days he wasnt up to that. He is fine now but it really brought it home to me that things are shifting.

I know this is all stuff that people deal with every day - but Im not sure how you dust yourself off and just get on with it.

Actually I think that may be where the anxiety stuff kicks in - maybe Ive avoided thinking too much about difficult things for the last few years.

I was definately more accepting about the whole passage of life stuff when I was younger - but i guess you think you'll live forever then !

nice car

Malificence - maybe it is just as simple as 'counting blessings' - thats exactly what my gran would have said.

And doing it often enough so that it outweighs the 'unease' thats setting in

Sometimes I feel like this - I think hitting 40 probably has a lot to do with why you're feeling wobbly now. And realising your parents aren't immortal is hard at any age - but both my parents are dead, and if anything I've wanted to be a good person on their behalf more since their deaths, if that makes sense.

Watching your DCs grow up is bitter-sweet, but I can tell you that when my DC1 graduated and left home for a real job, the feeling of pride - that I'd successfully brought up a whole person - was immense, and it did re-focus the "why am I here?" wibbles.

I really think you just have to keep taking the good from things, and if you're not a half-glass-full person then that takes some effort sometimes. But there always is some good - the net effect of your life will be more good than bad.

I think the parents thing is probably really key to it. Seeing that vulnerability for the first time.

Hassled your post makes a lot of sense

Justthisone - my DH did OU too and he got so much out of it

I've been having a mid-life crisis for several years and am going to be 45 shortly...

I feel my life has been going nowhere for years and I can't see any future sadly. I've been a single mum for over a decade and the thought of growing old alone scares me so much.

I have very few friends, and my salary only just covers my outgoings so I have no chance of one going out and finding much of a social life really - and I live in a small town where nothing happens and can't afford to move to anywhere more urban.

I think mid-life crisis stuff is so awful as even though I'm a pretty cheery person, I really do look at my life and wonder what the point is.

sorry you feel in such a rut teahouse.

Hope something comes along soon to brighten things for you.

My glass is ALWAYS half full

Never been a pessamist even when the going gets tough

I am 38 but going through something similar. I have been a SAHM for 12 years and then just suddenly I seem to have woken up again to the fact there is a whole world out there yet to be discoverd. I kind of feel like I am playing catch up for all the missed "ME" years i spent absolutely doting on my DC and following my DH around the country with his career.

I have enrolled in a FT college course and hope to get a job doing something I enjoy.

I seem to have gone through a phase of loosing lots of people in the past few years - no one I was really close to but they have included people the same age as me, an aunt only in her 50's to breast cancer and my last grandparent.

I look at my parents and my wonderful Dad suddenly looks old and so does my mum. My Dad had an accident just before Xmas and its really shaken me up - he hasnt just bounced back from this - I can tell he is getting older and it makes me sad.

On a vain note - I look in the mirror and feel sad my youthful looks are fading fast, but appreciate the fun I have had along the way getting to 38. On a down day I think about how I looked 5 or 6 years ago and then worry how the hell I will look in another 5 or 6 years from now too.

I cannot beleive how fast the last 15 or so years have flown by - I feel like life is speeding by fast like on fast forward. I want it to slow down and be able to savour every moment but time is always so short.

Totally understand how you feel but i think its normal not a mid life crisis. Lately i feel like i constantly worry about losing my parents as so many friends my age have lost them. I worry that if anything happens to them i will never feel the same again.

Thanks everyone for replying - really useful and interesting to read all your replies.

Mum 72 - thats exactly how ive felt with my dad.

Thanks Justthisone - I'll take a look at that course you did. Will look up that prog too.

Merry widow im jealous - I think i need to start practising. I was definately brought up with the 'dont expect the best and then you wont be disappointed'. Time for a change .... (although 40 years is quite a lot of undoing !!!!)

Just wanted to add a bit more as had to keep it short last night as someone else was nagging to go online.
Am glad you posted Kizzie as it makes me think i am not alone in my thinking. So many people just get on with their lives and don't really question it and the meaning of it all. I guess my trouble is i think too much and by over thinking i am spoiling the here and now ie lovely times spent with my parents overshadowed by a fear of losing them.
When i think back to my happiest it was probably when i was pregnant as there was so much going on in my life and i felt like i was just getting on with it. I think hormones probably had something to do with it as i felt more laid back and happier not my normal anxious self.
I think your post comes at a time when we are all feeling a bit more melancholy and introverted as we are in the depths of the winter blues. I think we will all feel a bit brighter and happier in the spring when we can raise our serotin levels !

How do you get someone else to see the positives? DW and I both mid 40s - over the Xmas period DW not sleeping well and keeps on saying stuff like not happy life is all shit etc etc.

Her Mum has Alzheimers quite badly and is 'not the same person' any more, her gran also had Alz too - so seems to run in the family on that side - so it's quite difficult to not think about it. PILs are not close but we get up to see them every few months on holiday times. Her Dad is coping quite well but sometimes has some odd behaviour.

So fully accept this is a big issue, work - we both have good jobs that pay well but can't say either of us really enjoy the job. DW is a teacher and finding new head and changes a bit stressful - but she really likes teaching kids in an EBD school - and she gets the worse kind of all to sort out. Think she does it really well and really wants to do best for these kids that have some awful backgrounds.

Rambling now..seems that overall life is not completely shit. DW even worries that DS4 (5 now) will turnaround later and say why did you have me so late..we have 4 DS all at different stages DS1 at Uni, DS2 will do GCSEs next year, DS3 is 9. All of them are fit healthy and have various talents - we do seem so lucky with them.

So how do I get DW to see the positive stuff? Should she just chuck the job in? We could manage reasonably but some luxuries may have to go.

As for me - I try to look on the positives and bought my MLC car a year or so ago...

Thanks kerstina for coming back - and I think you are probably right about the spring.

NigellaCDWM - it doesnt sound like giving up work would be the answer. The issue of DW's mum being ill would still be there. I dont know how you get someone else to see the positive stuff. Ive read lots of things that say you can learn to be an optimist (if you want to). But maybe if thats your personality - then thats the way you are (?)

i do think the whole parents getting older/ill/dying is huge - and probably takes a lot to come to terms with for many people.

could be you may have excess time on your hands, only you know.
I would start counting your blessings and maybe think about doing some volanteer work. You might consider thinking and helping those who are going through a real chrisis Who do not have your creture conforts in life.
You are alive and 'kicking' have a family and a loving secure relationship, just go ahead and buy yourself a sports car and anything else you can lay your hands on.

Oh this is very familiar to me. I'm turning 40 this year and my father had a small heart attack last week. He lives abroad (no, actually, I live abroad) but I haven't seen him for nearly 3 years and I couldn't visit him or talk to him in hospital.

Cried every day for a week, mainly because the reality of losing a parent in the not-too-distant future is setting in.

And then I wonder what I've done or got to show for my life so far.

Nothing.

I'm single, no kids. I don't have a mortgage, but I do have a credit card debt (that will be gone by July). I don't live near my family and I don't have one of my own.

When I go out I get hit on by 24 year olds, and men my own age look really old .

Sorry - this is getting me down a little now. Not sure what to do about it, but I'm getting a surge of carpe diem lately and possibly going to take a big plunge into those unrealised "one day I'll...." dreams.

And be a better person, live a good life, be a good friend/sister/aunty/daughter etc.

siouxsienusude - i dont think its a case of too much time on hands for me - full time job, two kids, live away from family so a lot of spare time spent visiting them.

But think the sentiment of what you are saying is right- ie. be thankful for what youve got.

Thing is - I think I am very thankful - but it just seem to take away that sense of unease of time disappearing ?....

Mybrilliantcareer - sorry about your dad - hope he is doing ok.

In all honesty I think I have felt like this my whole life - I'm now late 40s. The fact is that life is relatively short and fragile and old age can be tough. Existential angst is part of the human condition that separates us from other animals - it's not crazy - it's just something each of us has to come to terms with in their own way.

I always find this time of year the hardest - the dark of winter after the holidays. I'm seriously thinking of getting a light box.

Kerstina - being pg was definitely one of the happiest times of my life (apart from the sickness etc). Dd is 5 now. Nigella - I sometimes worry about having had her so late - but my answer to that is simple - she would not exist otherwise - would that be better?

I've crossed the rubicon of literally watching both parents die. I accept that death is a natural part of our lives - I have to - because it really is unalterable. I do worry a lot that I will die before dd is properly gown up. But Dh almost died and it was exceedingly difficult for us to have dd. These things have helped me be a bit more thankful, generally.

More on meaning. I am a big fan of Dorothy Rowe who has several very good books. She writes about how each person constructs their own sense of meaning and that totally resonates with me, i.e. there is no objective meaning out there - it is all subjective and you have to make it for yourself from the things that resonate with you. I think a feeling of meaninglessness is often a search for some objective meaning out their in the world waiting to be discovered - in which case you are bound to be disappointed (unless you really get into religion). Just because we create our own sense of meaning doesn't render that meaningless - it's as meaningful as it gets.

I love dh and dd dearly but they are not enough to complete my sense of living a meaningful life - I need suitable work too. The trick, to paraphrase another thread on here, is to neither under-achieve nor over reach. I have thought about what I want to have done before I die and tried to plan realistically. I am supposed to be working right now in fact..... .