Midlife... Crisis

What is it exactly? For me it feels like sad feelings of regret over mistakes I have made... at some point I have to face and own up to them and I didn’t do that soon enough... I spent too much time feeling angry and blaming others. I really regret that. I’m not doing that anymore... not now.

It also feels like giving up... or is it just acceptance?... Some things you hope for just never happen... I ask myself why I continue to try so hard? Seriously? Why don’t I just accept things as they are and let it all go... I am tired of working so hard at everything... spinning my wheels... Things are not going to change so why struggle so much?

It could be depression rather than midlife crisis, or even both. I'm sorry you're feeling this way

I was fine until I started menopause and my arthritis got bad. I am rallying now, but I was a basket case for awhile. THAT is why I was here. I thought I was, if you will pardon my expression, NUTS. I am slowly coming back to myself. My only problem is like in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes "I am too young to be old and too old to be young". But I have decided I am going to do what I am going to do and to H*** with the rest of it.

Interesting question - no smart answers here. I recently got one small osteo-arthritis in one bone in my hand seemingly as the result of a minor fall. I had screaming pain moving all over my hand, thumb and arm for nine weeks and that drove me nuts. Part of my identity always has been physical flexibility and strength and suddenly I had no answers about is this permanent, how long will this go on, is it getting worse, why does my upper arm hurt at one moment and my thumb the next. I was misdiagnosed and had to experiment with when to rest, when to splint, how to self-care.

I'm not surprised that full blown arthritis could drive someone nuts.
Coincidentally I came across a wonderful, compassionate article about newly diagnosed arthritus sufferers called "Disruption and Chronic Illness". It talks about disruption of sufferers' sense of identity and the impact on their relationships and working life. Particularly because arthritus is an illness which stretches medical science and social support to it's limits because it's not predictable. I really relate to the concept of disruption by physical limitations = shaking the sense of self and social relationship to the foundations.

I don't really know if I had a mid-life crisis. I had a secret life-long crisis that smoldered until, in mid-life, it came spewing out all over the place. I once knew a guy who wore a hat that had a saying written on it. It said: "Ask me tomorrow. I've made enough mistakes for today." In my case, though, it would have to say: "Don't ask me today... or tomorrow either. I've made more than enough mistakes for a lifetime."

I'm pretty angry... but mostly at myself. Looking back at my life can take my breath away. I can see where other people certainly contributed to my demise. But, ultimately, as the Jimmy Buffett song says: "...it's my own damn fault." I'm not trying anymore. It all just is what it is... or was what it was... to be more accurate. It's all water over the dam now.

The way you speak kind of reminds me of the way I felt a lot about 5 years ago. I was very bored with my life and it felt at a standstill. Maybe its not the same. You sound like you're working very hard, but not sure why or what for. What do you want to change? What do you want in your life? Also even though you "Waited too long" to make amends, please go easy on yourself. It sounds like you've taken personal responsibility for your actions and feelings and thoughts, and you're doing the best you can. Maybe you were doing the best you could (with what you knew and had) back then too. It may not have been the best way to handle things but you did your best with what you knew how to do. Now you know better, so you're doing better. That deserves a pat on the back!

Mid-life crisis for me was facing empty nest (hell), facing mess of a marriage, attempting a third child (lost to miscarriage at mid-term). Losing too many family members and a lot of precious pets, all in a short time. Suddenly all the beauty and charm - and fun! - of youth was GONE. Gone, gone. All I could see was a long and painful slide down, down toward death.


I've slowly rebuilt in many ways. I'm still in the shadows, though. Not having immense hope for standing in the true light ever again. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I don’t know if I’m going or have gone through a mid-life crisis. Suddenly empty nest syndrome, caring for an aging parent and brother in poor health and several medical and dental problems within close proximity plus losing loved ones on top of mental illness became one blow too many and life broke me.

I started seeing life the way Laurie above did. Still trying to figure it out. I hope you do too.

I agree with mostly everything already said. My “ midlife crisis “ has been a lifelong crisis. But now in my 60’s it just seems to be all going downhill. Don’t care if I wake up in the morning anymore. Lost too much. The only reason I’m still here is because I have some gratitude for the simple things in my life.
For me it’s also depression. You may have it temporarily. The thing is I don’t have a purpose in life that I can discern. Maybe God knows , but I don’t.
I don’t feel useful. And what I believe to be a very important factor is that I’m probably in the wrong place or senario. Think about it. If you were lucky enough
to bump into the right people, in the right place , at the right time , you just might wind up feeling a little more optimistic about the future.
Good luck , I wish you the best.

What you've described certainly sounds like a mid-life crisis to me. "Life broke me"...what an exceptional statement. Exactly.

Reading your stories makes me think... at some point in time we lost our hope.

I can relate to that. I'm 38 and I've been working as a programmer for like 10 years and now I feel I'm becoming a workaholic because there's nothing else to do in my life.

It started as an exciting hobby (or as an escape from reality into the "computer world"). I didn't become a gamer - I actually don't like when my adrenaline gets high. But I like the feeling of control and order of things in the computer. And sometimes, when some software bug creeps in, I feel excited and can spend hours hunting it down and fixing.

But all of that had led me to nothing. I would like to change something, but the problem is that I have no idea what do I actually want. At school, I was equally good at many subjects but I didn't feel enough eagerness to pursue any of it. I'm somewhat good at writing and sometimes I write some short absurd fantasy stories with some philosophical metaphors, but I don't have enough life experience and contact with people to become a good writer and I don't really want it to become a routine.

I also share my poems with my friends and on social networks, and people like them, but still I don't want to become a poet. I also can sing and play a clarinet, but I don't feel strong passion for music.

So, I often feel like "jack of all trades, master of none" who has enough skills and patience to achieve average results at everything he tries but who doesn't have enough intellect and experience, and desire to excel at anything in particular.

I see my classmates having married or having a successful carrier or having written some books or becoming widely known for something they do. I also want that... except that I don't really know why, and I have no idea what would I do with that because I'm an introverted person who most often wants to be left alone and enjoy a peaceful life.

Maybe my introverted nature is sabotaging me - as soon as I try something that I might become very successful at, I get scared of popularity and so I pull back. Or maybe the problem is that I can't choose one area and become excellent at that while giving up everything else. I have to have a reliable job to pay my bills, so I can't give up my job. But I can't also give up my creativity and stop writing poems and short stories and playing a clarinet. So, my energy gets scattered among different things and that's why I'm just average at all of them, and not excellent at some of them.

Some years I received a prize for being the best employee in our company of 30 people. It brought me some sense of achievement and satisfaction. But at the same time my deeper subconscious feeling was - hey, what's it worth if I'm good in this small company who mostly is just a cog in a big machine that produces software for large enterprises? I want real recognition from real people; the sense that I'm doing something globally important ... yeah, Napoleon syndrome, I guess. Or a midlife crisis.