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Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#311

You need to see a therapist. Your problem is largely on your outlook on where you are in life. This is not meant to be a buck up or shut up comment, it's just that you can't improve your life until you change your outlook on things. You won't be able to move forward on things until you confront your feelings and accept your position to move out of it. To answer your question, yes. My 30's were a mess with a divorce,…

I don't think you're wrong, but it's worth mentioning that you can't outlook-change your way out of having executive dysfunction. Recognizing the problem is the first step, but getting help comes soon after.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#312

You need to see a therapist. Your problem is largely on your outlook on where you are in life. This is not meant to be a buck up or shut up comment, it's just that you can't improve your life until you change your outlook on things. You won't be able to move forward on things until you confront your feelings and accept your position to move out of it. To answer your question, yes. My 30's were a mess with a divorce,…

Yes, I read this and was thinking therapy from the start. I was never against therapy but finally pulled through and my mood and outlook have improved dramatically over the past six months thanks to my weekly therapy sessions.

OP’s username seems somewhat German so I would cordially invite OP to make use of our pretty decent Krankenkasse system that makes it a relative breeze to get therapy sessions. Shop around if you don’t vibe with your therapist.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#313

You need to see a therapist. Your problem is largely on your outlook on where you are in life. This is not meant to be a buck up or shut up comment, it's just that you can't improve your life until you change your outlook on things. You won't be able to move forward on things until you confront your feelings and accept your position to move out of it. To answer your question, yes. My 30's were a mess with a divorce,…

100% to the above and I would look specifically for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which specializes in treating distorted thinking. It rescued me from my early thirties and I haven’t been depressed since. Our brains are wired to generate stories and narratives around everything, we can’t help it, and sometimes those narratives are distorted but cause damage and like a scab, we keep reinforcing and picking at them. Learning to recognize when you’re doing this and to stop is a skill like riding a bike, and a good therapist can help. Group therapy also helps because you can see other people going into these catastrophic narratives that look absurd to you and give you an idea of some of the same distortions you might be imagining.

Then other thing is, no matter how smart you are, you can’t debug yourself, you need other people. If you have a distorted negative feeling of yourself, then when you try to fix yourself, you’ll be more inclined to feel something isn’t working or you are doomed the first time you hit a roadblock or relapse.

And ultimately sometimes medication can help you get through the initial hurdle of such negativity, another reason you need to see a professional to evaluate this.

Go check out YouTube and Wikipedia for some cognitive behavioral therapy sources to see if it might fit.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#314
post #77

You need to see a therapist. Your problem is largely on your outlook on where you are in life. This is not meant to be a buck up or shut up comment, it's just that you can't improve your life until you change your outlook on things. You won't be able to move forward on things until you confront your feelings and accept your position to move out of it. To answer your question, yes. My 30's were a mess with a divorce,…

How do u find a therapist? I’m a bit weary to discuss super personal things with someone I don’t know even if they’re a professional. How can I find someone I trust and is actually good? Not like the movies where the clock is up and ok next issue. My work offers a mental health service but I’ve looked at their TOS and no thanks. Sometimes I feel like just suspending the world background process and being still would…

My SO is a therapist. Something to keep in mind: Many quality therapists have stopped taking insurance due to the influx of folks seeking care coupled w/ insurance tightening what they pay out.

I'm certain there are plenty of good therapists who will take their time with you at the discount implied by insurance, but you're more likely to get that experience if you're paying full rate.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#315
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second that, I would suggest move to a larger city and get a job and therapist there (looks like the OP is from Germany, which I would personally prefer to US). And regarding to life goals, wife and kids in particular, although I have decided not to have a family, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I think there are many single mothers out there who would appreciate a stable and solid partner with 2nd inco…

One thing to note is that while Germany is much better if you need social services, it's much easier to move between classes in the US. It's very hard to move up in German society without the right social circles which are also much more exclusive than in the US or London. That said, while therapy is one thing(and very hard to find someone that actually helps you out of your misery instead of reinforcing it), I'd may…

Sorry, but the last bit is complete and utter bollocks. Never, ever don't mention this. Please delete this dangerous misinformation that might keep people from looking for help in times of need.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#316
No offense to the reply, but “need a therapist” is a very American response and a bit of a cop out.

OP, I’ve seen many people turn around after aged 40, including a friend who got married for the first time at aged 58. She’s energetic and attractive and incidentally also turned her life around after 40.

My two pennies would suggest you throw the past expectations out the window, determine where your passions lie, and set short-term intentions / goals. I might also suggest looking to groups where people are successful but take approaches outside the norm. My friend for example is a successful physician and involved in a Yoga community that is global and inexpensive and where he can meet others of like kind. Build community for yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#317
I would seriously consider looking into psychedelics as an accompaniment to therapy or other help. They helped me immensely in getting out of a rut (rut is the best analogy as your brain tends to follow the path of least resistance, even if it's detrimental to you. Psychedelics release your brain into a host of new directions and allow it to create new connections and paths)

Clinical studies have found that it is one of the most effective cure for a host of mental health issues.

Some references: - https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/... - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220606-psilocybin-how-p...

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#318
Couple things:

You have a bad attitude, you get what you accept, you’ve already defeated yourself without even trying.

If you like the US pack your shit and book a flight. Today. Your flight is something to look forward to and a deadline for taking care of what you need to do to achieve what you want.

Action is going to help you more than talking about your problems, stop talking, start fixing.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#319
There’s lots of good comments about mental health support, agree with those recommendations. But, I just want to mention, how very beneficial a program of physical exercise is for a man in their 40s. I’m 47, my experience is, I had let myself grow old prematurely due to lack of physical activity, from focusing on sitting at the computer a decade. My home life with my partner was awful, I had grown fat and lost my vigor, I was on the cusp of losing my partner and watching my family break apart. That would have definitely negatively impacted my business too. So, this year I started going to the gym, lost 30lbs, grew some muscle mass, changed myself physically which changed my mentality and now ultimately, I’ve pulled off a complete 180 in my life this year. I will also encourage you to have your testosterone levels checked and if they are at the lower end of the reference range, consider starting a TRT program. TRT + exercise for a man in their 40s is probably the closest thing that exists to a real fountain of youth.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#320
Managed to lift myself out of a suicidal hole that started when I was around 7-8. It started with quitting smoking and picking up exercise, which did seem to make a lot of the underlying substrate of hopelessness recede. Then came the pandemic, which allowed me to step back from human interaction and day to day noise enough to realize how much calmer my life could be. I picked up mountain biking which reconnected with my inner child to just go out and discover stuff, plus spending a significant amount of time in nature.

This finally culminated in finding the autistic community on twitter, which put my entire life on its head, and finally shed a very different light on the difficulties I face, and where the constant suicidal thoughts were coming from. I know approach a lot of things through the lens of disability. There are a lot of things I just can't power through and learn and work on, and instead of trying even harder, approaching them by finding accomodations. This is an ongoing process, but it changed my life from never ending gloom to being very content. I have a lot of lucky circumstances that made this relatively smooth for me, and I have no idea if this is even true for me, but exercise and structuring my day felt like the catalyst, which set a healthy foundation for productive and positive introspection.

Getting ADHD meds was a significant part of me keeping this approach up in a professional and relationship setting.

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