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

CBT helped debug my thinking in very analogous circumstances to OP (30+, hit hard by events in life plus somewhat traumatic past), warm recommendation as well.

43 is not really "late in life". I think if you can get your situation evaluated professionally from a physical (blood tests/levels, physical conditioning assay, environment), mental (therapist/therapy) and financial perspective, you can begin to make progress on the goals.

Take some real consolation that many MANY men in their 40's that got married and did the family life in their 20's are separated or getting separated. Compared to that level of social debt - you are still in a very reasonable spot to make moves.

It is very easy to boil it all down to "just get moving", and I understand since it's so far down the journey to turning things around that it's easy to dismiss as well-wishing, but that is really the only way to effect change. Get uncomfortable with your status quo and stay uncomfortable.

Finding success in your 40's is not as easy as it is in your 20's, but you have no material reason not to find it.

If I recall correctly, Paula Deen didn't really start in the culinary world until she was in her mid-40s. I'm sure she had some kind of experience before, but at the time I believe for her it was a complete career shift.

You can carry on doing something complpetely new and be a success, even starting in your 40s.

Need is not the right word because it depends on the person. Some can get better with the right therapy alone. Others don't even respond to therapy + meds but might improve with more invasive neurological interventions.

But there are certainly people in our present world who do need meds to get out of the depression hole. There are people that do not respond to therapy alone but do respond to meds with therapy.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your comment, indeed the statement you're quoting is extreme. But I think HN has the tendency to go too far to the other extreme. At the end of the day, clinical depression is very heterogeneous. You need to do what works best for you.

Btw in case it isn't clear how meds are supposed to work in practice - medication for depression is not something you just pop and forget about. Any reputable psychiatrist will include therapy as part of the initial treatment plan, they don't just write a prescription and send you away.

Yes bad clinicians exist, but I think the pill popping trope for psych is way less common than people assume. Perhaps part of the source of this stigma is the role of the general practitioner. It is not uncommon to see random non-psychiatrist MDs prescribing SSRIs or stimulants, and in those cases it's a lot less likely the corresponding behavioral therapy is happening.

Anyway, medication is an absolute life saver for those people who need help in making the behavioral changes to begin with. There is a large body of studies at this point showing that simultaneous meds and therapy can improve depression symptoms more than the sum of their parts. Gold standard practice is to try tapering off of meds after the course of therapy, and more often than not the symptom improvements persist.

OP should get a professional opinion specific to his situation. He shouldn't go with the intention of seeking meds, but they should be something he inquires about. Some of the sibling comments here are acting like needing meds is a lack of will power, which is just as unhelpful as indiscriminately pushing meds.

That's not anything to keep in mind at all. There are many different kinds of therapies and therapists. Lumping them together and writing them off is brutal and insensitive.

People need help understanding how to live. Therapists are trained to do that. Some of them are good at it, and some are bad at it.

But telling someone who is in need of structured introspection and practical cognitive and behavioral techniques to NOT go to a therapist is really pretty horrible.