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Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
401–410 of 767 posts
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
#402As a 42 year old full-time undergraduate student having recently resurfaced from a deep depression that cost me my job of 11 years (which ended up being for the best, largely,) I can relate to what you're going through.
As so many other people have said, you are probably depressed. It's not your fault, you didn't cause it, you can't just 'stop' being depressed by trying to do things like you aren't depressed, and unless you address your depression, you simply won't be successful addressing anything else.
> I know the best of my life is behind me
I assure you this is false unless you deliberately make it so. Happiness isn't the opposite of depression: vitality is. From depression, the good times seem like a distant relic that you no longer deserve or are capable of. That is the barrier between you and the good times-- not age, or time.
Drugs could help you start turning things around in weeks. Even better combined with either talk therapy to keep you on track, or CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which gives you customized, situation-specific mental tools to change your behavior) if talk therapy/emotional deep dives makes you too uncomfortable. If you'd prefer not to take antidepressants, CBT alone is fantastically effective. (Seriously. Lots of peer-reviewed research.)
> no vices at all other than severe procrastination and a masterful ability to lie to myself.
You might want to ask whoever you're getting treated by if you might have a condition for which depression is a frequent comorbidity, because it sounds like you have trouble with executive functioning. The EF problems associated with ADHD, for example, quite frequently manifest themselves as extreme procrastination.
All of this stuff is eminently treatable, with or without drugs, with or without emotional deep-dives of talk therapy. While professional guidance is essential, what you'll get is a set of tools and strategies to keep the ship right and fix it when it goes wrong (which is allll part of the process. Don't beat yourself up.) I am completely confident you can regain a functional, fulfilling, enjoyable adulthood as I did.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>>One thing that's very important in Germany when getting help is to never EVER say that you have suicidal thoughts. The moment you do that you slide into a bracket out of the social system that you can never get out of on your own. Any doctor or psychologist may now force you to take medication or put you in the asylum whenever they chose. That is terrifying. Those medications are mediocre in the long-term. If you h…
It's as terrifying as it is wrong. Nobody ever forces you to take meds or being put into an "asylum". ESPECIALLY in Germany. I have no idea where this idea comes from but it is not true at all
Disclaimer: I have two very close friends and one relative who struggled with suicidal thoughts. None of them were put on meds against their will, or put into an "asylum". There was staionary therapy though, sometimes multiple ones, but not against their will
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
#404Bro you are are on the right forum. My family has a healthy dose of depression passed down. I can read it in every word you're writing. It's just a chemical reaction, you can defeat it but it will be tough.
Achievement cures depression. Any achievement. Dead time exacerbates depression - i.e. watching TV, playing mindless games, porn, hell even reading sometimes (if it's trash and you're just reading to escape your reality - obviously lots of reading can be good). Quit escaping your life because it's shitty or it will remain shitty.
So try this, set a small goal for yourself, either fitness or professional (i.e. a training course online, Udemy, etc. maybe refresh your BI skills with some modern Big Data type stuff). And just give that 100%. Knock it out, get the certificate, lose 10 pounds. Just one small win. BTW I work in that field a bit - it's gotten so much more fun in the last 10 years than just running Tableau over and over. Cloud services have made analytics just amazing.
Start there. The rest will come as you continue to set small goals and string wins together.
Don't worry about what happened already. Shit happened, now you just adapt and overcome.
Never quit.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
#405Step 1 of turning your life around is to get off HN, Reddit and 4chan.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
#406I am 42, single, similar situation. I was in a pretty dark place around 38 or so. I happened to read "man's search for meaning" by victor frankl and it honestly helped A LOT. When we are young and nature is working for our benefit, we should search for happiness. Beyond that, we need to search for meaning. There are 2 meanings implicit and third one you can pursue. 1) Search for meaning is meaningful itself. 2) Human…
Another bit of recommended reading is The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus.
I had read Frankl years prior, and while he helped me thoroughly understand the concept of meaning and the immense value of it, he didn't help me find it when I needed it. All of his suggested paths felt a bit wishful or self-deceptive. Absurdism was the only conversation that felt like it was grappling with the problem directly and unadorned.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At 43, having kids is harder for women, but usually not for men Finding a partner becomes hard, especially if you expect her to be 5-10 years younger. I used to be rather successful with women, was never single, always could find someone easily. I'm 45, in good shape with a good job, but it has became much harder.
If you'll excuse me saying -- and I may be totally misreading your comment -- it sounds like what you were looking for (and finding) so easily in the past wasn't really a partner , at least in the life-long sense, but rather a string of casual relationships. That's not at all the same thing as wanting a wife and kids.
Not really, I had many long term relationships, and shorter ones in between. I wasn't a super popular man, but attractive enough that I could always find partners with reasonable efforts.
But in any case, I think it's not that different as wanting a wife and kids. You need to be able to seduce someone, whether it's for a casual relationship, or for marriage. It's start with physical attraction either way. I don't think mentioning "I want to get married and have kids" will give you a free pass which is ironic considering many women complain men only want casual relationships.
Modern dating where people meet online makes it harder too. A gay friend of mine who is 60 years old says that back in the day, he would meet guys in saunas or bars, and older guy would have a chance. But online, nobody want to meet a 60 years old guy.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
#408You need a partner. I'm only speaking from my own perspective but I used to think I was born to be a loner but having a partner awakens something in you, love basically. It's wonderful and it gives you a will to go on. And I know it's a slog to meet someone, trust me I know. But you just have to do it. You have to make an effort and weed through dozens of weird dates before you meet someone. For me it came completely…
> You have to make an effort and weed through dozens of weird dates before you meet someone.
> I had resigned myself to enjoying life, was at a computer festival and suddenly there she was.
What you recommend seems to be the opposite of what worked for you.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
#409Yes. I turned my life around at 43. Single, obsolete tech skills, lots of debt, personal issues. Began with taking a genuine inventory of my life and how I function, not just how I felt. I picked a constructive and structured approach to that, which looked a lot like CBT therapy but was something else. It was a life reset, clearing out all the baggage. It was very difficult but incremental and genuine over time. Afte…
Thanks for sharing that for the OP. The narratives we create in our minds to explain the world can be a huge source of suffering and act as giant barriers to any improvements we can make. “It’s too late because of X.” “The best years are behind me since I reached 40.” etc. I know this from experience in battling my own demons. Therapy can be a huge help here if OP can find the right therapist.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No offense to the reply, but “need a therapist” is a very American response and a bit of a cop out. Why? I'd change it to "need a psychiatrist".
I don’t follow your last sentence. Why? Because it is a very American approach that is less the norm elsewhere. Therapy is not an industry to such a degree necessarily in other countries. Cop-out because it is akin to RTFM, ‘go Google it’, ‘delete and re-install’. If one doesn’t have a personal viewpoint, why bother responding.
Not the original poster, but regarding the last sentence, a psychiatrist is a medical doctor who can prescribe medication.
A medical doctor can evaluate the OP much better than we can, and determine if medication may be able to help, in addition to changing thinking patterns.