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

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461–470 of 767 posts

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

#461

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,…

> a kid who had a unknown behavior problems they said was autism,

Curious to know how that shook out. Did they get a different diagnosis eventually? Did anything in particular help?

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

#462
post #281
post #10

I don't have any idea why you think "a wife, kids" are out of the picture for you: after early adulthood, men and women are looking for someone they can see having a family with, and not for the more superfluous things in life (good looks, status or lots of money). At 43, having kids is harder for women, but usually not for men (well, at least making babies: bringing up kids does get a bit harder as you age regardles…

> At 43, having kids is harder for women, but usually not for men (well, at least making babies: bringing up kids does get a bit harder as you age regardless of the gender). And regardless, do consider adoption, even as a single parent. There are loads of kids taken away from parents who for whatever reason can't really care for them. Often there's a generational component: the kid's grandparent abused or couldn't su…

Be cautious with this. Lots of kids need adopting no doubt. But adoption can be extraordinarily difficult for parents. I speak from experience. It's not something to be taken lightly.

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

#463
You are doing well than the vast number of people your age

The fact you are seeking help means you are on a good path

What we all seek is happiness

All the goals you think you missed are meant to bring happiness

It’s never too late to seek and experience the happiness

We all must find it uniquely it seems you sad that you didn’t use the same framework as most you think to use ( wife, kids, house, money)

Start where you are and focus on finding your happiness every day and you will be fine

Can seek therapy, good sleep, and physical activity routine

My Best wishes and I truly believe you can fulfill your destiny and purpose anytime you are ready for it as it doesn’t take time to do that

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

#465

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. Lea…

An alternative to CBT that you might want to consider is Internal Family Systems. I find it to be a more holistic and compassionate form of therapy that respects your entire internal system.

Sometimes we have internal parts that need love and care more than they need lecturing on cognitive distortions.

CBT is effective for many people which is great, but there are other options.

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

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Psychiatrists differ from therapists in the US because they can prescribe meds. Antidepressants, ADHD meds, etc. Not sure what his point is though. I understand your frustration with the "go to therapy" response. Even in the US there is a dismissive undertone to comments like this. The reality is that the people who get the most out of therapy already have a positive outlook on its benefits. Therapy doesn't fix anyon…

Eh I don't think a random non-judgemental arbiter would have the same efficacy. Therapy also usually involves teaching specific tools for dealing with negative thoughts. Parts of that could be outsourced to a workbook, but at times there is helpful personalization that occurs.

It's totally true that it requires some buy-in, but so does an exercise routine. Things that require effort require buy-in.

It is also true that there's a ton of variance and that some people who give it an honest try still don't really improve. This stuff is still really poorly understood for the most part, and I don't think therapy is a silver bullet. Neither is anything else anyone suggests.

So yeah therapy is far from perfect, but I think it's selling it a bit short to suggest that the entire effect boils down to a facilitated self-conversation.

I also don't get why others are so annoyed by the therapy suggestion, as I don't really see the downside of trying it. OP should look into all the options he might have, which IMO is the point of seeking community advice. You're not going to get an exact answer from HN comments, just some ideas.

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

#467

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,…

[deleted]

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

#468

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,…

"See a therapist" almost seems condescending even to average people with average jobs. Did you read the bit about $25K in savings? Or the part about there are "no mental health facilities in the small town where I live"? How's he afford a therapist, time or money wise?

> Or the part about There are "no mental health facilities in the small town where I live"

HN is hugely biased towards people who live in cities. A lot of the posters simply do not understand how a lot of us outside the cities live, and the resources they take for granted that we don't have access to.

For me the drive to the nearest therapist is measured not in minutes, but hours. That's impossible for someone who has to work full time.

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

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychoanalysis is pretty much discredited as a scientific discipline, nowadays. There's also a lot of evidence of remote therapy being just as effective as in-person therapy.

Citation needed. Psychoanalysis is widely practiced and it’s efficacy has been repeatedly scientifically demonstrated.

> Citation needed.

Sure, I will cite the Wikipedia page on Psychoanalysis, which itself has many citations which you can follow:

1. "Psychoanalysis is a controversial discipline, and its effectiveness as a treatment has been contested"

2. "Linguist Noam Chomsky has criticized psychoanalysis for lacking a scientific basis."

3. "Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould considered psychoanalysis influenced by pseudoscientific theories such as recapitulation theory."

4. "Psychologists Hans Eysenck, John F. Kihlstrom and others have also criticized the field as pseudoscience."

5. "Philosopher Frank Cioffi cites false claims of a sound scientific verification of the theory and its elements as the strongest basis for classifying the work of Freud and his school as pseudoscience."

6. "Karl Popper argued that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience because its claims are not testable and cannot be refuted; that is, they are not falsifiable:

....those "clinical observations" which analysts naively believe confirm their theory cannot do this any more than the daily confirmations which astrologers find in their practice. And as for Freud's epic of the Ego, the Super-ego, and the Id, no substantially stronger claim to scientific status can be made for it than for Homer's collected stories from the Olympus."

7. "Imre Lakatos wrote that "Freudians have been nonplussed by Popper's basic challenge concerning scientific honesty. Indeed, they have refused to specify experimental conditions under which they would give up their basic assumptions.""

8. "Scruton nevertheless concluded that psychoanalysis is not genuinely scientific, on the grounds that it involves an unacceptable dependence on metaphor."

9. "The philosopher and physicist Mario Bunge argued that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience because it violates the ontology and methodology inherent to science. According to Bunge, most psychoanalytic theories are either untestable or unsupported by evidence."

10. "Cognitive scientists, in particular, have also weighed in. Martin Seligman, a prominent academic in positive psychology, wrote that:

Thirty years ago, the cognitive revolution in psychology overthrew both Freud and the behaviorists, at least in academia.… The imperialistic Freudian view claims that emotion always drives thought, while the imperialistic cognitive view claims that thought always drives emotion. The evidence, however, is that each drives the other at times."

11. "Historian Henri Ellenberger, who researched the history of Freud, Jung, Adler, and Janet, while writing his book The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry, argued that psychoanalysis was not scientific on the grounds of both its methodology and social structure:

Psychoanalysis, is it a science? It does not meet the criteria (unified science, defined domain and methodology). It corresponds to the traits of a philosophical sect (closed organisation, highly personal initiation, a doctrine which is changeable but defined by its official adoption, cult and legend of the founder)."

12. "Richard Feynman wrote off psychoanalysts as mere "witch doctors""

13. "Likewise, psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, in Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists (1986), agreed that psychoanalytic theories have no more scientific basis than the theories of traditional native healers, "witchdoctors" or modern "cult" alternatives such as EST."

14. "Psychologist Alice Miller charged psychoanalysis with being similar to the poisonous pedagogies"

15. "Psychologist Joel Kupfersmid investigated the validity of the Oedipus complex, examining its nature and origins. He concluded that there is little evidence to support the existence of the Oedipus complex."

> Psychoanalysis is widely practiced

Astrology is widely practiced as well. Doesn't mean it's scientific.

> and it’s efficacy has been repeatedly scientifically demonstrated.

That is a very controversial statement within modern psychology.

Although I have no doubt that most psychoanalysts believe that, just as homeopaths and other pseudoscientific practitioners also believe that their disciplines are scientific.

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