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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?

#501

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…

THANK YOU

I know "see a therapist" is generally meant well, and therapy can definitely help, but people are way too quick to suggest it, and suggest it as a must. It can communicate that a person is broken when their situation can be due to any number of things besides brokenness. I think most people know that therapy is an option, and I think many also underestimate the difficulty in not only finding an adequate therapist but a therapist at all in any reasonable amount of time.

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

#502

This is above HN's paygrade. International Suicide Crisis Hotline directory: https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines If you are posting this kind of message on HN then you're at a point that you can call for a 1-1 chat. There are people who can listen. Don't rely on social media to do this.

Ah, suicide hotlines.

Ok, he must absolutely do it if he needs. BUT.

- For men, they’re underfunded, at least in my country (France). I called them a few times in my life, can’t count the number of times the answering machines were like “We’re open Tuesdays, 7pm-midnight” or “You are the … 7th … in the queue”. Or it’s a hotline for teens. Or it’s a hotline for suicide AND familial violence.

- Many suicide hotlines are for women, or designed for women and incapable of dealing with men’s problems. As in “I… I… can’t date” “Well just ask a girl out”. Yeah right, words of a woman, it works for them this way to they project that it must be easy for men.

The night I called 7 of them just to get no answer gave me a hit of anger, which was enough to pull me through. I wanted to take revenge for the world not caring enough about us.

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

#504
There are actually drugs that can help with suicidal thoughts:

“Clozapine is used to treat severely ill patients with schizophrenia who have used other medicines that did not work well. It is also used to lower risk of suicidal behavior in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.” Nov 1, 2022

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clozapine?wprov=sfti1

Medicine, therapy - and a group type therapy can help.

Also consider career switching - I believe you can reinvent yourself at any age.

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

#505
40-sth german here, currently working through a very similar problem, which is why I'll use a burner account.

1. Extending professionally with a background in BI reporting and analytics, it's easy to get freelance work in germany. Build a CV, send them out to agents (I can highly recommend etengo¹, because they are transparent/open-book on the pricing for client and freelancer) - they'll do all the boring and tedious sales work you don't want to do. Keep in mind, that freelancing has its own stress factors (mainly instability and not being part of a team), which can aggravate your depression.

2. Enhancing your tech skills is easy nowadays, there are enough resources online. Play around with one or two interesting new skills as you see fit, put them into practical use with some toy project and write it down as a 6-month "failed startup" in your CV.

3. Therapists in germany are organized in semi-unofficial networks and will often refer you to collegues, if they feel that it's urgent and can't help you directly. Some networks offer a few out-of-the-order consultations to bridge the waiting time.

4. There's different levels of depression. It's vital that you are honest about them to yourself and to healthcare workers and use the emergency services, if you are feeling on acting on suicidal thoughts. They come in waves and while you might be just "a bit down" at times, a wave can drag you into acting on suicidal thoughts at other times.

5. German healthcare professionals do NOT have the direct authority to "institutionalize" someone for having suicidal thoughts (read that too often here). The only exception is when you are an immediate and real threat to yourself or to someone else. The bar for a forced institutionalization is extremely high and they are required to check the necessity with a judge in regular intervals. What they WILL do is thoroughly check if you want to voluntarily stay at a hospital to get you out of harms way.

6. If you speak german, I can highly recommend taking a MBCT course at the Benediktushof in Holzkirchen². MBCT in general is meditation and mindfulness, enriched with psychotherapeutic elements from CBT. The Benediktushof is a former monastery and has a lot more courses for meditation, but the real benefit is getting out of your current surrounding and resetting yourself - it helped me tremendously, and silence never feels as loud and comforting as it does there.

7. Do not attempt to fix your life through a relationship, you'll just hurt yourself (talking from too many experiences here). You first have to fix yourself up to a normal far-from-perfect-but-not-depressive level, the rest will come afterwards.

8. Psychotherapy for depression is essential, medication is not - but there's a level of depression, where the latter is simply necessary for a psychotherapy to be able to work. If a therapist sends you to a psychiatrist to talk about medication, do it - even if your mind rebels against that.

9. While things like a regular sport schedule (and even if it's just taking a walk in a park for 20min) and self-help material will help you in early stages or mild forms of depression, they are no substitute for professional help in the later stages.

¹ https://etengo.de

² https://www.benediktushof-holzkirchen.de/kategorie/kw/bereic...

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

#507

[From ChatGPT] I'm sorry to hear about the difficult circumstances you've been facing. It's understandable that you would feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to begin in trying to make positive changes in your life. It's important to remember that it's never too late to make positive changes and to work towards a life that brings you fulfillment and happiness. One thing that might be helpful is to try breaking down…

Wow. What did you use as the prompt?

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

#508
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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…

It's shocking that people write that kind of misinformation and it is upvoted so highly at the same time. The threshold to be forcibly put into a closed psychiatry ward is enormously high.

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

#509
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 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.

[deleted]

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

#510
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…

i found my therapist via a therapy app, which we both left long ago. Apps like BetterHelp and TalkSpace can be very hit and miss, but they're a place to start, and can serve as good matchmaking services.

Be prepared to pay out of pocket, my insurance pays about half of what my sessions cost. You get what you pay for. You don't want a therapist who is stretched too thin, overworked, or financially struggling themselves.

Also, ask friends and family, you may know more people in therapy than you realize, and talking about MH with people you know is incredibly helpful.

If you have a good PCP, ask them for a referral both to a therapist, and consider an IOP - an Intensive Outpatient Program. When you're trying to get out of crisis, it can be helpful to have more than just a weekly or biweekly session. I am in such a program now, it includes group therapy every day (I can choose which groups) and more intensive individual therapy and case management.

The particular program I am in also does ketamine therapy, which can help to rewire your neuropathways so that behavioral changes are more permanent. There are some online programs - Better U and Mindbloom come up in a quick search - which will offer this and other IOP-like services remotely, though I'm not sure how they compare to traditional IOP.

Above all, seeking help in any way that you can will make you feel better and I am personally proud of you for coming and asking a bunch of strangers for help. It shows a readiness to take on your challenges.

Good luck on your journey! <3

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