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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?

#561

Post by skippyboxedhero »

ravenstine wrote: post #501
vjulian wrote: post #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…

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 th…

I went through quite a bad phase...I started having mental-health problems, this triggered changes in my life that made everything worse, causing more problems, spiral.

I have been through three course of therapy, they helped me understand what was happening when I had an episode but...I was still in the same place, and that made all my mental-health problems worse (this isn't a post about that...but everything changed when one aspect of my material situation changed...when you go through this, everyone who has never had a problem like this will tell you therapy will help...maybe it will but your material situation is more important...there is no-one selling "material situations" at $200/hour though, so that tends to be emphasized less). No-one wants to acknowledge this because it makes mental health a trickier problem to solve.

I will say generally too: putting yourself in a situation where you are constantly looking for "the answer" is fundamentally unhelpful. You may not be able to overcome it yourself, but that doesn't mean a therapist can help.

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

#563

Post by rogerthatmix »

I’ve used and liked “Therapy in a Nutshell” youtube videos. She’s a licensed therapist in the US. Probably not a replacement for an in person therapist, but could be a good first step or supplementary information.

https://m.youtube.com/@TherapyinaNutshell

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

#564

Post by G3rn0ti »

rjzzleep wrote: post #329
bowsamic wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is therapy better in Germany? I live in Hamburg and the waiting list is more than a year for therapy. I was under the impression that it is somewhat faster in the US When I lived in the UK they wouldn’t offer me even a waiting list

Having worked in Germany's healthcare system, specifically in Hamburg, I can only see one trajectory. Worse. The policymakers are deeply corrupt and doing everything they can to squeeze more money out of patients. You can book therapists online next week in the US, but they're not cheap.

> The policymakers are deeply corrupt and doing everything they can to squeeze more money out of patients.

The problem is more related to the problem of „fixed budgets“. Every health practitioner in Germany’s public health system receives a fixed quota of money per quarter. In regions with few doctors and therapists this means practitioners would operate on a loss if they accept too many patients. That’s why you wait forever for a doctor if you got bad luck.

It’s an effect similar to the case a private good is regulated to have a maximum price. This way politicians create a shortage of that good. You can have a public system where everybody is forced to have insurance (or receives welfare if one cannot afford it) but where healthcare prices are allowed to float more freely. But German policy makers rarely understand basic economics (or don’t care) — but they are acting on good intentions.

That being said: There was a time I needed to see a therapist (after getting through a divorce) and didn’t have any trouble finding a therapist around the corner within two weeks. Five hours were covered by public health care provider immediately, then the therapist had to write a proposal and another doctor had to sanction it as others described. The proposal was smoothly granted.

Bottom line: Your mileage varies in Germany.

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

#565

Post by curious_cat_163 »

Your post is an accounting of all the things that you don't have. Sometimes, it is good to think about what you _do_ have.

It sounds like you have an M.Eng. degree, an ability to write fairly clearly and perhaps a reasonable awareness of the future possibilities for yourself.

You also have a goal: "I would prefer to go back to the US; not only for the dollars (they're nice), but also because I actually was happy there."

So, work on it? Build towards it every day. Spend every moment of your life chasing it. YOLO.

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

#566

Post by geoah »

mancerayder wrote: post #537
kemiller2002 wrote: post #4

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,…

> You need to see a therapist You should reword that. Otherwise how did humanity last this long? Psychotherapy is less than two centuries old. You should instead say something like, "One option is to see a therapist." There are friends, elders, books, and a number of other ways to climb out of a mental rut. Traipsing "Psychology Today" for a therapist who will charge the insurance $150 for 40 minutes of a session, th…

Humanity "survived" this long, many people did't make that cut, and many of those who did lived in misery, denial, or in the comfort of alcholor and/or drugs. IMO the cost of a couple of sessions to see if it works for you is better than not giving it a shot.

OP: Life can be good and does indeed gets better, if you are not in a good place, please do talk to someone, try to make a change, no matter how small, and stay strong.

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

#567

Post by philosopher1234 »

wizeman wrote: post #520
bowsamic wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be much more convinced by a modern meta analysis The problem is that I’m a physicist so I see a wiki page with a bunch of quotes from people of all disciplines including a physicist who was famously a huge sceptic of psychiatry and I think of all the physics pages that have all these “opinions” that are wrong Very few of those quotes mention evidence of outcomes of psychoanalysis but only mention very specifi…

> I would be much more convinced by a modern meta analysis There are many modern meta analysis assessing the (in)efficacy of psychoanalysis and comparing it to other approaches, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (which is the gold standard nowadays) and other approaches, which back my arguments. I am not really interested in going more deeply about this, but I encourage you to research it, if you are interested. T…

What meta analysis shows the inefficacy of psychoanalysis? Despite being apparently on the side of science, you didn’t bother to cite any actual science. Ironic

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

#568

Post by hashasyn »

I don't think that you are too old for anything that you said you are. You _feel_ old, as in lack of energy, or motivation, for example, which is an entirely different thing. Having a sport routine will most certainly address that. For example, in the morning after I wake up works for me, as it gives a boost of energy for the rest of the day. It will take about 30 days to get used to a routine, after that you will feel like you need it :) As for the emotional need, that is the next critical thing to address. There are a lot of decent women in your age range, some of them after a failed marriage, which are looking for an emotional connection and a relationship, just like you. Put yourself out there, and let the matching algorithms do their thing. I met my wife using Tinder. It s a good start.

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

#569

Post by roughly »

mancerayder wrote: post #537
kemiller2002 wrote: post #4

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,…

> You need to see a therapist You should reword that. Otherwise how did humanity last this long? Psychotherapy is less than two centuries old. You should instead say something like, "One option is to see a therapist." There are friends, elders, books, and a number of other ways to climb out of a mental rut. Traipsing "Psychology Today" for a therapist who will charge the insurance $150 for 40 minutes of a session, th…

It's worth considering a therapist as similar to a medical intervention - yes, good eating, clean living, and regular exercise can keep you healthy, but after a very long time of not doing so, it's possible to find oneself too far down the road for that kind of change to sufficient on its own. Similarly, the help of friends, family, etc. can do wonders for one's mental health, but after a very long time of neglect, that can be beyond one's reach.

I say this as someone who rather successfully turned things around with a therapist - I simply did not have it in me to have those conversations with others and I didn't feel I had the relationships or support to do so (in retrospect I probably did, but that's the thing about mental health).

I don't think your diagnosis is wrong, particularly - there's a lot in the modern world that promotes alienation, feelings of low self esteem, and depression, but I think a lot of people find themselves at the bottom of the well before realizing quite what's happening and without the support structures to get out on their own.

(Edit just to note that, like physical health, mental health is not just the consequences of one's own actions - both genetic predispositions and unexpected life events can necessitate professional intervention by no fault of one's own. It's not what we're talking about, but just so nobody takes my post to be a psalm from the church of the self-sufficient.)

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

#570

Post by skippyboxedhero »

Been through something similar (a bit younger). I am still going through it I suppose...but here is what I think.

You can put labels on yourself like: professional network is dead, single loser, prime is gone (this is all stuff I have thought too)...that stuff may be true, but you are shutting yourself down. You aren't even waiting for people to say no, you are saying no to yourself.

Ultimately, you can't change what has been.

I know what it feels like: you see someone in the news, you look and see how old they are, was their success continued through their life...but you are you. Maybe no-one has ever done it but does that mean you can't? Don't ask people online (do you want someone on here to tell you it is impossible so you don't feel as bad?), find out for yourself.

You say you lie to yourself...but you also quite critical of yourself too. Have you accepted what has already happened? You have struggled. That is it. You may get rejected if you try move past this, people will tell you no but if you are just waiting for validation passively...you will never get anywhere. This will get worse. The way out could come tomorrow.

Saying that you need to move to X or you need to do Y first...it is just an excuse for your current situation.

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