Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s? • Hacker News Board

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

#611

Post by ineedausername » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #543

ravenstine wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"See a Therapist" being the first, top-voted comment is to me a sign of a sick society, where loneliness reigns. In a world where in middle-age your closest friends are married with kids, and most people prefer to be 'remote-first' in friendships (you chat online with even friends you know), the answer "see a therapist" is for most people instead just a proxy for the gap: the gap of close friends and family to be abl…

You hit the nail on the head, but it's too late for that now, therapy is the new trend and will only keep growing from here. And it's not a bad idea, what do you have to loose anyway.

In a sick society, everyone is sick by definition anyway... so yeah... therapy

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

#612

Post by gernb » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

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…

I recently looked into seeing a therapist for reasons similar to the OP's.

I tried lyra. All the wording and questions ask screamed to me "these are not my type of people". I'm not going to go into specifics but imagine you walked into a help conference and every table had energy stones, power of pyramids, astrology books, etc... If you're anything like me you'd walk out.

Once I made it past all that it recommended some therapists all of whom were white. The metro area I live in, 8 million people, is only 60% white in total and many areas are majority not white. I tried changing my location to an area known for being majority not white but it just gave me the same people.

It just got me wondering how much of therapy is a white culture thing because it seems statistically unlikely that of the 11 therapists it recommended, all 11 would be white if the demographics of the area say that only 60% of the population is white.

It was no different on BetterHelp.

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

#613

Post by enneff » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #543

ravenstine wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"See a Therapist" being the first, top-voted comment is to me a sign of a sick society, where loneliness reigns. In a world where in middle-age your closest friends are married with kids, and most people prefer to be 'remote-first' in friendships (you chat online with even friends you know), the answer "see a therapist" is for most people instead just a proxy for the gap: the gap of close friends and family to be abl…

Why so hostile to therapy? I have a great supportive network of friends and family, but even so a few times in my life I have seen a psychologist that gave me actionable advice that really helped me deal with personal hardships. An impartial trained professional can often see much more clearly what you’re blind to; friends mean well but sometimes their intuitive advice is actually the opposite of what you need to hear.

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

#614

Post by crtified » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #588

roughly wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, t…

I don't disagree with anything you've said, and I don't think therapy is useless. Especially when one is past a point where there are few other options. It's just a sad state of affairs that there are so few other options for people. I continue to pin the blame on the remote-first nature of society, which seems to make in person interaction secondary. It perpetuates loneliness which perpetuates mental health issues.

Jumping in here.

I suspect that the number of people who could benefit from quality therapy, greatly outnumbers the amount of quality therapists that exist in the world.

To the point where, I surmise, a vast majority of the world's population simply would not have meaningful access to it, due to location, finances, availability, introversion, etc.

So for me, it's not that "get therapy" is bad advice. Good thing is good. Therapy has proven techniques and results. But that doesn't help the majority of the world's population, who do not have access to the luxury of visits to high end trained professionals that only exist in suitably affluent settlements of certain countries.

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

#615

Post by dang » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

engineeringwoke wrote: post #545

dang wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. There could be an interesting point to make about how different countries and cultures approach mental illness, but snark and internet tropes are exactly the wrong way to do it. The HN guidelines include: " Don't be snarky. " " Eschew flamebait. " " Omit internet tropes. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Quoted post unavailable.

I can understand why you find that offensive. But there are a lot of offensive things, or things that someone finds offensive, floating around—for this reason, we're all responsible for metabolizing those reactions in ourselves rather than venting them into the commons. It's the only way to prevent discussion quality from further declining.

Of course, you would have been welcome to post a thoughtful, neutral reply questioning whether medication is needed for that, and explaining why. In such a comment, it might be natural to mention that where you live, attitudes toward this are very different, etc. Although these topics are divisive and intense, there's no intrinsic reason why they need to become flamewars.

Re your second question, I don't think it's a problem for people to share their experiences and viewpoints, especially on issues that touch nearly everyone, and I don't think doing that really counts as "medical advice". There's no implicit claim to authority in an internet forum comment; on the contrary, readers all know to add an implicit "This is just an internet comment" disclaimer.

HN is basically an internet watercooler, a place for conversation, finding common ground, and so on. We trust readers to be smart enough to make up their own minds.

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

#616

Post by jurassic » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:28 PM UTC

Lots of good advice in this thread. Only thing I would say is: don’t rule out the wife and kids if that is what you want. As a man, you are not on the same biological clock as women and many men have had families in life’s second act.

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

#617

Post by ndstephens » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

There are many others here (on HN) and elsewhere that are in a similar situation of struggle, confusion and doubt. You asking this question has triggered almost 600 comments so far that have provided feedback, support, and personal or anecdotal evidence that it is possible (to turn one's life around). That is now hopefully benefiting those who also needed to be a part of this conversation (whether they knew it or not).

I wanted to thank you for that. I can say I'm personally benefiting from reading much of this. I hope it's helping you as well.

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

#618

Post by siculars » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

History is replete with examples of people who have found measurable success later in life. I might recommend starting with a review of those people and their lives and looking for any parallel that may suit you. Let me just leave one example from my culture, Rabbi Akiva, one of the most influential and revered Rabbi's of all time, that I often think of at times like these:

"When Akiva married the daughter of Ben Kalba Sabua,[a] a wealthy citizen of Jerusalem, Akiva was an uneducated shepherd employed by Ben Kalba Sabua. His wife's first name is not provided in earlier sources, but a later version of the tradition gives it as Rachel.[2][6] She stood loyally by her husband during the period of his late initiation into rabbinic studies after he was 40 years of age.[2] and in which Akiva dedicated himself to the study of Torah.

A different tradition[6] narrates that at the age of 40, Akiva attended the academy of his native town, Lod, presided over by Eliezer ben Hurcanus. Hurcanus was a neighbour of Yosef, the father of Akiva. The fact that Eliezer was his first teacher, and the only one whom Akiva later designates as "rabbi", is of importance in settling the date of Akiva's birth. These legends set the beginning of his years of study at about 75–80."

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi_Akiva

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

#619

Post by DogLover_ » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #437

Quoted post unavailable.

While your intentions may be good, it's worth noting that these things can have negative effects on some people. For example, they can disrupt sleep patterns, lead to feelings of failure and low self-esteem, and drain energy levels.

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

#620

Post by Magi604 » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

S_A_P wrote: post #88

I don’t know you or what you’re going through but even though the above is true I would be saddened to know if you harmed yourself. Life is and can be tough. I’m posting the below not to try and play any game of “my problems are worse than yours”. I’m currently in the midst of a fight with incurable cancer. There is a hope that they can shrink the numerous tumors and affected lymph nodes with chemo and I will have a…

I am sorry to read about your struggle. Thank you for sharing and I wish you a full recovery.