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?

#661

Post by docmars » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 10:59 PM UTC

abnercoimbre wrote: post #653

docmars wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes! Sorry, I should have mentioned that. I am in my early 30's, dated a few women in my late 20's after a long break from dating, and was ultimately not successful. I am reasonably attractive/average, and can strike up a fun conversation, though I struggle with my longer-term relationships because I don't often have a lot new to share in life, and I love listening to other people's lives, as much as they're willi…

I never thought I'd say these words but -- I feel seen, I feel heard. I'm more into going to parties but I guard my alone time as a sacred duty. To add my own twist to both of your stories: I just had an amazing date yesterday with someone who thinks like us. Of course it's only been one date so I could be misunderstanding them. If both parties value their alone time it means scheduling time together is drastically s…

Wow, good luck! Hope the dates continue going well, but I bet it's refreshing to be on the same page about that. It's a highly underrated quality for both people to respect each other's time.

Too many go into relationships assuming all of their time will be consumed with each other. In the honeymoon phase, maybe; but not for long after that.

Best wishes!

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

#662

Post by larve » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

rex-mundi wrote: post #598

larve wrote: post #320

Managed to lift myself out of a suicidal hole that started when I was around 7-8. It started with quitting smoking and picking up exercise, which did seem to make a lot of the underlying substrate of hopelessness recede. Then came the pandemic, which allowed me to step back from human interaction and day to day noise enough to realize how much calmer my life could be. I picked up mountain biking which reconnected wit…

Fellow ADHD austisic here. Who do you follow on Twitter that helped you? Also anything else that helped with either ADHD or autism, ADHD meds don't work for me so I'm struggling to find something that does

I would say the #actuallyautistic hashtag in general (now on mastodon), and I really enjoyed the book "unmasking autism" by Devon Price and Neuroqueer Heresies by Nick Walker.

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

#663

Post by mancerayder » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 11:01 PM UTC

enneff wrote: post #613

mancerayder wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 hea…

I'm not saying psychotherapy is useless, only that its proliferation is a sign of a gap in society, and that psychotherapy would ideally be reserved for fairly edge cases (traumas, genetic conditions, sudden extreme events, PTSD, etc.). NOT so much a routine go-to for common existential problems. The fact that this is the solution is a sad reflection of a society with holes in it. And further that the proliferation of an 'online presence' taking the place of in-person interactions can't be a coincidence. That's what I am saying.

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

#664

Post by antimora » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 11:04 PM UTC

antimora wrote: post #388

You are not alone in this. I feel you. I am in my 40s and I am constantly trying to improve myself. I believe it is possible to turn yourself around. I quickly wanted to share fresh resource that might help you. I watched this documentary last night which has lots of practical advice (tools) from a therapist. I highly recommend to watch when you have a chance. It is on Netflix: https://youtu.be/UKCmefQdplI Called Stu…

Here is the summary of the tools discussed and talked about in the documentary: https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/stutz-the-tools

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

#665

Post by javajosh » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 11:04 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #623

javajosh wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, too often "You need to see a therapist" is just a euphemism for "I don't want to listen to your problems." This is an important data point and a general trend toward the cheapening of human relationships. Friendship means something very specific, and for a lot of people now it means only the superficial. Anything deeper than that is actively discouraged. I think of those surveys about friendship took this kind o…

Sometimes that might be true, but let's say you have the option to talk to two people about a problem. Person 1 is your friend that you've known all your life. They haven't gone to school for this and have plenty of problems of their own, half of which you know about, the other half, you're a part of, so they're biased and on their side, and not your side. Person 2 is a licensed therapist, has a literal master degree…

Person 1 is available now, and by just listening to you affirms that you matter, and that your problems are important, and the fact of your suffering matters to someone other than you. It may resonate with their own experience, maybe even something they didn't reveal because of shame or guilt, in which case both people are helped.

Person 2 is first of all, hard to find, unavailable, and extremely expensive. They don't know you, and in general aren't willing to share their own personal experiences with you. The interaction with Person 2 is transactional and does nothing to affirm the importance of your suffering to someone other than yourself.

It's a little like your suggesting to have sex with a prostitute because they're better at it. But that misses the point of what sex is even for. A lot of the time we just want to be assured that we matter, that our experience matters, and that we aren't alone. But yeah, a lot of people see it like you do, and I think that makes it a worse culture.

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

#666

Post by mancerayder » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 11:06 PM UTC

gernb wrote: post #612

mancerayder wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 s…

Some possibilities: maybe the European cultures (the white of which you say) have had a break-up of large family structures over the course of the last century, leading to therapy in the first place. That would fit in with some of my other comments in this thread around loneliness and a sick society. And following this it might be that some other cultures with large nuclear families have a sanity check within them where there are people to confide in and give guidance. That's what a therapist does in the end: empathize and give guidance.

Another possibility is there are cultural norms: psychotherapy originates in Europe / Central Europe where it had a blossoming in the late 19th century and spread, and became quite fashionable in among the educated classes (up to and especially in the 1960's, for example).

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

#667

Post by mancerayder » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #591

mancerayder wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yes, too often "You need to see a therapist" is just a euphemism for "I don't want to listen to your problems." This is an important data point and a general trend toward the cheapening of human relationships. Friendship means something very specific, and for a lot of people now it means only the superficial. Anything deeper than that is actively discouraged. I think of those surveys about friendship took this kind o…

I can say that's been my experience as well. Friendships become a burden to people, they don't want to have to 'give' too much. At the same time it requires a closer tie to even go down that route.

And then also there are just less and less friends. In any friend circle there are some people that are just better to lean on. As you get older these people move away, get married, etc.

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

#668

Post by o_nate » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 11:10 PM UTC

throw1234651234 wrote: post #651

enneff wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hea…

An impartial, trained professional...in what exactly? Therapists / psychologists are glorified life coaches. "Psychology" is a mess. All therapists can do is act as a programming rubber duck equivalent. What makes the psychologist more qualified to give advice to you than yourself? Maybe the misconception comes from this "training" idea - people think there is some magical solution in psychology and it's not all a ps…

It could be a valuable confidence booster to be able to talk to someone who projects confidence that they know how to help you, even if their advice boils down to little more than pep talks and encouragement to take some common-sense steps.

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

#669

Post by theGnuMe » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 11:13 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #659

theGnuMe wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a strange definition of therapy.

I have an idea. You do a cursory investigation on what "therapy" is and the come back here and tell us why my definition of therapy is strange. When someone refers others to therapy in a generic sense, why do you think that's effectively the same as suggesting self actualization? Is the other party looking for self actualization, or are they probably looking to figure out the root of their problems?

You are saying that therapy is just about treating a pathology. And that suggesting therapy means someone is broken. I am disagreeing with you.

See for example humanistic therapy.

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

#670

Post by o_nate » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 11:16 PM UTC

sanedigital wrote: post #5

Potentially risking downvotes, since religion makes people uncomfortable, but since you mentioned mental health services are lacking, have you tried joining a local church? Priests are the original therapists, and it’s a great way to meet people. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re struggling to find meaning in your own life, perhaps looking up is the answer?

That would be my advice. Find a church or other religious community that you can plug yourself into. Maybe get a dog too. If nothing else, it forces you to get out of bed in the morning.