The Truth About The Mid Life Crisis (and how to not screw it up)

As we near the age of 40 and take stock of our lives, many of us find ourselves feeling antsy, like we’re not quite fitting in our own skin. The fact is, we never fit in our skin but now we are finally ready to notice it.

In my work as a psychotherapist, I guide people through the type of existential struggle that is common around this age. What I have found is that there are two directions people take when the inklings of discomfort begin: the first direction is to look inward, and the second is to look outward.

Let me explain,

Mid life is not a crisis, but an opportunity, or as Homer Simpson called it, a crisi-tunity.

During mid life, the old protective strategies we’ve been using since childhood to keep our anxieties at bay no longer work.

The hunger for approval, making us compromise our boundaries and self-respect. The he fear of being alone, informing us to always be useful to the people around us. The reluctance to show weakness, leading us to hide our vulnerabilities behind drinking, smoking, emotional toughness, perfectionism or superficial relationships.

Whatever your particular techniques are, you’ve been carrying them since childhood. You have practiced them, and perfected them, and blended them into the fabric of your daily life so that you (nearly) convinced yourselves of their genuineness (no, you don’t actually love being a doormat).

That is until that wonderful, and terrifying time in your life when things suddenly seem more clear, as if, you finally put on the right prescription glasses. But first, they will kick you in the ass.

The crisi-tunity will often begin with a challenging event, or several. This is the door we walk through to get to the real growth (or the thing that will bring the client into my office). It could be getting fired from that job you sacrificed so much for, trouble in your marriage, an illness, a death, or a car accident (even a small fender-bender can shake the fabric of your life).

It can even be something that seems positive, or one that you have been anticipating with excitement: a vacation, a birth, or a new opportunity. Occasionally the crisis is a series of small events that are barely noticeable.  Sometimes you simply look at your life and feel a sense of alienation, or dissatisfaction. Your job, relationship and family life are not what you expected.

But just because it appears to begins on the outside, does not mean that it’s the outside the needs work.

Imagine a 45 year old man who goes to work one day (as he has done every day since his 20s), and finds out that the big promotion he’s been working toward for years, the one that was supposed to make everything better- give him the status, the money and finally, the goddamn respect he deserves- was given to someone else.

He’s got two options:

In the first one, he says “fuck it! All this work has gotten me no-where. They don’t respect me at work, they don’t respect me at home. I’m out of here.” He walks out the door, buys an expensive suit, a red convertible, a mail order bride (comes with mail order respect), and is never to be heard of again (until old age, when on his death bed, he finally realizes his mistake). Tragic.

In the second one, he says “fuck it! All this work has gotten me no-where. They don’t respect me at work, they don’t respect me at home. I WONDER WHY my life has gotten to this point? WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING to surround myself with such disrespect? Have I been saying YES too much at work and NO too much at home? Why have I been doing that? WHY AM I ALWAYS looking to be respected, and NEVER DO? It’s just like when I was a kid…”

In the first scenario, he only changed the scenery. If only he had a younger wife, and a nicer car – then he would be at peace. Then the hole inside him would finally be filled.

In the second scenario, he is finally asking the right questions. He is using this opportunity to see his true anxiety – that thing he’s been most afraid of since he was a little kid. In this case, it’s his fear of being unimportant. He is beginning to see how he has organized around this fear, creating a life where everything he does is positioned to avoid this feeling of being unimportant. He begins to heal.

And you know, the funny thing is that maybe, in that second scenario, he also ends up with a red convertible, a new partner, and the open road. But the process to getting there is very different, and the reasons for those choices are more mindful, and not in the pursuit of avoiding a fear.

With love,

Tami