[El Cas]

For about 2 years now I feel like I am going through my mid-life crisis. Always thinking about my life (past, present and future). I get depressed out of the blue, for a while it was almost cyclical (a 2-3 day batch of depression every 30 days). A few times I think I would have qualified as Clinicaly Depressed but I would find something to pull me out of the funk (had to avoid being forced to go see the shrink).

I know this all sounds like the typical mid-life crisis symptoms but I'm only 29 and it's starting to get to me. I have been trying to find a way to deal with this (if it's never going to end) or cure it some how. I could do the cliché fix but with no money the sports car option is out of the window
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
.

I was wondering if anyone else has/is going thru this and what they have/are doing to deal with it.

[Koshkot]

What you described sounds just like what I've been going through.

This is my way of dealing with it: Change your environment (particularly your social environment). In a related post I gave some
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
as to how to do that. All I can say is that it works well for me.

[catzmeow]

Originally Posted by El Cas To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

For about 2 years now I feel like I am going through my mid-life crisis. Always thinking about my life (past, present and future). I get depressed out of the blue, for a while it was almost cyclical (a 2-3 day batch of depression every 30 days). A few times I think I would have qualified as Clinicaly Depressed but I would find something to pull me out of the funk (had to avoid being forced to go see the shrink).

I'm 44, and this doesn't sound like mid-life crisis to me. Midlife crisis is looking back and feeling like your life is halfway over and that you've missed out on something significant. If you're doing that, I'd suggest talking to a therapist and working out whatever regrets you are having about your past. I know that when I was 39 and getting divorced, I went through some of this. It was a time of evaluation for me, I realized that if I kept living the life I was living (with a cheating awful person), that I was going to end up angry, cynical and bitter, a person I didn't even like in ten years.

So, I evaluated my life over about a year, changed the parts I could change (dumped my nasty ex), and re-evaluated my thinking about the parts I couldn't change (i.e., being a mom, etc.). I have to say that I'm a lot happier now at 44 than I was at 34.

If you don't like your life, change it. It's all in your hands.

[El Cas]

	Originally Posted by Koshkot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	What you described sounds just like what I've been going through. This is my way of dealing with it: Change your environment (particularly your social environment). In a related post I gave some To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. as to how to do that. All I can say is that it works well for me.

As for changing my environment using the method you suggested in the other thread is going to be kind of hard due to commitments to family and work, otherwise I would have done it a long time ago (I love going being outdoors and just walking)

	Originally Posted by catzmeow To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Midlife crisis is looking back and feeling like your life is halfway over and that you've missed out on something significant. If you're doing that, I'd suggest talking to a therapist and working out whatever regrets you are having about your past.

That is how I feel at times, I start being a hermit in my office and a song from back in the day will start playing on my computer and I just start thinking about all the opportunities I have let pass me by and what my life has become.

I talked to a shrink but I don't open up easily and the shrink I saw did not know what questions to ask. I mention to her that thought I might be borderline Clinically Depressed and all she did was ask what I did to get undepressed, so I told her and she just changed the subject back to our marriage and how try to fix it.

	Originally Posted by catzmeow To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	If you don't like your life, change it. It's all in your hands.

I would love to change several things in my life but I can't do it with out hurting my children in the process. The only things I have changed are things that does not affect my children.

This has help but after a while those changes seem like using ductape in a humid place, the problems just reappear.

I guess I need to have a radical life change and be selfish in the process, because if I start analyzing the whole thing I will probably go back to suffering in quiet like I have been.

[kepstein8888]

I disagree that you can just change your life and that "it's all in your hands." The reality is that not everything is. Like you said, we have responsibilities, and life deals us certain cards. To me, the ability to cope is often more important than the ability to change your circumstances, which are not always in your hands.

It might be clinical depression, like you said. You may want to do some research on it--if you haven't already--and seek out a doctor or psychiatrist who understands it and takes it seriously as a medical condition, as opposed to changing the subject. Then, once that is either addressed or ruled out, you can discuss your life situation with a capable therapist and perhaps make some decisions about your life. But depression is a serious condition (The cheesy drug commercials are right about that.), and you don't want to make rash decisions out of desperation to escape a rut which may be partly biochemical, and may be helped by medication.

I also think it's possible to have a 1/3-life crisis, since I had a bit of one myself at @30. I think you reach points in your life, such as you late 20s or early 30s, where you stop and assess where you are. I think you're right when you suggest the sports car at @45 is a bit of a cliche.

[Cooper]

I went through something very similar at the same age. It was turning 30, mourning the loss of my "youth". I looked at my life and thought I should be someplace else at that point. I looked back, thinking about everything I had done, should have done, and wished I would have done. I looked at where I was now (at 30) and where I should be, what I should have, compared myself to others my age.

I got over it by realizing that I am not like everyone else, that I am me, and I was right where I was supposed to be. And I realized 30 ain't old.....

[mrStevens]

Have you read the book, "Quarter life crisis" by Wilner and Robbins? It helped me.

[Tough Love]

Originally Posted by El Cas To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

For about 2 years now I feel like I am going through my mid-life crisis. Always thinking about my life (past, present and future). I get depressed out of the blue, for a while it was almost cyclical (a 2-3 day batch of depression every 30 days). A few times I think I would have qualified as Clinicaly Depressed but I would find something to pull me out of the funk (had to avoid being forced to go see the shrink). I know this all sounds like the typical mid-life crisis symptoms but I'm only 29 and it's starting to get to me. I have been trying to find a way to deal with this (if it's never going to end) or cure it some how. I could do the cliché fix but with no money the sports car option is out of the window To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. . I was wondering if anyone else has/is going thru this and what they have/are doing to deal with it.

Can you expand on the issues? Or is it that you dont know why your depressed?

I was going through that for a few years up til last year, and there was always a recurring theme, mainly i felt i was being taken advantage of but didnt know how to get out of it.

[El Cas]

	Originally Posted by mrStevens To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Have you read the book, "Quarter life crisis" by Wilner and Robbins? It helped me.

I'll have to check it out.

	Originally Posted by Tough Love To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Can you expand on the issues? Or is it that you dont know why your depressed?

I don't know exactly why I am depressed. I have a general idea of what issues are triggering it. I had similar issues to my current ones when I was 20 and I felt similar back then though I just blamed the what was going on then.

My guess is that it's probably a combination of my current marital situation, the lost of my 'youth', my lack of ability to do what I like due to financial resposibilities towards my family, and my job. Plus, like coop said, reflecting on my past and looking where I am at and where I think I should be, wondering why my HS classmates all have titles to their name and I still don't (plus them asking "why I haven't getten mine title yet?" doesn't help) has finally started taking its toll on me.

[Vagrant]

It's not really a midlife crisis -- usually a midlife crisis in men is triggered by the onset of menopause in his wife.

But it sounds to me like you feel stagnant. That feeling of stagnation is causing you to feel depressed.

[realitycheque]

	Originally Posted by Vagrant To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	It's not really a midlife crisis -- usually a midlife crisis in men is triggered by the onset of menopause in his wife.

Copy that. I now have a cool 350Z to offset the hot flashes.

I went through a questioning of career direction just before 30 and again at 40. I made some abrupt changes in career, negotiating a retirement package at 29 then going into consulting, and a decade later starting my own company at 40.

Titles are overrated -- what kind of work do you want to do for the next 10 years? Make some goals then set up a plan with contingencies. Get a sanity check from people you trust, adjust as prudent, then do it.

[El Cas]

	Originally Posted by realitycheque To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Titles are overrated -- what kind of work do you want to do for the next 10 years?

I want to do something that challenges me and pays real good and allows me to telecommute. (I guess I better start my own company
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
)

[Onigumo13]

Oh you are good , I too have an Idea but you know its quite ambitious Dramatic pause " I want to be a god " .
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[sunlover]

There comes a point when we start wanting to use/experience our tertiery(Fi) and inferior function(Se) more. Usually in midlife,kind of like a see-saw where one day it the balance shifts. The Ni Te are still running the show but there's a definite yearning for things not previously cared about much before. It's natural and not really a crisis.

[El Cas]

Seeing that I'm tend naturally bouncing between ISTP and INTJ the wanting to use/experience my Se is a normal thing for me. But I have noticed that when I am in a rut I do see-saw between SP and NT traits the stronger the depression the more SP I tend to become.

[Antagonist]

	Originally Posted by El Cas To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Seeing that I'm tend naturally bouncing between ISTP and INTJ the wanting to use/experience my Se is a normal thing for me. But I have noticed that when I am in a rut I do see-saw between SP and NT traits the stronger the depression the more SP I tend to become.

THIS. I find that I go through a full personality shift, from INTJ to either ENTP or ESFP depending on the severity of the depression and what's missing from my life.

[BinaryMe]

Much of what you are describing sounds familiar to me. I experienced periods of serious reflection (depression?) in my early 20s and again in my early 30s and 40s.... I just turned 45 (quite literally about an hour ago) and have been running a home based business for about a year now.

Best thing I ever did.... but it does have its own set of challenges.

The more I learn about 'me'.... the more I realize that many of those difficult times were a combination of external influences and my own personal tendency to (over?) analyze things.

I've been reading a few (joking) comments about the INTJ 'world domination' traits and while I personally have no such desire, I do have a very strong belief (a kind of internal, almost sub-conscious, set of 'rules') that tells me I should take control of my own destiny. The problem is, like you, I have commitments. I have a wife and children that depend on me and a mortgage to pay.... This means my personal "world domination" plan has to make way for everyday life stuff. And that causes me STRESS!!!

I'm not ruling out other (clinical?) factors but suggest a good place to start (as others have said) is to ask yourself: What do I want out of life? Where am I now and where do I want to be in 5, 10, 15 years? And then start working towards those goals.

You will not always be where you are now. Your kids will not be young forever. Your responsibilities will change.... Look further ahead.

BTW, I have always had a bit of the SP thing going on to.... When I was younger, if I felt stressed (as I often did), I'd hop on one of my motorcycles and go on a crazy fast ride (not recommended for obvious reasons) until I felt better... I still like to go fast sometimes but these days I do it on a computer (xbox). I enjoy racing (Forza Motorsports) and have learned an interesting lesson in the process: To be a fast driver, you have to be smooth. To be smooth, you have to keep you eyes looking well ahead. You cannot go fast by looking at the road (or the cars) right in front of you. You have to be looking into the distance so you can line the car up well ahead of time and make a 'perfect' entry into the next corner....

Life is much the same. Try to look past the 'immediate' and focus on your goals (the turning points) in you life. It helps me.

(sorry about the long post!).

[sunlover]

There's a distinction that should be made between normal personal growth that comes with age and involves "positive" use of the 3rd/4th functions as we're consciously "playing" with them under the normal control of our Ni/Te functions and temporary "grip" experiences that can come about unexpectedly when too much stress causes an unhealthy use of those functions. Like most I've experienced a few bouts of the grip thing and it wasn't pleasant. But I've also gained an appreciation of Fi/Se as I've gotten older.

[Third Eye]

I've known people going through a mid-life crisis and it usually revolves around growing old before experiencing all they can in their "youth". The only way I would even think of dealing with it is to not restrict yourself. When you want to do something do it. I mean don't forsake family or friends but go with your instincts more and not what people think you should do.

[Thinktress]

You know, I think this is pretty common as you approach turning 30. I remember distinctly that at 29 yrs old, I was looking at my life, what I'd done so far, where I was professionally and financially, in terms of my relationships, etc, and I wasn't happy with my progress at that point. I actually DID become quite depressed for a little while.

Some time after I turned thirty, things really turned around for me. I would say that all facets of my life became more successful and productive. But I think my depression as I approached that age was just me trying to measure where I was with where I thought I should be, and it was kind of a period of figuring out my priorities, and what I really wanted to focus on in the future.

[El Cas]

	Originally Posted by BinaryMe To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	When I was younger, if I felt stressed (as I often did), I'd hop on one of my motorcycles and go on a crazy fast ride (not recommended for obvious reasons) until I felt better... I still like to go fast sometimes but these days I do it on a computer (xbox).

I had a similar approach though mine involved going for a walk or drive to nowhere. Now my SP outburts come in precision driving (real and virtual). I don't go overboard in RL (for safety issues) but when I get the chance I take it.

	Originally Posted by Third Eye To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The only way I would even think of dealing with it is to not restrict yourself. When you want to do something do it.

I have slowly started taking this approach. When something pops in my head I try to do it. If it will affect family I make arrangements to either eliminate or reduce the effects on family before I do it.

	Originally Posted by Thinktress To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	... But I think my depression as I approached that age was just me trying to measure where I was with where I thought I should be, and it was kind of a period of figuring out my priorities, and what I really wanted to focus on in the future.

I think that is what I have been going through and I seeing that focus on the future seems to be the right action I will try to focus more on that and attempt to push through the bouts of depression as I go for my goals.

[reiven]

in my late 30's i was reading about alexander the great and felt grossly underdeveloped by comparison. as recently as a few months ago, i was whining about my own lack of educational pedigree.

i am two years away from 50, so the math says i'm past midlife. the math also says i'm in for the most productive years of my existence. i think perspective keeps me balanced.

it sounds like one strong undercurrent is your dissatisfaction with the marriage vs your commitment to your kids. if so, this is familiar territory to me. i made an outright promise to my oldest son when he was two years old that i would never leave him the way my dad left me. the commitment to my sons became the paramount standard for all my decisions. i resolved to stay married until they all graduated. submitting my immediate wants to the promise i made to them took some pressure off me. i ended up submitting my insatiable expectations for life to the daily benefits of being dad. i can't explain it, but it worked.

my oldest is 27 my youngest is 21; so if i wanted to i could divorce now because i kept my promise. the cool thing is i don't want to. 30 years of sharing a burden with someone has a way of smoothing out the wrinkles and creating a comfort that i didn't know was possible (based on my own childhood.) looking back, it was my dedication to my kids that kept me going through the very hard times of the moment, which are now reflections on just another day in the life.

is our destiny in our own hands? great question, i donno. i do know that goodness is the antidote to sadness, and i've learned where to look for it.

[westcoaster]

I went through a 1/3rd life crisis a few years back, and I feel for you El Cas. I ultimately got over it by going back to b-school, but my midlife crisis was mostly limited to my professional life.

Now though, whenever I feel those dark thoughts starting to creep back in I reread this portion of Steve Jobs' graduation speech (I hate Apple, but love this speech) and realize how insignificant whatever it is that is bothering me really is in the grand scheme of things. I've been reading this for four years and it still resonates deeply with me:

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[El Cas]

Nice excert. Really does put things in perspective.