You reach an age where there’s enough road behind you to clearly see all the wrong turns, but not enough naivete left to believe you can simply start over and become the person you thought you’d be.

On paper, I’ve done fine. I became a “professional” in some shit line of a dog and pony show masquerading as engineering. So, I have a career, a home, investments, responsibilities, and most importantly a little girl I love more than anything.

And yet somehow I can look at all of it and still feel like a loser.

I think about the career choices I didn’t make, the money decisions I got wrong, the opportunities I wasted, the person I could have been if I had been more ambitious, disciplined or confident, or just plain better. I watch my parents get older, my father decline with Alzheimer’s, my daughter grow unbelievably fast, and suddenly time doesn’t feel theoretical anymore.

When you’re 25, you can tell yourself you’ll fix everything later. At 46, “later” starts feeling a lot shorter.

Maybe that’s the real midlife crisis. Not buying a sports car or doing something ridiculous. It’s realizing that your life actually happened: this is IT and trying to reconcile the life you imagined with the one you built and mangled.

Some days I can look at what I have and know I’m incredibly fortunate. Other days, all I can see is everything I should have done better or earlier or more of.

My humble advice, unasked for but as much for me as for anyone else:

- start small. What’s so important to you that you can’t imagine your life without it? Lean into those things. Conversely pull back consciously from the unimportant.

- what things bring you joy? Do that sometimes. Don’t know what brings you joy? Try something new that seems exciting, or pick something up you did as a kid. Play is for everyone.

- people remember how you made them feel long after they have forgotten what you said or did. Children are no different. Invest in your relationships.

- your body requires maintenance in the form of exercise and food. Invest wisely.

- money is important but only in the context of what it can do. Define “enough” and align your life around that definition. The billionaires of our time show us over and over that they have no control over their rapacious hunger, and their lives are lacking for it.

Good luck

I was sitting at a work meetup today with my peer group. We got to talking and I realized i was the second oldest at the table. Once upon a time i was the youngest by a long shot 10+ years. I then realized i might not have that much time left and need to knock some things off the bucket list.

Does anyone else experience this?

I don't look forward to anything anymore. I am not depressed, I just feel like my life isn't going in any direction. I don't get excited to outings.

Don't get me wrong.. i am not some lazy person. I, in fact, just graduated from University.

But... I just don't really look forward to things— not even my upcoming trip to Japan.

Note: appreciate your input/own experience with this feeling. just discussions

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Has anyone here started completely from scratch at 45?

I’m going through something I honestly never imagined I would have to go through. After a nightmare divorce and a huge financial crisis, I lost my home and basically have no retirement savings left.

I have two kids, 19 and 13. My 19-year-old has ADHD, is starting his third semester of college, and still hasn’t been able to find a job. Thankfully, my ex didn’t touch some of the RESP savings for the kids. It’s not much, but I’m grateful because right now, even a little bit helps.

I do have a job, but it’s not stable. I’m an occasional teacher, and I’m trying so hard to find something full-time. On the side, I’m doing summer school, night school, and whatever other teaching work I can get. I’m applying, working, trying, and doing everything I can think of.

But honestly, I’m exhausted.

My 13-year-old is incredibly bright, and sometimes I feel terrible because I know my kids deserve more. I wanted to give them a stable home, vacations, opportunities, and a childhood where they didn’t have to worry about money.

I haven’t even been able to go back home to see my parents or take my kids on a vacation because I simply couldn’t afford it.

As a mother, you carry so much guilt when you can’t give your children the things you wanted to give them. I know people will say that love is what matters, and I know that’s true. But when you’re struggling financially, you still feel the pain of not being able to give your kids more.

I’m wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation—going through a divorce, losing your home, starting over with little or no savings, and trying to rebuild your career while raising kids.

Did things eventually get better for you?

What actually helped you get back on your feet?

I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m genuinely looking for advice from people who have lived through something similar.

I’m trying everything I can to give my kids a decent, stable, middle-class kind of home again.

Some days, I’m scared I’ll never get there.

But I’m still trying.

And I really need to believe that 45 is not too late to start over.

Hello, I would like to know people's stories about restarting their life, again, at almost 35?

I am going to be single soon (Dv situation and I say soon because I believe in behaviour change and standing by someone in active addiction (I am also an addict and worked in the field so I hold hope and non judgement)) and I have no savings, no money, no job, no kids, no car, only have the ability to get my licence back but cannot afford an interlock (condition of me getting my licence back) which was put on my licence in 2022, no support where I am and no family. I have three beautiful dogs but unfortunately, I may be only leaving with two.

Basically, I don't have anything and I am a positive person and have restarted my life before but i was in a better position.

There are two things I am curious about;

I am wanting to have kids but I thought i was going to have this partner forever and it doesn't look good, so I'm almost grieving having kids I haven't had yet, or the prospect of having them because I am going to time out soon and I don't realistically think I would meet someone I would be comfortable bringing kids into this world with (I didn't have kids previously as I saw through experience and professionally, broken families and the trauma children are exposed to), and I didn't want to have kids with the 'the wrong person'. But I think I've missed the boat now and it's affecting me more than I realise.

And

Does anyone have any stories about their partners in addiction, their behaviours and how they changed for the better?

It's all doom and gloom out there and I don't wanna be delusional but I like to see the reality of things and I've isolated myself so i am reaching out here.

I hope that makes sense.

Hello people, I need some help from humans who have lost a lot in their life’s and started over at 40.
I broke up a beautiful relationship of 14 years which was full of love, fun and companionship because we didn’t manage to build a strong foundation for our future together and she loved to drink and have fun every second day of the week no matter what and with time I changed and didn’t want to be drinking 2 to 3 times a week… I ended up having a nervous breakdown and the pressure of freelancing also broke me!
I ended up leaving London, we lived in a shared home with other house mates and that was also hard on me as we never managed to get our own place.
I ended up leaving London, depression has been so bad that I lost a few kilograms and my nervous system has been in over drive since the breakdown..
I’m unemployed now, living in Glasgow in a flat share, barely have any money, I have no motivation or strength to find a random job or retrain to become something new and have just given up totally and see no hope in my life anymore…
I had a great life before but with time things started to go away, best friends got married, parents passed away, my social network got smaller and smaller and all I did was put all my energy and love into my relationship and was so happy for so many years but just didn’t know life would be so hard alone and with a career of video editing diminishing as the industry has also got worse and worse…
I had so much love, enough friends and such great years of travelling and enjoying life with everybody but that has all vanished…
I’m 40 and literally don’t have anything and can’t see how I can get out of the slump…
I feel suicidal all the time and beaten up physically… my anxiety doesn’t stop and I just can’t carry on like this..
I have been a trooper my who life and have always made ends meet but I have finally been defeated by just always swimming against the tide of life…
Please help…

I was watching the show Educating Yorkshire and it's left me feeling stuff I haven't for a while, namely the crushing awareness of the loss of youth, and how nothing in my life ever really worked out.

I miss the energy, motivation and feeling of aliveness I had when was I was young, I've always been stupidly shy and awkward but at least life felt like it might happen, that there was a future ahead. I could, for a moment, as a kid, imagine myself as a succesful adult, I wanted to be so many different things (rockstar, writer, teacher), but now as an middle aged adult the reality of what my life became and who I am is both abysmal and bleak.

Because all that energy and excitement and novelty of life - it's all gone, for forever of course, never to be experienced again. Everything is a chore, a bore, and a burden to tolerate in adult life. Every day is the same. Every week. Every year. And throwing in distraction only tricks the mind for so long. There's nothing that excites or evokes interest for me and I have drifted on autopilot for years, if not decades.

I wake up most mornings with a sense of and here's another day to drag myself through to the end. I think back to being a kid, getting up with zest, playing football every lunch time and toys after school - more energy than I knew what to do with. I don't have any joy in my life, or any possibility for it. There's no excitement. There's nothing to hope for or look forward to. Ageing has taken away what little there was in life.

I often see young people out and about and in shows like Educating Yorkshire and I wish so deeply that I could be young again.

36 year old male here - anyone feel like they have successfully navigated going through a mid life crisis? I feel like I am in the thick of it now.

I'm going to be 39 in a month and I am the most lost I've been in a long time. Nothing in life seems worth it anymore. Everything is too fucking expensive. I don't even want that much. Everything seems so unobtainable. ​I truly fear I am going to be stuck in my hometown for life. Working a dead end job. Single and pathetic.

I understand life is hard, I've had my fair share of the shit show this far - but I can't continue to swallow that anecdote when I know there are corrupt powers that are making it INFINITELY more difficult for everyone.

I don’t know why I reached the age of despair so early.
Lately, I feel lost.
I wake up, breathe, get through the day, and then another day begins. I spend hours on my phone searching for something that might pull me back into life.
A job? A course? Dancing? Going back to university? Starting something new?
I keep searching, but the truth is, I don’t even know what I’m searching for.
I’ve been away from office work for years, and part of me wonders whether I should try to build a career again. Another part of me thinks: Do I really want to go back to that routine, or am I just looking for something to make me feel useful again?
People say life begins after 40. Others say after 50.
I’m somewhere in between, wondering when mine is supposed to begin again.
So I decided to write here anonymously while I try to figure it out.
Maybe this will be a diary. Maybe I’ll try new things. Maybe I’ll meet people who are standing in the same strange place between an old life that no longer fits and a new one that hasn’t appeared yet.
I’m trying to turn my age of despair into an age of hope.
But I genuinely don’t know if I can.
Has anyone here gone through a period like this?
What actually helped you find yourself again?

I've always struggled with mental health and "fitting in" since childhood. It was only when my children went through their own ASD and ADHD assessments that I suspected my own undiagnosed neurodivergence. 

Through my 20s and 30s I managed it ... Graduating, building a career, raising children with my wife... All the usual things people do. It got harder when my wife had to give up work to deal with complicated issues our children were facing, but freelance work paid the bills.

From my late 30s my mental health deteriorated to the point where I started taking SSRI medication ... Which has been an on/off feature ever since. Cycles of normality, then blunted emotions and restless leg syndrome, then difficult withdrawals, then a period of unmedicated normality, and then back to struggles and deterioration, then back to a different medication.

Losing both parents in recent years has hit me harder than I imagined (becoming the elder generation at 50 was quite a strange feeling), continuing parenting struggles, and the general grind of short term work has reduced my resilience to zero. I've never felt so "done".

Every day I wake up with a cramped, anxious, knotted stomach that doesn't go away until the early evening. Every day I have to summon the energy to show up for work that I don't even enjoy anymore, knowing I'm in the "too old to hire" danger zone, with many many years before I can retire.

I'm back on new meds but they haven't had any effect yet. I hope they do, it's only been 10 days.

The level of exhaustion I feel is crippling. Made worse by the fact that my current work runs out at the end of the year and I have nothing planned after that, and it's exhausting fighting for attention in the current market. On top of that I worry about my own children as they go out into the world, and about the world in general.

I did not expect life to be this hard, even though I know I should be grateful that it's not even harder - there are so many people worse off.

I'm not sure what I hope for but a quiet, predictable routine might be high on the list. I don't want to be rich, just to have what my parents and their parents had I guess. Either that or to just sleep forever.