Life changing events and goal directed living. For those of you who have experienced a life changing event in your 30’s or 40’s (a brush with addiction or psychosis, the death of a partner, disability) I wanted to start a discussion on how you cope with it. For me it was an incidence of psychosis triggered by extreme stress.
It’s easy to end up in a tail-spin for months or years, where you don’t quite know what you’re doing and you end up with a radically different life direction than you had before. You might end up with a spiritual or philosophical crisis, looking in all kinds of different directions. I did all of those.
In the end, I ended up losing all of my life goals and started feeling a kind of emptiness inside, like a depression. It’s like all of the things that had lit up my life with joy before had disappeared one by one, until there was nothing but a kind of tiredness left.
I’m now at the point where I’m getting ready to start over, with a few new handicaps. But I don’t know what’s happened to joy or meaning.
Congrats on getting through it. Joy and meaning will come back on their own as you get your life together. Concentrate on getting a good job first, then make yourself a nice environment to live in, start doing things that interest you. Volunteer for a charity; get out and meet people. You'll be fine now, the worst is over.
Brain-stem stroke, turned 39 in the hospital. A stroke is the gift that keeps on giving....
You'll probably have to make a conscious effort to work towards joy. It seems weird since we think of joy as just being something that flashes when it wants to. But you'll miss it if you don't actively work towards it.
In my 30s, which was many moons ago, my daughter was born with disabilities. She needed major surgery. Things didn't go well. My life crashed.
Reading became difficult because I couldn't concentrate. Watching TV became difficult because I couldn't concentrate. Friendship was difficult because I couldn't concentrate.
It took a few years. I changed jobs to one where I was absolutely helping others. It was straight forward help. I ran a clothing room and kitchen in a homeless shelter. I could help with immediate needs. Very concrete.
Then I moved on to a job that could help me while helping others. I ran a horticulture program in a hospital. I got to design and make gardens for stressed folks to utilize. I helped the therapists utilize the greenhouse with patients. Beauty among stress. I could see the changing seasons. I could see growth. Rewards were not immediate but they were consistent.
There was another life altering event but it didn't drag me as low.
Eventually, I was ready to work with people directly and became what I wanted to be since I was 12, a naturalist, leading kids and families or other groups on hikes in the woods, giving talks, lobbying for the environment.
My kid is in her 20s now. I still don't read as much as I once did but I play music way more.
I had goals for the future but I worked harder at the goals for the "now" of the moment. They were simple ones like, find 5 interesting things on a hike. Learn to identify 5 different flowers/trees/birds by site this week. Learn all the words to one song. Learn all the chords to one song. Wash all the windows in the house. Say hello to 3 strangers every day for a week, 2 weeks, a month. Sit in a coffee shop with a deck of cards and see if someone will play. Just a bunch of little nudges.
I wish you luck.