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[DnJ]

Just posting my response to Pattnee on my thread as well.

Goodness me I am so scared of having a MLC 😂how do I avoid it.

Yes, seeing first hand just now devastating a crisis is to someone does bring about concerns and questions of if it is avoidable or is it inevitable.

At the root of a crisis is emotional turmoil. Significant turmoil! Trauma(s) that occurred that the individual was just not equipped to cope with. These traumatic events are usually from their childhood, a time of immaturity. This healthy emotional immaturity gets overloaded and one’s perfectly normal defence mechanism - denial, kicks in. Denial needs to happen with stuff one cannot handle in the moment, elsewise one’s psyche would break. Denial is normal and healthy, the first step of grief. We deny, put aside something, until we can find the bandwidth to look at it.

Problem is the immature coping mechanism. The trauma(s) which usually happened from an authority figure are buried, and reinforced by the authority figure, and even those around the poor young person. Just imagine how messed up a young girl that was assaulted by her uncle and then had her parents and grandparents covered it up (twice), would end up being. The poor young soul withdrawals into themselves and even blames themselves. Their relief is that burying of it. Denial compounds and time crafts unrecognized and unreleased past trauma(s) that they carry with them. And that which is buried alive, will come back to haunt.

Throughout their life they likely experience various triggers which somewhat uncover these pains. Yet, their underdeveloped coping mechanisms, from when they were emotionally stunted, does its thing and buries it again.

Life has stages, which are a main source/trigger of emotional reorganizing and awareness and growth. Child to teen, adolescent to adult, entering mid life, entering golden years, as examples. As one passes from one life stage to another, some things get dropped and other appended. During this categorizing of one’s life so far, successes, failure, goals met, goals missed, goals dropped, all kinds of measures are looked at. One makes peace with where and when they are, and what they’ve done, or they don’t. How one lives does have a reckoning. And none more so than at midlife.

A midlife one faces the reality of their own mortality. Kids are grown and starting to leave the nest. Career is entering the wind down stage. Retirement is growing ever closer. One’s physical limitations are evermore apparent. Reflexes, strength, speed, agility, and so on, wane; we definitely cannot keep up with our kids in video games.

Of course, the midlife person enters a time of better thought and reflection. Language skills vastly improve and one usually becomes a better speaker. Even becomes rather eloquent and on the positive side of loquacious. Lol. A lifetime of events and experiences to drawn upon does yield benefits. Of course, that is for one who has found acceptance with their past and life thus far.

That is the crux of a midlife transition. Or any stage’s transition. Are you at peace with your choices? Did you live well? Did you utilize your time thus far as well as you could? Midlife just bringing all that very much more to the fore, for at this point whatever one put off is pretty clear.

A midlife transition is a significant thing. Everyone has regrets, missed opportunities, dreams let go of and forgotten, and so on. Some find their peace with it and enter their next stage like the golden years - peaceful, content, happy, and such; and others turn bitter and blameful at their lot in life. Pretty easy to see examples of these folks, just look around a mall or store. How many shinning happy faces see you vs sullen expressionless faces stare back at you.

Enter free will. We all have agency. We all make choices. We all make sacrifices. Be those decisions, choices, and sacrifices realized or unrealized; we make them. And we reap their benefits and consequences.

I found the biggest problem, or lie, in society is believing we can have it all. We can’t. There is simply too much for our limited time and resources. No matter how much money one has, their clock is still finite and the world’s smorgasbord is vast. Personally, my axiom, one of my unwavering tenets of life from way back in my twenties: When given a choice between time and money, always choose time. And I’ve lived that belief and conviction.

I’ve turned down promotions, moving, and so on, for more time with family and children. And time for myself. I don’t have millions of dollars stock piled in the bank. Over my life I’ve chosen to invest into time vacationing and making memories with family and friends. Yes, I’ve made sound financial decisions along the way, always letting the philosophy of quality time lead them.

So, is a crisis avoidable or inevitable?

When a midlife transition gets just too much, a crisis is born. There is a tipping point when one enters their crisis and now must traverse that journey. If one has too much unrealized trauma and pain, too many unreconciled life choices, especially those choices that were tore out of their hands many years ago, they have a high probability of a crisis.

A MLCer’s is depressed and consumed. They feel life has passed them by. They want a do-over. They cannot embrace their “golden” time. This is even beyond those bitter grumpy old folks, for the grumpy folks have traversed their transition, they just have more a resignation to their life and past, rather than acceptance and peace. The MLCer is running from their life.

How to avoid it? How to avoid a crisis? Make peace with your life and immutable past. Dig into yourself and see your values and value. Do you like what you see? Strengthen that which serves, craft that which you aspire to, and alter/discard that which does not serve. Purposefully decide and choose your path towards your future. While, counterintuitively, letting the future unfurl as it will.

To achieve that apparent conflicting juxtaposition of purpose and letting go the future, live the present moment. Everything happens in the here and now. Fretting over the past, is present time. Planning for the future, happens in the present moment. Live your present with purpose and your future will unfurl with purpose.

I suppose, overall, I believe in free will. Therefore, a crisis is not inevitable. One could take actions to alter their trajectory. The problem is they don’t know that; the very root of the crisis being those buried trauma(s).

Knowing about midlife crisis, learning about it, understanding it, rationalizing it, empathizing with those suffering it, changes things. And that, is what makes it avoidable.

D