Many of us are unaware of this term but we face some of the symptoms knowingly or unknowingly. When children are small, their problems differ from what they become for teenagers or adults. These problems along with the aging process, thoughts of instability after retirement, finding one’s children suitable matches are all part of the midlife crisis. Nowadays there is a branch of psychology to deal with these problems.
Not all experts believe there is such a thing as midlife crisis. “For most people, middle age is not a crisis but a challenge and a relief,” writes David Chiraboga in “Midlife Myths.” However, most writers seem to agree more with Jim Conway who says, “Escaping the midlife development crisis is probably as likely as the child escaping adolescence.”
Author Gail Sheehy adds a warning: “Some people appear to go through calm, uneventful midlife transitions. But by the time they are in their 50s, when some life accident inevitably brings home the mortality issue, it throws them into a deeper, darker, crisis.”
How do you recognize a midlife crisis? What are its symptoms? According to New York Times Editor Howell Raines, “It typically begins with mild twinges of dread, disappointment and restlessness that tiptoe in on little cat feet. Then in some cases, the cat feet turn to elephant feet.”
Yet if you or your spouse is in the middle of such a crisis, you don’t care whether experts believe it exists, and you certainly don’t need to know how it feels (You hear the sound of the elephant feet on a daily basis). What you want is to know how to survive it and here are three suggestions.
1. Don’t give way. Midlifers in crisis are often overwhelmed with fear. Everything they once relied on — both physical and emotional resources — seems ready to collapse. The tendency is to panic, to give way to the onslaught of anxiety. If these words describe your feelings, relax. What you are experiencing is both normal and temporary. Not only will you see a brighter day but you will emerge a better person.
2. Don’t give in. With panic often come thoughts of escape. Midlifers sometimes try to flee their problems through extramarital affairs or to hide from them in designer drugs. But these stop-gap measures, while providing temporary relief, will eventually cause more grief. It’s like taking anti-inflammation drugs for appendicitis. It stops the pain for now, but will hurt much more in the long run. Change, however, is different from escape. You should feel free to make changes in midlife. These changes are part of what will bring you successfully through the crisis. Just be sure to change in ways consistent with your values.
3. Don’t give up. Finally, midlifers in crisis describe themselves as trapped in a dark tunnel with no light at the end. Why keep crawling toward the end if we aren’t sure in which direction the end is and if we don’t know if there is light there when we arrive? This is where faith comes in. At midlife, we must decide what we believe in and struggle toward it even when our progress seems negligible. Like astronauts at the backside of the moon, we trust the principles that began our journey to complete it even if our destination is hidden. And like the astronauts, we will see the sun again, quite possibly in a richness and splendor unnoticed formerly.
I’m not saying all this is easy because it isn’t. But it is our hope, and it’s hope that eventually will see us through the midlife crisis. At midlife, we must decide what we believe in and struggle toward it even when our progress seems negligible.