Is there a time period a midlife crisis lasts and does everyone go through them?
920737
For me, it happened around 40, at least started then, and lasted for about 5 years, sad to say. It was not a great time in my life. I lost my Mother and Dad to death, my wife to divorce, and a job that I had worked at for 21 years. At about 45 , I began to get my life back together, and move on. Since then, my life has been much better though. I tell you this because I want you to know....there IS life after a "midlife crisis"! Most everyone does go through them, yes, but "through" is the keyword. You don't stay there forever!! Good Luck!!
654903
I belong to a DID board, and although I am not DID myself....I have a lot of experience with people who are.\n\n   DID is almost always a result of severe childhood abuse, and the condition itself first develops when a person is very young, and experienceing things that are simply too traumatic to stay in consiousness. So it's not like people "get" DID in later life: the general consensis is that they have had it ever since the abuse first happened.\n\n   Other personalities are created to come out and be there for the experiences, and then "hold" the memories behind a wall of amniesia.\n\n   Personalities can be formed at each traumaic experience, thus serving to create sometimes hundreds of different personalities, or personalities can be created who are "thematic" and come out to deal with any experience that is  related to their particular "job", thus resulting in fewer personalites overall.\n\n    Personalities are generally frozen at the age they were created, and since most of the trauma was during childhood, often a large percentage of a persons personalites are "littles" from ages 3 on up.   And yet, if things happen later in life, if the thing that happens is related to the "job" of a little......it will often still be that personality that comes out to deal with it, even if they are much younger in age than the "host" happens to be.\n\n  One other odd thing about DID is that.....people can be in their mid 20's and on into their 50's and still have **no clue** that they have DID.  As far as they are concerned, everyone has big chunks of time that they have no memory of.\n\n   When people are diagnosed with DID, it is almost the rule that they will be going...."Like h*ll I have Multipal Personalites".  Believe me, you yourself could have it and not know.  So you can see why you might think your therapist was the one who was nuts for daring to suggest such a thing.  Even when the evedence is right before their eyes, people will **still** deny that it could be possible.\n\n  The first goal in treatment is for the "host" to begin to make contact with their "others."  But often, in their urge to deny things, they will actively resist making any effort to do so.  By that time, their alters are ususally starting to really loose patience with the host.  They **want** to be heard.  The result of such resistance will often be severe headaches, "hearing voices" or "chatter" and nightmares.\n\n  In the end, the function of DID is protection.  Allmost all personalities have acted in ways to protect the host from memories they fear would overwhelm the host.  So as most people travel down the path toward getting better, they  generally come to love and appreciate their alters for all the things they have done for them over the years.  Or at least come to understand their origional motivation, in the case of personalities who may have done things to get them in trouble\n\n   Are alters "real personalities" ?   By definition ( as noted in the DSM) they are.  The more time they spend "out" the more they accumulate life experiences of their own, and develop a level of complexity that does indeed charactorize a "personality".\n\n   Treatment for DID can be quite long.  Generally, the thought is that each personality needs to resolve his own set of issues, and when there are a large number of personalities.....you can see where it might take quite a while. Most treatment is the sort of treatment that people with PTSD have to go through.  People and their personalites usually *all* have "trama issues" of one form or another that they each must deal with.\n\n  Among people with DID there is quite a debate about what the final goal of treatment might be.  Some people are not at all interested in "integrating" because of the respect they have developed for their
903230
Late '20's?  By that time most people have seen enough of life to know what it's about.\n\nLike you say, depends on maturity.
759208
somethings don't change.  i'm 28 and cry all the time. :( \nsorry!
1103626
This is a very long answer! I am sorry, but I had to write this! Bear with me....\n\nAs a woman who is 50 and who went through her own mid life crisis (and divorce and self reinvention) over the last ten years and  who felt very much as you do now, I would like to share some things that helped me to get out of negative self talk. I have learned how to view mid life as a wonderful time of growth, which got me out of a bad mind set.\n\nHon, the first mistake you are making is defining yourself and your personal value on whether or not you have a boyfriend or husband. You are not unique in this mindset. I did the same thing, but no one defines us or determines our self worth and value, EXCEPT ourselves. Thinking that a man will define your self worth and your placement in this world will only serve to make you depressed and feel as alone as you do now. The only person who defines you and your self worth is YOU. No one else can do this. Instead of thinking that someone else is responsible for definining you, LOOK WITHIN. You are a unique individual, with your own skills, gifts, ideas, mind and thoughts that make you who you are. If you only seek out men to define and complete you, you will feel alone, as you do now. You feel alone and empty because you are not looking within yourself to find the things that you possess to bring you self nurturance and self love - to define the woman you are now.\n\nMost women define and value themselves as complete when they have a boyfriend or husband because we are socialized by our families and the media to believe this is the case. We are taught that to be of value we must achieve the ultimate goal in life: to get married, have a family, own a house, and so forth. Those of us who decide to have a career, in addition to marriage, are taught that having "it all" makes us more worthy. If we choose not to marry or have kids, then something is wrong with us (although this is changing, thank god). If we wind up getting divorced, we are viewed as being failures and that because our marriages failed, we are not capable of having a relationship or worse, something is wrong with us. Married friends may shun us (or not), family members query us about whether or not we are dating, or if we will ever remarry, and as a consequence, we feel anxious and apart from society. We feel as if we are outsiders looking in. When we believe this, we feel lost.\n\nDivorce is hard, especially when you are in your mid forties and going through perimenopause. That adds to the confusion and the negative feelings we have. With hormones rising and falling, we feel different and are different in many ways. It is a time, generally - and without divorce - of questioning and assessing our lives, what we have accomplished or didn't, what we want to do in the future, and what changes we want to make. We fear aging and growing older, and dying too young or too soon. We fear the changes our bodies are going through. Our looks change somewhat and we feel old, ugly, less attractive. Even though this is a scary  and a weird time in our lives, we needn't feel this way. Experience and wisdom comes with age, and even if our bodies are not as firm as they once were, and even if we gain a bit of weight or have tons of gray hair, we are still beautiful. I feel better and more beautiful NOW than I did in my twenties and thirties! I may not be as thin as I was, but that is okay - I accept and honor the woman I am now. I receive the beauty I possess now with welcome arms and more confidence than I ever had before. Why? I accept the woman I am today. It gets better, really and you CAN GET THROUGH IT.  \n\nSome suggestions: One of the best things I ever did when I got divorced was to go to therapy with a psychologist who specialized in divorce. She also held a weekly group session (for an hour an a half) with her other female clients (6 or 7 of us) and we worked together on finding our paths AND releasing our hurt, and anger towa
848632
I my experience, no one really talks about that as a 25 year period.  \n\n1919-1939 is sometimes referred to as "the years between the wars."\n\nMore often, the 1920s are referred to as The Roaring 20s. \n\n1929 to the start of WWII (either 1929-1939 or 1929-1942 -- depending where you are) is often called The Great Depression.\n\nAnd 1939-1945 is referred to as WWII.
185860
That's really a personal thing. Everyone is different. I think most do, but not all admit it. How many times in a given time period also depends on when the mood hits them.
623932
mutual mid life crisis..
139311
1998 was the worst "situation," though it admittedly lasted a bit longer than most situations.  My parents divorced and my mom and little sister moved six hours away; I stayed (with my dad) even though I didn't want to.  My older sister and brother were living together when he killed himself (two weeks before I started high school) and my sister had to leave, so she moved to Canada and I didn't see her for seventeen months.  My dad turned into an alcoholic so I very seldomly saw him.  My other brother was in Italy without a phone, so I couldn't reach him.  And I had absolutely no friends - not an exaggeration - because it had been my first year of public school at the time (8th grade) and I was considered a total loser.\n\nI really have never in my life felt more alone.\n\nThankfully, that is very much in the past. =)
1006211
No, but it happens, love/marriage gets old, just keep in mind it might happen to everyone.
655651
If you've made it to 45, then there is plenty of life ahead!!!\n\nCan there be happiness? Well, I think it is important to qualify what 45-year-old happiness should look like. The women I know tend to look for the same "type" of happiness that they had when they were younger.......big mistake. They get jealous of happier/younger people around them.....big mistake. They find themselves having to deal with the consequences of spending wayyyyyy too much of their life and heart on the bad choices of men in their past......big mistake. Many of them have to deal with a life splattered with addictions and physical challenges that are sometimes self-imposed (or could have been avoided).\n\nI"m 50ish and would LOVE to have some good lovin' from someone who can name all 4 Beatles!!!!!! But my experiences with my old classmates and others of my generation is just really weird.........I'm sorry to say.\n\n\nAdd to that the mostly dysfunctional children, the psycho-exes, the Change, too much debt and the bitterness.......ohhhhhhhh the bitterness.\n\n\nAnd then comes the insecurities........\n\n\n\nSo........do I think that 20-30-year-old women are any better???? Hell no......just younger and more "optimistic, sometimes. They are falling fast towards the very same problems the older women experience.....and that is very sad.\n\n\nSo.......what does a man of integrity do??\n\nWell, I surely don't think Yahoo!answers can help. I do what I can with what I possess. Maybe I'll be surprised, one day.
841955
more women go through a midlife crisis than men do, they just call it the empty nest syndrome.
920732
No because, while time may pass at different rates for different people, they are all still "in the present."  You don't have one person in the past and one in the future.
1010721
Yeah! it's just a stage that almost all girld go through. It usually happen from 12 to 17 but it was last forever so be patient.
926322
Easy one for me, most of it is over and done with.\n\nDon't worry, adulthood comes in plenty good time, no hurry.\n\nBetter to build up a lot of good memories than start to worry about the future that much, unless you are one of those soulless individuals fixated on money.
628892
I believe it might all just be the different circumstances that all families go through.If we all had money and free time to have fun all day long we'll find a problem with that!I had a great childhood.I'm the baby out of 5 and My dad was an alcholic and by the time i was growing up my dad was in AA and my mom was a counselar and my life was peechykeen until he started back drinking when my bro/sis went to college and armed forces,he and my mom split up.Make a long story short we had to move to another sideof town and I got in alot of fights because I was from a different side of town and I eventually started being bad without a dad around and I started hanging out with the wrong crowd and started selling drugs and smoking pot.After about 10 years I  started to look at life and realize that I had way more to offer the world besides what I was dishing,I got up with one of my friends from jr high and we got married after being together for about 12 years and all we have a great relationship.We both had different upbringing mine laid back hers strict.All I have to talk about is the good times that we had.Allwe did was ride bikes and play cops and robbers play on the top/back of garages,play with fireworks chase girls etc.I would love to be a kid again.
167754
yes. Notice people married for decades than all of the sudden one of them dies. More likely than not the other half will die shortly there after