Are You A Victim Of A Midlife Crisis, Or Are You Going To Be A Survivor Of One?
This is a short note I wanted to write about being a victim of a midlife crisis. Similar to the message I wanted to put about being a victim of infidelity I want to impress the importance of taking control of your own life.
Don’t expect others to help you unless you can help yourself.
Unless of course, you are of a particularly narcissistic personality in which case you are probably an expert at making others work to please you.
For the rest of us reasonably balanced beings it is important to ponder on this message. I recall the day I said it to myself for the first time. A time when I was transitioning from a pathetically broken person; midlife crisis partly resolved yet still dealing with my wife’s infidelity and half way through a divorce. My health was suffering, my back had given up; I had sciatic nerve pain down my leg constantly for weeks and I had a serious eye scaring case of viral conjunctivitis (have I made you feel sorry for me?)
I realized I could take two routes at this time. Feel sorry for my pathetic situation, play the victim role and look for others to support me, and most likely drain them in doing so, or respect the friendships of those around me by making all efforts to look after myself and get myself out of the situation I was in.
I chose the latter fortunately and my friends and family, although supportive, were not also dragged down by my situation.
It felt hard at times, I remember getting up one dark morning to go downstairs to make the children’s packed lunches and slipping and falling partly down the stairs causing more pain to my leg. My will to be a survivor and not a victim was being tested.
Had I done so I would have felt selfish and uncaring about them had they needed to have spent hours of their day making meals for me and my children for example rather than dealing with their own lives. I’m not suggesting we be martyrs, which is another way of presenting yourself as a victim, but I’m suggesting that at all times we as humans, and the essence of a healthy human is someone who looks to solve their own issues themselves.
Taking responsibility for our own lives rather than blaming others for the mess we are in is important too. Accepting that we are where we are because of decisions we made, even if others have significantly influenced how this has turned out through their actions, is important and is key to taking responsibility and control of where we are and what we need to do.
Having supportive friends that we can talk through our thoughts are key to helping us formalize our own ideas as well as adding the support and experience of others into that final decision we have to make about what to do and where to go with our situation.
Being a victim is the opposite to this. It is about calling for help and sitting back, expecting others to tend to you. Its about looking for sympathy and getting people to feel sorry for you so that they offer something of them to you selflessly whilst you selfishly consume what is offered.
Taking control of your life is about personal survival and avoiding behavioral patterns of crying for help that will eventually drive even the most dedicated of your friends and family away from you, whatever your situation.
Tell yourself from now on you are going to be a survivor of a midlife crisis as opposed to feel a victim of a midlife crisis.
Have you got any advice you would like to share about your midlife crisis? I would be pleased to publish your experience and enable you to share it with others, Use the Contact Me link to the left.
Guy
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Filed under: Mid-Life Crisis
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