At 41, I feel like I'm just at the start of my mid-life crisis... But it IS definitely beginning. The only thing I've done so far that I think I can blame on it is to get highlights in my hair for the first time in my life.

I'm smack in the middle of one! Wish I had some cheerful words of wisdom, but I don't...only thing I do about it is read my favorite books and visit my favorite people and play my favorite music...all of that dulls the pain, if only temporarily. Hugs!!

I have not had one before but may be about to have one. We are both without work and finding that now we are in our 50s we have passed the Best Before Date of employability. Not rotting yet but a bit of a hard sell.

"read my favorite books and visit my favorite people and play my favorite music" - that sounds like a good place to be. Hugs to you though.

I wouldn't call mine a crisis, more of an awakening. I got sober at 39, and so my 40s were a time of discovery for me, doing things I wished I could have done in my 20s and 30s. I got a tattoo on my 44th birthday ...

I don't remember having one, but I've made-over my life so many times down so many different paths that I don't have a strong identity to consider....

Hugs to y'all.

Hell yes to Senyar getting a tattoo on her 44th. Hell yes to making your life over. Hell yes to good books and favorite people. All of that. Keep going.

I think I got lucky and got my crisis out of the way about a decade back, first after my husband had a nasty run of poor health, and then I had my reproductive organs yanked in quick succession, hastening menopause. Now I am forty-five and decidedly calmer and more at peace with my own life and role in the world (the state of the world notwithstanding, omfg).

I am now much less likely to be the people pleaser I was raised to be. I spend far less energy managing the feelings of others. I am braver and steadier. My back is straighter and I can feel the steel growing in my spine as each year passes. I know I am closer to my end than my beginning, and that's okay. I'm not sweating it. I LIKE being middle-aged, much more than I liked young adulthood. Get on with your bad selves, bunnies.

Well, I'm well past that point at 58, but no. I am a very fortunate person, who luckily got the job I wanted and a wonderful man to marry, and have had very few health issues, so I spent more time in my 40s marveling at that.

I DID get a tattoo last year, but again, too old to call that a midlife event. And that was due to you bringing up the topic here, Miko. You inspired me.

I'll add you have always struck me as a remarkably sound, wise soul. I think you will navigate this journey well.

I believe I am having a mild "crisis", if you will. In that I refuse to be told what to do; I will do what I want, when and with whom I feel like. I'm not throwing tantrums, and I will not go into details, but I've finally concluded this is MY life, My journey, and I won't watch it pass me by.

I'm not sure I'd call it a typical mid-life crisis but, the nearer I get to 60, the more panicked, depressed and scared of growing any older. Over the past couple of years, I've seen what growing old in this country can be like (through both my mom and father-in-law) and it scares the living hell out of me. Then, there's the fact of not being easily employable anymore and the future looks pretty bleak. So...sure...it's a crisis. My therapist calls it an existential crisis, though.

Why do you ask?