Are You in a Midlife Crisis?

http://www.lhj.com/lhj/quiz.jhtml?quizId=/templatedata/lhj/quiz/data/Midlifecrisisquiz_07152003.xml

You're smack in the middle of your midlife crisis. Go for it!


This is it, baby, and it's an uncomfortable feeling. You're questioning every relationship in your life: with your man, your mother-in-law, your job, your body, and your friends. "Is this all there is?" you wonder. "Is this as good as it gets?"


You also may be feeling incredibly bored with your job, and feel a yearning to learn and do something completely new. If you've been a doctor and want to be a belly dancer, that could be unnerving. You're wondering how you can stay in this current relationship for the rest of your life, or whether it should be broken off. You question who you will be if you no longer look spry and babe-like. All these are questions worth asking, and can lead to positive change.


But if you don't take them seriously, or push them aside, these questions might make you feel suddenly alone and old. Every time you forget something, you panic and think it's a Senior Moment. (In fact, in midlife, your mind is merely fuller than in youth.) You may feel overwhelmed, "as though there were too many electrical appliances plugged into the same wall socket," says Jim Conway, PhD, author of Women in Midlife Crisis (Tyndale, 2000). "A midlife crisis begins with discontent, and then it can erupt into some kind of acting out."


That could mean bad choices: addictions, excesses, or an affair. Perhaps you'll fall into what Conway calls "a cocooning, which is basically hiding from life and hoping it will all go away." Cocooners are subject to depression, and, he says, "women actually do experience depression more than men."


But the transition through the midlife period only becomes a crisis when you get panicky about it. Otherwise, it's not a bad spot, necessarily, and the question-asking can be good. "These are major questions, so don't avoid them," Conway says. "After the process, the person who cocoons can turn into a butterfly."



Am i?? hahaa