Midlife has a way of sneaking up on you. One day, you're simply going through the motions, and the next, you're confronted with an overwhelming need to pause, review, and reflect.
This period, often occurring in our forties, is not just about aging—it’s about reckoning with the past, redefining the present, and consciously shaping the future.
For me, the past twenty years have been indescribably difficult. I have endured and overcome enormous suffering, yet recently, I came to a stark realisation: I have not fully healed from certain traumas in my life. That recognition was both painful and necessary because, without it, true progress is impossible.
The Questions That Demand Answers
At some point in midlife, deep introspection becomes unavoidable. Even for those who have spent their lives avoiding and dismissing their emotions will feel the void. Questions begin to surface—questions that demand honest and sometimes painful answers:
What do I want the future to look like now that I am a mature adult?
Have I been making the right choices?
Who do I want in my life?
How do I want to spend the time I have left?
No one truly anticipates this moment, but when it arrives, ignoring it is not an option—unless, of course, you lean towards dismissive avoidance. Burying and suppressing emotions may seem like a solution, but in the long run, it often leads to full-blown midlife crises.
Avoidance doesn’t erase pain; it only postpones it. Plastering over the past with a rebound partner, booking expensive holidays to 'get away from it all', none of this works anymore - why? Because you cannot run away from the truth and you can never escape yourself, and your deepest feelings, no matter how hard you try.
Confronting the Past to Reclaim the Future
I am not experiencing a midlife crisis, but I am facing a crucial moment of reckoning. I must confront the missed opportunities, the wounds left by a dismissive avoidant partner I loved intensely but need to release, the career I lost as a result, and the trauma of medical misdiagnoses and medication poisoning.
Revisiting these experiences is immensely painful, but it is also necessary. Avoiding them would mean denying parts of myself, parts that need acknowledgment and healing in order to reclaim my authentic self.
Reliving the painful moments has been hard. I now understand why my dismissive avoidant ex ruthlessly ran away when emotional intimacy was required. I understand him, and I understand me.
I'm sad that timing and misunderstanding of ourselves ruined our connection, but I have to consciously let go of that. If he couldn't do the reflecting through therapy to see how he runs from emotional connection and how I would not allow him to breadcrumb me and continuously push, pull, and avoid and dismiss me again and again—and how painful it was for me—then I cannot do that for him.
I forgive, but the whole process is devastatingly sad.
The same goes for familial relationships. I may never get the emotional closeness to these people that I truly desire, but I have to realise and accept that not everyone is capable of emotional intimacy—and be all right with that.
I sincerely hope that by confronting this, opening the painful wounds in order to heal them, and writing it down, I will be able to cathartically move forward with positivity, hope, forgiveness and love.
Moving Forward with Purpose
Healing is not about erasing the past but integrating it into a stronger, wiser version of ourselves. Reflection allows us to understand our patterns, let go of what no longer serves us, and consciously decide how we want to move forward.
Midlife is not just an age; it is an opportunity. It is the moment we stop living on autopilot and start making intentional choices about the life we truly want. By facing the past with courage, we set ourselves free to create a future that aligns with who we are meant to be.
TR
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