The Trappings of Modern Adulthood

Why do I feel trapped and want to escape this luxury prison?

In honor of World Suicide Prevention Day, I share this article. Men between the ages of 45-54 are the highest risk group. We are dying faster than any other group. One reason could be that this coincides with 'mid-life' and all that comes with it. I hope that this article inspires a mid-life man to get help from someone: be it a therapist, a loved one, or a coach. I am not writing this article to impress you, I am writing this article in hopes that you will either a) get help or b) show empathy to someone who is struggling.

Mid-Life, sometimes called a Mid-Life Awakening or a Mid-Life Crisis, has a host of causes. This article will cover some of the causes that came up for me. I want to share to you about my mine as everyone has different experiences, maybe something in my experience will resonate with you.

Financial strain – I was the bread-winner for the household. I had bought into the “I deserve to live comfortably” and “show people how successful I am” idea. I had a house that was really lovely, but it was a financial albatross. I had sold at near the top of the market in Phoenix AZ before the bubble before moving to Austin, so I thought I would be flush with cash. I hadn’t really learned much about the taxes here, and by the time I had figured out what my principal, interest, taxes and insurance (funny how the acronym PITI sounds like “pity” as in, take pity on yourself, you are about to pay through your nose) was totaling up to, we were already 3 months in one of those “executive rental” apartments that was super expensive and I had exhausted much of my re-location package from my new job. At that point, I felt rushed to get a house, my now ex-wife and I had seen a nice neighborhood in the up and coming suburbs of Austin – Cedar Park. We bought a really nice house with a media room, 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, an office, it was such overkill for a family of 4. Once the costs started adding up of electric, water, landscaping, HOA fees, etc – it became really tough to feel financially comfortable. This started to make me question what I was doing living like this. It made me wonder, did we buy too much house? I felt paralyzed, we had become great friends with neighbors, the kids were socializing, and I was going off to a job that was super stressful.

(if you were born in the 70s, you may remember this movie "Gung Ho", I was kinda like this guy, Hunt Stevenson, but instead of working for the Japanese making cars, I was working for the Koreans making NAND FLASH memory and ASICs)

Work and personal achievements – when I first got to my job in 2006, I excelled – I was moving up, originally hired as an individual contributor after being a manager for 6 years at my previous company, they moved me into a role where they had me as the manager over all of the local employees in the Quality department, and I reported to a Korean boss. He was referred to as the “Part Leader” and I was the “Coaching Leader” – he was responsible for communicating with our headquarters, setting strategic direction for our department, and generally staying late til ~ 9PM so he could talk with the folks in Korea. I was more focused on the day to day operations, performing reviews, setting more tactical direction, firefighting, training and coaching the local employees. I had every belief that when the Korean manager went back, I would be put in his position. Finally, in 2009 there was a big re-organization and a HUGE layoff at Samsung. I was fortunate to survive, but they moved another guy from another department into my department and he became the manager. It felt like my career was stalled out. Then in 2012, there was another opportunity in another business unit and I got to do the same thing all over again – only once again, I found myself stifled and almost left the department. Long story short, I really started to question my self-worth. This, coupled with my drinking at the time, made for some really disheartening thoughts about what I was really achieving in life. I was seeing my peers from college becoming CTOs, CEOs…. Here I was, middle management with a bad mindset (in hindsight, this was the real problem). At the job prior to this, I was offered to be a Director, and I didn’t take it. The regret of that kept ringing out as I saw myself not moving up within the corporate ladder there. Being the people pleaser I was (and to a certain extent still have some of this character defect) – it was essential for me to feel like I was keeping everyone satisfied. 

In that organization, it felt nearly impossible to satisfy everyone, and as a result, my self-esteem and self-confidence continued to degrade. 

Physical and health changes – In 2010 as I showed in my last article, I went out racing BMX and broke my left wrist and hand. I also tore the labrum in my shoulder after I healed from the broken wrist. All of these made me feel incredibly frail, thus adding to the feeling that I was getting old, and useless. I also was prescribed opiates, and by the Grace of God, I did not get addicted to them to the point where I went out to seek them after my prescription ran out. I will tell you that I enjoyed mixing them with alcohol and it made me one grumpy a--hole. I felt like I was never going to feel strong. My marriage was having trouble and those feelings of frailty did nothing for my virility and feeling like a strong husband. In our youth we are strong, flexible and recover quickly from most things. I had struggled with my weight throughout all of my childhood and when I was 25 I got down to my lowest weight ever (this would have been 1997) but after breaking the wrist, I started climbing back up in weight due to inactivity, this also brought up some old emotional wounds. 

Avoidance – one of the most critical aspects of my personality during that time, that played into all other aspects was my avoidant personality. A person whose natural reaction is to avoid conflict or difficult conversations will find this time of life more difficult. Ignoring problems does not make them go away, it only snowballs them as each new problem pulls other problems from other aspects of your life into the snowball. This had always been a difficult thing for me, I have always sought to keep everything peaceful and calm. As I searched deep into my past, I had found the various causes that went into this people-pleasing and “Nice Guy Syndrome”. It was as a result of some toxic shame from my childhood and some early traumatic experiences.

I have since shared these with a very trusted person, but it did take that honesty to set some of it free. 

In order to solve a problem, we have to become self-aware of our symptoms, then identify the causes. In the next installment, I will examine how to slow or stop your mid-life crisis. Some of the ideas have already been touched on in the above, but I will expand on them.