What is Midlife Burnout?

The midlife years are typically thought of as being between 40 and 60 years old. It’s the period between young adulthood and old age - also known as being middle aged!

Burnout is a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. Feeling drained, fed up, unmotivated and negative - exactly the things online counselling can help with!

The midlife years bring with them a whole host of changes which can contribute to burnout. Here I’ve gathered together some of the aspects of midlife which can contribute to burnout, and I promise you that my intention is not to make you feel worse! It’s just to highlight some of the things that online counselling can help with.

Roles within families often change during the midlife period. Children are reaching adulthood and it can feel that they are moving on without you, or that their expectations of you are changing as they need support with entering into all that adulthood demands of them. Maybe this is support that you never received from your parents, and it can bring up difficult emotions. As well as this, elderly parents might need you more now and it can be difficult to manage feelings of guilt when your time is being spread so thinly. You are what’s known as ‘the sandwich generation’ - caring for the two generations either side of you.

You may experience feelings of loss in midlife. For example, having aging parents, the loss of having children in the house and even changes to the way you look as you age can invoke feelings of loss. Relationship breakdowns and divorce can of course happen throughout adulthood, but in midlife it can be particularly difficult to deal with worries about how to move on and what to do next. Job loss or redundancy at this age can be particularly difficult. The media is full of stereotypes and biases about age so you may be concerned about age discrimination limiting your opportunities. Not to mention thinking about how you will manage financially in retirement.

It is becoming increasingly common to suspect or be diagnosed with autism, ADHD and AuDHD (both autism and ADHD) during midlife. Late diagnosis brings with it mixed feelings for most. There can be feelings of relief, having an explanation for how things have been, but also a sense of loss, for the way things might have been if you’d been helped earlier in life. It can take a lot of processing and self reflection to work out who you really are after a diagnosis.

There are physical changes during midlife, for example, naturally occurring menopause and peri-menopause and general declines in our health and cognitive processing speed. You may have been diagnosed with a long term health condition and experiencing feelings around not being able to do things that you used to do. Feeling like a burden asking for help or just pushing through knowing that you shouldn’t. Fatigue can be particularly difficult in midlife, as competing demands prevent you from being able to take time for your own self-care.

These kinds of changes can negatively impact your wellbeing and you may find yourself thinking about what you could have done to prevent ending up where you are now, or worrying about what the future has in store. It can be a time of questioning choices, overwhelm and feeling out of control.

The situations above are of course just examples of some of the things which can contribute to midlife burnout. You may be experiencing some, none or maybe even all of them (if you are particularly unlucky!). The good news is that online counselling can help with midlife burnout, help you to feel positive again. If you need someone to talk to about how you are feeling, please get in touch using the contact form and we can arrange to have a chat to see if we would be a good fit.