Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
You sound like a great son who did a noble thing for your family and father.  That&#x27;s part of your story.<p>It may be hard to internalize this but you are still young. Statistically, you&#x27;ve got half your life to live yet.  Plenty of regular guys have kids when they are older (I see many new dads in their 40s, 50s and 60s).<p>You&#x27;ve reached out which is good. You know something is off.  You want to get better. You want to live which is your internal life force reaching out.  It wants you to move forward with life.<p>Suicidal thoughts are common, so when you mean ideation, have you come up with a plan?  If so what&#x27;s your plan?  What steps can we take to prevent you from acting on that plan?  If that means checking into the hospital do 
that.  Your future self will thank you.  You&#x27;ve got to put obstacles in the way to acting on the ideation when you are &quot;clear headed&quot;.<p>The next thing you can do is find a therapist.  I know that when you are depressed it is really hard to do that.  It feels like the last thing you want to do.  Depression in its full capacity can incapacitate you and seems insurmountable.  I remember being bedridden for weeks.  Happened twice in my life.  Eventually I recovered enough on my own but after going to therapy I&#x27;ve realized that therapy works way faster than self-help and medications.  Self help can help push you along until you find a therapist or for the in between times.<p>To pick a therapist just pick anyone qualified at this point that can see you today or tomorrow. Tell them it is an emergency.  And keep going to therapy.  Ask them to prescribe some actionable things for you to do.<p>In terms of Actions that helped me in addition to therapy.<p>1. Quit all chemicals like alcohol and drugs.  At least until you are feel better. Commit to that.<p>2. Eat 3 square meals a day of nutritious food.  Go outside and talk a walk everyday.<p>3. Now watch a couple tv shows (if reading is too difficult):<p>First on Netflix there is a documentary on Phil Stutz called &quot;Stutz&quot;.  He is excellent and provides what he calls The Tools (thetoolsbook.com).  Watch this and then read up on the tools (and watch the youtube videos).  You can pay for some audio and videos as well which may help.  The tools is a set of visualizations that are useful for dealing with depression, anxiety etc... It can be hard to see when to apply them but go with it.  Keep these tools in the background of everything you do.<p>Second there is a tv show called Limitless with Chris Hemsworth.  This show is about training your body and your mind together to handle stress.  The breathing and cold exposure stuff is similar to Wym Hoff.  Wym Hoff breathing is super useful as is the cold exposure stuff.   Watch this show. Practice breath technique and cold exposure.  Increase your stress tolerance.  There are small safe exposure steps you can take vs jumping off the deep end so to speak.  This is stuff like Wym Hoff breathing (lie down when you do it) and taking cold showers to start.<p>4. Journaling.  Imagine you&#x27;re writing about you as if you are your best friend.  Write down what you are thinking and maybe start with a history of yourself.  Try taking a 3rd person perspective rather than a first person one.<p>5. Medications like anti-depressants can help break the hold depression has but you still have to do the psychological work.  You may or may not need them.  They can increase depression at first especially in younger folks).  A doctor can help here. It is important to tell them you need help.<p>6. Reach out to friends and family and connect with others. Invite someone out for coffee or if asked to go out do that.  If you don&#x27;t have any, volunteer where you can make new friends over a shared context.  Even if you are not religious and the only options nearby are associated with a church, go volunteer.  Consider going to church. It is important to connect with other people and be of service to others.  Again you don&#x27;t have to buy into the religion thing. What you are buying into is our shared humanity.  You have to take the initiative to reach out to others.<p>Stutz says that if you&#x27;re lost, depressed or feeling stuck, it&#x27;s important to work on your Life Force first.  Your life force is like a pyramid.  At the bottom is your body, in the middle is other people and at the top is yourself.<p>Anyone can work on their life force at any time.  What I&#x27;ve described above are steps to do that.