Gail Shihi age crises

Annotation

The book is devoted to the problem of age-related crises of an adult and is written in the style of psychological interviews. It goes into detail various options crises of adults that inevitably await every person after 35 summer age, and ways out of them. The book is of great interest both to specialists and to a wide range of readers. Immediately after its publication, it became a bestseller and sold more than five million copies in English-speaking countries.

Gail Sheehy

AGE CRISES

The idea for this book came from Hel Charlette, a wonderful editor and someone who has always supported my research. mental states mature age. After his untimely death, Jack Macrae devoted much time to editing this book, and thanks to his efforts, it acquired a special flavor.

The book became a reality thanks to those people who shared stories from their lives. Without naming their names, I hope that I am being fair.

Many people helped me while working on the book. First of all, I am indebted to such professionals as Daniel Levinson, Margaret Mead and Roger Gould. I am especially grateful to Bernice Neugarten, George Weillant, Margaret Hennig, James Donovan, Marylou Lionel, and Carola Men, who provided me with expert advice.

I am deeply grateful to Carol Rinzler, Deborah Main, and Byron Dobell for reading several versions of the book and for their assistance in editing them. Comments from Jerry Kosinski, Patricia Hinayon, and Shota Shudasam were also gratefully received.

Virginia Dayani spent nights typing, Lee Powell edited, and Ella Konchil completed copy after copy. It seemed that this book would never turn into something tangible. I am grateful to them for their patience and endurance.

Financial support in the form of a scholarship was offered by the Alicia Paterson Foundation. The Foundation also provided me with moral support, for which I am extremely grateful to its director, Richard Nolt.

I am forever grateful to Maura Sheehy and Clay Felker. When I wrote, suffered, rewrote, dreamed and lived in this book, they sacrificed personal time and holidays for the sake of my work and therefore are rightfully considered its godmothers.

Gail Sheehy, New York

PART ONE: SECRETS OF THE LIFE CYCLE

Chapter 1. MADNESS AND THE METHOD OF COMBATING IT

At the age of thirty-five, I experienced my first nervous breakdown. I was happy, full of strength, and suddenly it was as if I had fallen off a cliff into a seething stream. It was like this.

On assignment from the magazine, I was in Northern Ireland, in the town of Derry. The sun was shining brightly, the march in defense had just ended civil rights Catholics, and we, its participants, felt like winners. However, the column was met by soldiers at the barricades; they fired at us with tear gas and rubber bullets. We dragged the wounded to a safe place and after some time observed what was happening from the balcony.

“How do paratroopers manage to shoot gas cartridges so far?” - I asked the young man standing next to me.

“Look, they are hitting the ground with their butts,” he replied. And then a bullet hit him in the mouth, pierced the nasal septum and disfigured his face beyond recognition.

“Oh God,” I was stunned, “these are real bullets!” For the first time in my life, I was faced with a situation that could not be corrected.

At this time, British armored cars began to wedge themselves into the crowd, and machine gunners jumped out of them. They sprayed us with lead bullets.

The seriously wounded young man fell on me. Elderly man, who was hit hard in the neck with a rifle butt, stumbled, climbed up the stairs and collapsed on us. Several more people squeezed onto the outer stairs, and we crawled up under fire.

I shouted: “Is it possible to get into someone’s apartment?” But all the doors were locked. We reached the eighth floor. Someone had to climb onto the balcony under open fire and knock on the nearest door. A boy shouted from below:

"Oh my God, I got hit!" This voice forced me to act. Shaking with fear, covering myself with a soft child's coat in the hope that it would save me, and hearing the whistle of bullets a few feet from my own nose, I rushed to the nearest door.

We were allowed into an apartment filled with women and children. The shelling continued for about an hour. From the window I saw three children who ran out from behind the barricade and wanted to hide. Bullets pierced them like targets at a shooting range. The priest followed them and waved a white handkerchief. The old man bent over the children's bodies and began to pray. He suffered the same fate.

The wounded man we were dragging upstairs asked if anyone had seen him. younger brother. The answer was: “He is killed.”

A few years ago, my brother died in Vietnam. He was buried in Connecticut, in the countryside. The honor guard covered the coffin with a flag, which for some reason resembled a blanket. People shook my hand and said, “We know how you feel right now.” I also thought then that it was pointless to tell a person who had suffered a heart attack empty words like “don’t take it to heart.” “I know how you feel right now” is the only thing I can say now. I didn't know this before.

After an unexpected massacre, I, like many others, found myself in a summer house in a Catholic ghetto. All exits from the city were blocked. All that was left to do was wait. We waited for the British soldiers to start searching house after house.

“What will you do if the soldiers come and start shooting?” I asked the old woman who sheltered me. “I’ll lie face down,” she said.

One of the women tried to find out the names of the dead over the phone. Once a convinced Protestant, I tried to pray. But I remembered a stupid children's game that begins with the words: “If you have one single desire in this world:.” I decided to call my loved one in New York. He will say the magic words and the danger will go away.

"Okay, how's it going?"

"It was a miracle that I escaped. Thirteen people were killed today."

"Hold on. It's London Derry that's on the news."

"This is a bloodbath."

"Can you speak louder?"

"It's not over yet. An armored personnel carrier just ran over a mother of fourteen children."

"Look, you don't have to go to the front line. Don't forget, you have to write an article about Irish women. Join the women and don't get into trouble. Okay, honey?"

After this meaningless conversation, I became numb. My vision darkened, my head became cast iron. I was possessed by only one thought: to survive. The world no longer meant anything to me. Thirteen people will die or thirteen thousand, perhaps I will die too. And tomorrow everything will be in the past. I realized: there is no one with me. No one can protect me.

After that, I suffered from headaches for a whole year.

Returning home, I remained for a long time under the impression of my possible death. There was no question of any article. In the end, I managed to get a few words out, met the deadline, but at what cost? My anger resulted in a harsh diatribe against my loved ones. I left everyone who supported me and could have helped me fight the demons of fear: I broke off my relationship with the man I had been with for four years, fired my secretary, let go of my housekeeper, and was left alone with my daughter Maura and my memories.

In the spring I didn’t recognize myself. My ability to make quick decisions, my mobility, which allowed me to get rid of old views, the insolence and selfishness aimed at achieving the next goal, wandering around the world, and then working on articles all night long with coffee and cigarettes - all this no longer affected me.

An inner voice tormented me: “Take stock. Half of your life has been lived. Isn’t it time to take care of the house and have a second child?” He made me think about the question that I diligently pushed away from myself: “What did you give to the world? Words, books, monetary donations - is that enough? You were a performer in this world, not a participant. But you are already thirty-five:”

This was my first encounter with the arithmetic of life.

It's terrible to be under fire, but the same feelings can be experienced after any accident. Imagine: twice a week you play tennis with an energetic thirty-eight-year-old businessman. One day after a game, a blood clot breaks off and enters an artery, the heart valve is blocked, and the person is unable to call for help. His death shocks his wife, business colleagues and all his friends of the same age, including you.

Or a long-distance call notifies you that your father or mother is in the hospital. Lying in bed, you remember how energetic and cheerful your mother was, and when you see her in the hospital, you realize that all this is gone forever, replaced by illness and helplessness.

By mid-life, having reached the age of thirty-five to forty-five, we begin to seriously think that we are mortal, that our time is passing, and that if we do not hasten to decide on this life, it will turn into the performance of trivial duties to maintain existence. This simple truth comes as a shock to us. Apparently, we expect changes in roles and rules that completely satisfied us in the first half of life, but must be revised in the second half.

Under normal circumstances, without blows of fate or major shocks, these issues manifest themselves within a few years. We need time to adjust. But when they fall upon us all at once, we cannot immediately “digest” them. The transition to the second half of life seems very tough and too fast for us to accept.

These questions arose for me when I unexpectedly faced death in Northern Ireland.

Here's what happened six months later. Picture this: me, confident, divorced business woman I'm in a successful career, rushing to catch a plane to Florida for the Democratic National Convention, when I discover one of my favorite pet birds dead. I start crying my eyes out. You'll probably say, "This woman is crazy." I thought exactly the same thing.

I took a seat at the back of the plane so that in the event of a plane crash I would be the last one to hit the ground.

Flying on an airplane has always brought me joy. At thirty years old, I didn’t know what fear was, I was involved in parachuting. Now everything was different. As soon as I got close to the plane, I saw a balcony in Northern Ireland. Soon this fear grew into a phobia. I began to be attracted to stories of plane crashes. I painfully studied all the details in the photographs from the crash sites. Having found out that planes break down in the front, I made it a rule to sit in the tail, and when entering the plane, I asked the pilot: “Do you have experience performing instrument landings?” At the same time, I did not feel shame.

Book by Gail Sheehy called Age crises is devoted to the problem of age-related crises of an adult and is written in the style of psychological interviews. It examines in detail the various options for adult crises that inevitably await every person after the age of 35, and ways to overcome them. Book, "Age crises", is of great interest both to specialists and to a wide range of readers. Immediately after its publication, it became a bestseller and sold more than five million copies in English-speaking countries.

Gail Sheehy AGE CRISES
Stages of personal growth
From the author

PART ONE: SECRETS OF THE LIFE CYCLE

PART TWO: BREAKING FROM PARENTAL ROOTS

PART THREE: A TWENTY YEAR SEARCH

PART FOUR: THE TRANSITION TO THE AGE OF THIRTY

PART FIVE: I AM UNIQUE

PART SIX: TEN-YEAR REVIEW PERIOD

PART SEVEN: UPDATE

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P.S. I’ll add on my own behalf, the book is excellent,
give her your precious time
and you won’t regret it a bit!

The book is devoted to the problem of age-related crises of an adult and is written in the style of psychological interviews. It examines in detail the various options for adult crises that inevitably await every person after the age of 35, and ways to overcome them. The book is of great interest both to specialists and to a wide range of readers. Immediately after its publication, it became a bestseller and sold more than five million copies in English-speaking countries.

PART ONE: SECRETS OF THE LIFE CYCLE

Chapter 1. MADNESS AND THE METHOD OF COMBATING IT

At the age of thirty-five, I experienced my first nervous breakdown. I was happy, full of strength, and suddenly it was as if I had fallen off a cliff into a seething stream. It was like this.

On assignment from the magazine, I was in Northern Ireland, in the town of Derry. The sun was shining brightly, a march for Catholic civil rights had just ended, and we, the participants, felt like winners. However, the column was met by soldiers at the barricades; they fired at us with tear gas and rubber bullets. We dragged the wounded to a safe place and after some time observed what was happening from the balcony.

“How do paratroopers manage to shoot gas cartridges so far?” — I asked the young man standing next to me.

“Look, they’re hitting the ground with their butts,” he replied. And then a bullet hit him in the mouth, pierced the nasal septum and disfigured his face beyond recognition.

“Oh God,” I was stunned, “these are real bullets!” For the first time in my life, I was faced with a situation that could not be corrected.

At this time, British armored cars began to wedge themselves into the crowd, and machine gunners jumped out of them. They sprayed us with lead bullets.

The seriously wounded young man fell on me. An elderly man, who had been hit hard in the neck with a rifle butt, stumbled up the stairs and collapsed on top of us. Several more people squeezed onto the outside stairs, and we crawled up under fire.

I shouted: “Is it possible to get into someone’s apartment?” But all the doors were locked. We reached the eighth floor. Someone had to climb onto the balcony under open fire and knock on the nearest door. A boy shouted from below:

“Oh my God, I got hit!” This voice forced me to act. Shaking with fear, covering myself with a soft child's coat in the hope that it would save me, and hearing the whistle of bullets a few feet from my own nose, I rushed to the nearest door.

We were allowed into an apartment filled with women and children. The shelling continued for about an hour. From the window I saw three children who ran out from behind the barricade and wanted to hide. Bullets pierced them like targets at a shooting range. The priest followed them and waved a white handkerchief. The old man bent over the children's bodies and began to pray. He suffered the same fate.

The wounded man we were dragging upstairs asked if anyone had seen his younger brother. The answer was: “He is killed.”

A few years ago, my brother died in Vietnam. He was buried in Connecticut, in the countryside. The honor guard covered the coffin with a flag, which for some reason resembled a blanket. People shook my hand and said, “We know how you feel right now.” I also thought then that it was pointless to tell a person who had suffered a heart attack empty words like “don’t take it to heart.” “I know how you feel right now,” is the only thing I can say now. I didn't know this before.

After an unexpected massacre, I, like many others, found myself in a summer house in a Catholic ghetto. All exits from the city were blocked. All that was left to do was wait. We waited for the British soldiers to start searching house after house.

“What will you do if the soldiers come and start shooting?” I asked the old woman who sheltered me. “I’ll lie face down,” she said.

One of the women tried to find out the names of the dead over the phone. Once a convinced Protestant, I tried to pray. But I remembered a stupid children's game that begins with the words: “If you have one and only desire in this world...”. I decided to call my loved one in New York. He will say the magic words and the danger will go away.

"I'm alive."

“Okay, how's it going?”

“I was saved by a miracle. Thirteen people were killed today.”

“Hold on. They're talking about London-Derry in the news."

"This is a bloodbath."

“Can you speak louder?”

“It's not over yet. An armored personnel carrier just ran over a mother of fourteen children.”

“Listen, you don’t need to go to the front line. Don't forget, you have to write an article about Irish women. Join the women and don't get into trouble. Okay, honey?

After this meaningless conversation, I became numb. My vision darkened, my head became cast iron. I was possessed by only one thought: to survive. The world no longer meant anything to me. Thirteen people will die or thirteen thousand, perhaps I will die too. And tomorrow everything will be in the past. I understood: There is no one with me. No one can protect me.

After that, I suffered from headaches for a whole year.