At 41, Marc has been upset all his life. He left his job in Montreal and decided to settle on the island of Oléron to become a mailman. At Olivier Delacroix's microphone on Friday, he explains how he went through this mid-life crisis.
Mark, 52, has had a "midlife crisis". At age 41, he felt the need to shake up his life, to leave his job in advertising but also the city of Montreal where he was installed for several years to return to settle on the island of his childhood, the island of Oleron. Friday, at the microphone of Olivier Delacroix on Europe 1, he returns to this complicated period for him as for his entourage and he confides his pride to have overcome it.
"The mid-life crisis, I did not really see what it could symbolize, but at the dawn of my 40 years, I lost my father and that triggered a lot of things. the feeling of finding myself alone, a bit of an orphan because I do not have any brothers and sisters and my mother had died a few years ago, and the year after that, it was concretely translated, I started everything to question: my personal, social and professional life, but also the way I saw myself, the meaning I gave to my life, everything was subject to questioning.
In fact, it was as if I woke up from a dream and was in a nightmare. I felt like I was not doing the right things, not being in the right place, not with the right people, that everything I saw no longer matched my aspirations. I felt a profound shift of everything from me. And it was not just about a specific point in my life, I felt bad about everything.
I felt like I was choking, I felt too young to consider that I had made my life and that I had to stay where I started and at the same time too old to be able to start over again again.
Marc decides to move and leave Montreal
I needed to change something. The first step was a move. I left Canada and I returned to France in the family home on the island of Oleron. I went from a big city to a small island. By doing that, I left all the people I knew.
The second thing that I had to change radically was my job. I worked in advertising. And I had the impression to have done the tour of this work. I chose to become a factor. I went from a very involved job to something more simple. Once you finish your job, you go home and you do not have much to think about. It did me good.
Only his companion has not changed
The only thing I did not have to question is my love life. I'm happy because it would have been a disaster for me. My companion has always been with me even though he was very unhappy at first to see me that way. By the way, when I told him I needed to leave Canada, it was hard but he said 'let's go'.
Today, I have no regrets. I even feel a sense of pride, despite all that I have lived through, of having managed to get through and to have identified that what I was going through was not something unique. For me, it's not a failure.
To overcome the crisis? We must listen
I do not know if there are any tips to give. I am not convinced that the midlife crisis is something that is identified when it happens to us. Besides, I do not think it's necessarily 40 when it happens, it can happen sooner, it can happen at 50, or a little later.
I think that when we feel that we have a need for change, when we do not necessarily feel in its place, that we have the impression that we are not legitimate, we must try to take a little bit of hindsight and when it is possible to succeed in listening to each other.
The midlife crisis, "an awareness of one's own mortal condition"
The midlife crisis or the crisis of the living environment is a myth for some but for others it is a cataclysm. According to Emmanuel Bentata, psychologist and member of the listening platform Pros-consult, invited to the microphone of Olivier Delacroix, it concerns both men and women. "It affects a significant majority of people," he says. "What will vary, however, is the intensity and duration."
According to him, this crisis is "an awareness of one's own mortal condition". "It takes root in a phenomenon of look that the person will take on his own life.The intensity and duration of the crisis is born from the ideal that had projected the person and what she really faces. refers to his notion of value, need, meaning, "he explains. "She wonders if her life really matches her need and her values or if it comes from normative, social or educational factors."
For the psychologist, this crisis is not necessarily something negative. "On the contrary," he says. "It hurts, it is painful, it questions, it also challenges the entourage, but it is not negative," he says. "It is constructive, it will help to redefine the foundation, the foundations on which another part of life will be built with what the person really is."