Beverly Hills therapist Donna Burstyn blogs:
Many women when they get to middle age (45-50) find themselves fired from jobs they’ve held for a long time. They are often replaced by young people with less experience and lower salaries. Women who’ve spent their entire adult lives fighting their inner self, their inner voice, fighting with conflict between work and family, find that once they get to a certain age that problem is lifted from them when they have no job.
For some of these women, their self-image is wrapped up in their work. When you don’t have other big ideals or religious beliefs or family commitments, you think that who you are is what you do.
In my mind, this has often been a big mistake for men. Now many women have this same problem.
So what do we do, we women moving into middle age, when our whole sense of self-worth shifts.