Where I started

Where I ended up

Image descriptions

1st image: - A heavy set person who appears to be a man, in baggy jeans and a t-shirt, leaning against a wooden handrail, holding a laser skirmish gun

2nd image: A curly haired woman in makeup, wearing a teal coloured dress

I started drinking at 13. Blacking out weekly by 15. Full blown alcoholic in 20s. The problem was, I was fairly successful so it was hard for me to admit I was truly fucked up. I managed a good career, family, friends, house, etc. I drank until blackout daily. In late 30s is when the true around the clock drinking started. Morning, noon, night and throughout the night. DT's. Started taking Xanax to fight off the anxiety caused by around the clock drinking. That was it. That's when I lost control. I had a moment of clarity after days of straight blackout during the first month of Covid quarantine. I asked a friend who had been sober for 15 years for help. Went to rehab. Took it seriously. Spend 2.5 months away from my family. Came back determined to live a life of sobriety and focus on family and career. I've got numerous promotions, my family is great and I'm 3.5 years sober and work daily to stay that way.

Tldr; lifelong drunk. Got sober at 40. Best decision I've ever made.

I was born into an impoverished extremist right wing family. I enlisted in the military back when DADT was a thing. I was disowned as an LGBT teenager, and medboarded out of the military after being committed to inpatient facilities multiple times. After that, i was homeless for a couple years, living out of a car and then a backpack.

I finally ended up in this little town in Georgia, got a job at a little retail store, and moved into a trailer with one of my coworkers. Her friends kind of adopted me and i felt accepted for the first time in my life. We were all broke kids, but i told them i was going to be a millionaire by age 30. I was still pretty emotionally unstable and eventually moved on from that friend group, but it gave me the hope i needed to rebuild my life.

I slowly built a career for myself after that, working 70-80 hours a week for a couple years, until i had my foot in the door. It got a lot easier after that. I didn't quite hit my goal by age 30, but I'm close. I founded my first company at age 28, and raised a 10 million series A. My company is now worth 60 million on paper, but of course that's meaningless until we IPO. But it's profitable, and in the meantime, I've adopted a little family of people like me, and built a comfortable life for us. Life is good, and I'm content.

Accidental reinvention story.

I was an independent IT Management Consultant and in my free time I started a side project making a dark ride in virtual reality for the Meta Quest headset. Then Covid happened and my career paused suddenly giving my lots of free time so I focused on the title. It ended up being the 5th highest rated app on the Meta Quest App Lab store out of many thousands for the past year and a bit. I have not gone back to my old career, as well, this is my new career now. The insane part is that I always wanted to be an Imagineer since I was 6 years old, but my life really did not provide those sorts of opportunities. Then one day, when my title was released and the reviews started to come in, I realized suddenlythat I am now an Imagineer. Been 3 years and I still cannot believe it. Love what I do way more than my old career and with AI assistants, I am imagineering faster and faster which is nice as the only complaint I get is where is the rest of the theme park. Currently I am just about to update the single dark ride and add to it an open world theme park around (small today), the first bit of the second dark ride, and the ability to ride with loved ones and friends which is surprisingly magical. Like looking over at someone you know sitting with you on the omnimover and going through a highly detailed dark ride together is so much fun, especially for non gamers who want to try VR.

I am 50 years young.

36yo, I'm in the middle of tunnel currently.

I'm a spoiled, privileged shit. I have a very nice family, good friends, money to live comfortably in a big city. But my life is miserable still: after a succession of failures, I hate my job and suffer painful lonelyness, and I'm too shy to do what most normal human beings do.

I'm almost out of depression but I've yet to go through the reinvent yourself part. I feel like I'm going backwards.

I feel like that's the opposite of what the question asks. Ask me to delete if needed.

I became physically disabled at 42, I'm 49 now. I was the main / usually sole provider for my family. I was pretty suicidal for a while and had a really really tough time adjusting. Midway through I was diagnosed with bipolar and medicated appropriately. I'm doing fairly well now and actually looking forward to the rest of my life.

I started off in the late 1980’s in a mid-sized midwestern city… I was smoking cigarettes, a lot of pot, drinking and carousing with the same friends that I’d had since high school, but I was in my second year of college. I was getting decent grades, but I was really distracted and having some drama with bad girlfriends.

Two weeks after my 21st birthday, I left for Southern California - I had a parent out there, and I ended up staying for 16 years. I stopped smoking basically the minute I got there, spent a lot of time driving around a new city and thinking… and basically came to the realization that since nobody there knew who I had been before, I could approach social situations without the baggage of all those previous decisions that I’d made with my old circle of friends. I was less of a “pleaser”, less of a doormat, and less afraid to speak my mind - and my new friends responded positively to it, so I was encouraged to cultivate that. It helped me be more decisive and independent, and gave me a foundation for everything that followed.

I finished an associate’s degree, got a black belt in a martial art and taught for about six years, and met the woman who is now my wife. We got married, traveled to other countries together in Europe and Central America, quit our jobs to live on a horse ranch, and eventually moved BACK to that same midwestern city to start a family.

I wish I could say that since we moved back, I’ve never felt like the person I was before - but I have to confess that I feel like being back here HAS eroded some of that confidence, like I couldn’t hack it out West and ended up back here after all.

I know it’s not true, but San Diego is where I became the person I wanted to be. Back here is where I had been the person before that. They say “you can’t go home again” - I submit that you CAN, but that maybe you shouldn’t.

I was born into an abusive "family". Fled into my head. Became the quiet brainy kid. Underfed and sleep deprived but did well in school and most people ignored the abuse.

Eventually studied at university, very high achieving, still hiding in my head. Super awkward with people. Autism didn't help. The awareness that I was autistic made several light bulbs go on in my head.

I stopped contact with all of the exfamily and after uni wanted to focus on healing the trauma. Picked up several chronic diseases, realized I was non binary, got adopted by a cat.

Currently fighting to be able to work, if I manage I'll not go for academics as I always thought I would but for helping animals. Trying to get out of head. Have emotions, talk to people.

I had the most abstract corporate software job you can imagine and had to dress up every day for it. One day coming back from lunch I saw my entire future laid out in front of me. Fat piece of corporate garbage without talent and around people I hated.

I applied for a job with an industrial machine designer. Never looked back.

Start: Woman

End: Man (WIP)

Can't reinvent myself more than that.

@edit: Sincerely, accepting myself as transgender was the best thing that happened to me. I went from depressed nerd who sees his body solely as a puppet for his mind to someone who actively cherishes their body. Now I'm reading fitness books and fashion guides because I like my physical existence on earth and want to perfect and protect it. I have a goal on which kind of life I want to have and how I want to look instead of aimlessly asking myself why nothing ever works for me. Being trans is pretty fucking awesome for me.

It wasn't always like this, so to my transmasc friends depressed about their appearance, here is what I needed to read.

I didn't reinvent myself so much as I started being honest about my identity.

When I was younger, I was very talkative and social, and I was punished for it in elementary school because it was disruptive. This is probably because I was surrounded by family and felt comfortable talking to anyone about anything. Over time, I started to become reclusive and have a severe fear of authority. Eventually, my friend group started shrinking in high school until I had what felt like nothing. I stopped attending school and slept for six months during my senior year. Eventually, I started returning from my shell and interacting with people online.

Since I was still in my depressive state, I thought it was all too good to be true, and I faked my death online because I thought no one would care and it would be an easy transition into something else. I was very, very wrong. People I had met online started creating memorials and trying to contact people I knew IRL to give them condolences. It was the first time that I realized people liked the person I was unfiltered.

After that, I got my GED and moved to a new town where no one knew me to go to college. While there, I decided to be the person I was and not the person I had been trying to be because I thought that was what people wanted. Even then, I was introverted until COVID happened, and I fell back into depression due to a lack of human connections.

I'm glad to have learned this all now, but I wish I had known it 20 years ago.

I grew up in a religious home and was always pretty religious myself. In college i ended up leaving the church and religon entirely. I think the last straw was that there are so many mutually exclusive religions, but only one or none can be right, so how did all the "wrong" ones form? Turns out humans are very good at creating religions and cults, and it's way more likely that my religion is no different.

Leaving the church set me on a path of having to actually think about ethics rather than just going by "whatever the bible says", but besides not going to church on sundays my life didn't change a whole lot. But in thinking about ethics the only thing that seemed to be able to solidly root ethics was pleasure/pain, or more broadly wellbeing/needless suffering, not an in-the-moment stereotypical hedonistic view of it but broader, factoring in long term results and the impact on others.

That was fine for a while, until an argument with my dad where he pointed out "if that's what you base ethics on, why don't you include animals in it" and at first i was like yeah obviously kicking a puppy is wrong and that's captured by my view, but it got me to think deeper about it and my actions and i realized that all sentient beings are morally relevant, and i could no longer eat them for my own pleasure. After that i also learned fish are sentient and that the dairy and egg industry are very cruel too, and i couldn't support them either, and i went vegan.

Now my perspective is more refined, i would describe my ethical views most succinctly as sentientism, an antispeciesist extension/improvement on humanism

Nothing too extreme, but I’m in my mid-30s and this year has been one of the most productive of my life. I started a new job in late December. The pay is similar to the job I left. The stress is much lower. Immediately I felt like I had a better work life balance. I have so much extra energy every day.

I started dieting and taking long walks. I lost 35 pounds in 6 months. I listened to a bunch of audiobooks while walking and I’ve also read some ebooks. Together I’ve read 25 books and counting this year whereas most years I’ll read 2 or 3. Once I was nearing my goal weight I increased my calories and started exercising more intensely, with a goal of gaining muscle and losing fat while maintaining weight. I picked up indoor rowing. I’m on week 11 of a 24 week training program. I row hard (working up an intense sweat) 5 days a week Monday- Friday in the mornings. In addition to this I’ve started weightlifting 2 days a week and will gradually increase to 4 days a week while keeping up my rowing routine.

Financially, I started budgeting with YNAB and it has transformed my personal finances. My savings rate has increased significantly and wasteful spending decreased. I moved my savings into a HYSA. I left a financial advisor who was charging excessive fees and moved my investment and retirement accounts to Fidelity where I now manage my portfolio myself. Some of my reading was investing books which gave me confidence I could do this. I’ve tripled the amount I’m contributing to my 401k.

Although I’m new to my job I’ve received constant praise from multiple people in the time I’ve been there. I feel like I have room for growth to move up positions. At the rate I’m going I think I could realistically expect to move up in another 6 months or so.

I started off being born and it appears that I will end up dead.

Around 23 I was jobless, I had no HS diploma, depressed, had recently gone through a bad breakup, and if I wasn't able to move back in with my dad, I would have been homeless.

In the span of about four months, I got my HS equivalency diploma, applied to college, got a job, then quit that job to start college. ~5 years later, and significantly in debt, I had two additional pieces of paper that said I knew things, and I went on to struggle to find work in my local area.

I work in IT, there's a ton of jobs, none of the good ones are local to me; so I'm now slowly working off my debts, at menial jobs that don't challenge me, for menial pay that doesn't nearly reflect the amount of skill and knowledge I have.

Don't go to school kids. You'll accrue debt and nobody cares.

I was a factory worker, warehouse worker, and machinist for most of my adult life. I learned a lot of really cool things in those industries, but I never made much money.

So I took some classes, taught myself Autocad, and somehow talked myself into a CAD position at a precast concrete company. And the difference between then and now is amazing from both a financial standpoint and a quality of life standpoint. Of course there are valid arguments that having enough money is a quality of life issue.

Even when things went wrong and the precast company started to spiral the drain, I went to find another job... and in two days I had to turn down four job offers.

I started with weight loss.

Lost 140 pounds, which led to me accomplishing a few other things, like performing in Newsies and becoming a roller derby skater.

I went from an in debt jobless alcoholic that really did not want to live, to being pretty much debt free (car loan) and having a six figure job that I'm really doing well in.

The turning point was meeting my best friend/soul mate and not accepting who I had turned into. I got a job and really worked my ass off to catch up, quit drinking, then quit smoking, and then things just started turning around. I'd really like to say it was from all the hard work, and maybe it was, but I can't help but feel I just got lucky.

34 years old with two kids.

I spent my 20s working like a horse, and I eventually bought a nice house in a quiet town. I had enough money to go on vacation to Mexico every year with my wife and my kids. Basically, I was living the American dream.

Fast forward a few years later. My wife tells me that she wants a divorce and she is dating the guy she told me not to worry about. Getting divorced means that 50% of my assets go to her, and I need to sell my house. Child support leaves me with little money left at the the of the month.

So, how do I feel? Not bad at all, actually. Have I lost a wife? No, she has been returned. Have I lost my possessions? No, they have been returned.

My children are healthy. They have a good relationship with me and their mother, and they have everything that they need. I am grateful for this. Then, I am aware that they could be taken from me anytime (e.g. sickness). You have to learn how to control your expectations.

As for the future, well whatever that I decide to set my mind to, I will do so with diligence. I'm currently trying to come up with programming projects to keep myself busy. Who knows? I could hit pay dirt, eventually (or not).

Living according to Nature is what I strive for. Everything else is irrelevant.

Little over a quarter life crisis. My job was slowly killing me. It was destroying my mental health, I knew I needed to do something about it. I was always on the mindset of "I'm to old to go back to school". Having gone to post secondary in my late teens and early 20s but promptly dropping out. Decided I needed to go back to school. Went back for engineering. Passed with honors and now I have a child. Life is far better than it was, it has its new up and downs but I'm much happier!

Kind of minor and I don't know that it counts as "reinventing myself", but I graduated from college at 30 years old. Prior to that, I had done mostly "lowly" fast food and warehouse jobs and didn't really have much going for me. My fallback was to maybe join the military and try to get something going through that, but otherwise had no real plans or ideas of what I wanted for my future. It's more than a decade later and in retrospect it still seems like one of the best decisions I've made in my life. I'm now in a career that I'm more or less happy with doing relatively important work and I have an actual chance at having some sort of retirement savings if/when I get a chance to retire (assuming we avoid the whole global climate meltdown Mad Max ending that it seems we're heading towards).

was a stupid piece of shit with hate toward most of the world and myself

now i still kind of hate myself but turns out im just trans so i was driving my selfhate toward other people bc i didnt understand where it was coming from

Yes, all of them.

Now in my 50s and I guess I don't really care about anyone's notions of success and/or failure.

None of that stuff really matters.

What matters is being a good and kind person and building and maintaining a network of connections with people who are similarly good and kind.

When you die, you aren't going to care about how much money you made or how "successful" you were.

What you'll care about is your family, whether chosen or biological. You will care about being surrounded by people who love you. Nothing else will matter at all.

34 yo here. 2009 - Left school, joined Czech Radio as IT and Broadcast Technician. 2011 until 2022 was IT career only. I thought that's what I wanna do, but nope, and burned out in the end, which started another crisis like in 2009. 2022 - visited my friend at Czech Radio who still works there. The memories and such moved me so much I was determined to get back into Czech Radio or similar. I ended up in Czech Television in sound department. Couldn't be happier.

It doesn't happen often for me, but when crisis like these come around, I am determined to pursue whatever comes to my mind.

I wanted to feel loved. I just went through another break-up. My partner was actively trying to cheat at the time too, which is the second time I've experienced this behaviour. Now I'm not one to use small sample-sizes - but I am. So I took it as a sign that something was wrong with me. Does no one care about me? I politely listen to everyone, I help when I'm asked, I go out of my way for people... What was wrong with me?

I started blindly by researching anything that made me feel 'better'. I started a ton of language courses, Began research on psychology and ANYTHING related to it - I spent months learning colour theory because someone mentioned colours can affect our emotions and that was good enough for me to invest my time.

That was all useful, but it didn't help with my goal or reinvent me. It's the matter that I was desperate for change and seeking something I wasn't completely aware of.

My discovery of Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read was life changing. After reading it I began seeking information from the back. The philosophy chipped a crack in the corruption from my youth and I was finally able to ask the questions I needed for change. The psychology helped shape those questions.

I've seen many functional families in my youth, but I never questioned why mine wasn't and there's probably a good reason for that. I decided to approach my family on all of the verbal abuse and neglect I received in my youth. The rejection and blatant denial of events broke me and put me in a dissociative state; I experienced temporary ego death. The rejection was the most horrific thing I've experienced to this moment. However, the following two months were euphoria as I was able to finally see objective reality beyond my subjective experience. Everything I'd read was starting to click into place like a domino effect... I hadn't understood trans issues before-hand, I even contributed to some of the hate, but suddenly everything seemingly made sense and I could see the error of my ways.

My ego came back due to the fast-paced nature of my chaotic life, but the event still radically changed me. I'm reconnecting with my family as I can finally see their horrifically misguided love for the lack of emotional intelligence that it is. The world feels more accessible as I'm aware of just how much power I as an individual with knowledge actually have (and the moral responsibility that follows)... I did a 180 on hoarding and became as non-materialistic as I could. Anything I own has purpose or it has a deep emotional connection to someone I care about. <3

I started off depressed, lost, confused, now I'm vibing with the moments and only slightly less lost and confused. :)

I did LSD in my early 20s. I'm not sure it compares to other experiences here but for me it was an incredibly transformative step in understanding how my own brain works.

Turned 41 this year. I was a moderately successful website developer and high school computer science teacher. Next month I’m joining the navy. Should be fun.

When I was in middle school, I was super quiet. Like, I would go entire lunch periods without saying a single word. I just didn't realize that I might want to or be able to actually interact with other people. I had a cognitive impairment which stopped me from expressing myself, but I didn't realize it at the time. I eventually realized in 8th grade that I could not hold an actual one-on-one conversation, and I decided that needed to change.

So I had to start by learning the basic conversation skills and such, and eventually moved to actually making jokes and stuff mid high-school. By the start of college, I could participate socially as a mostly normal person. I just caught up on all the social skills I had to re-develop, like making plans and stuff.

All this seems really simple, but it is hard to catch up when everyone else is already friends with each other. Now, I might be one of the most extroverted people I know, and I almost always talk to people whenever I get a chance. I accomplished my life goal when I was 20, so I am really happy about that and I've been riding that high ever since.