Upside Stories Library
Stay curious
Explore our evidence-based insights on life’s big questions, transitions, and challenges for people across midlife and beyond, and those facing these themes ahead of schedule.
Adjustment Disorders in Midlife and Beyond
Most people in midlife and older age have considerable coping skills built up over the years. And then something arrives with enough weight, such as a diagnosis, a redundancy, or a retirement that doesn't feel like relief, where usual strategies of keeping busy, talking to a friend, or giving it time, aren’t enough. What follows isn't always depression or anxiety, it's often something more specific. Adjustment disorder is one of the most common mental health presentations in midlife and later life, and one of the most undertreated.
AI and Your Career: What Australian Midlife Workers Are Experiencing, and What Helps
Most Australian workers are already using AI at work. Many are finding it helpful. And some — particularly those in midlife, with deep expertise in roles that are changing rapidly — are also navigating something more personal: questions about identity, purpose, and what their professional future looks like. This article explores both sides of that picture, and what psychology can offer.
Who Am I Now? Identity Reconstruction in Midlife
Something shifts in midlife. Not a crisis, often just an unsettling sense that the person you've been no longer quite fits. This article explores what the research tells us about why identity changes in midlife, what makes it harder, and what helps you build a new sense of self.
Late-Life Depression: What It Looks Like, Why It’s Missed, and What Helps
Depression in later life is one of the most common and most missed mental health conditions in Australia. It often doesn't look like what most people picture when they think of depression, and that's why so many people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s are living with it unrecognised and unsupported. This article explains what late-life depression actually looks like, why it is so often overlooked, and what helps.
When Did Everyone Become So Disconnected? Loneliness in Midlife and Beyond
There is a particular kind of loneliness that can settle in at midlife and beyond; not the sharp loneliness of sudden loss, but something quieter and harder to name. A sense that the connections you once took for granted have slowly shifted. This article is for anyone in midlife and beyond who has wondered why connection feels harder than it used to, and what may help.