Life Break Coach- Midlife Crisis Option 2

If an extra-marital affair is out, what is another option for dealing with my midlife crisis?

I could go on drugs.  The legal ones. You know- Prozac, Valium, Paxil, Zoloft, etc. – like my doctor suggested when I told her how stressed I felt- how I wanted to jump out of my skin occasionally.  

That is normal, right?  Everyone feels that way at midlife- that's what makes it a CRISIS.  We are the drug nation.  All my life I've heard,  "Feel bad? Take a pill."  I get that for an infection, a major illness, or even a bad headache, but should I force my brain to attend to the sometimes mind-numbing American way of working to live, and living through our kids, or worse, television? Am I really depressed or just bored? 

My parents went the anti-depressant route after the devastating death of my brother.  John had been the golden child, but was lost to painkillers years before his death.   When he died, a major part of my parents died with him.  I had hoped the anti-depressants would bring them back, but with no therapy at work with the medications, there was little positive change;  I have never heard of drugs mending a broken heart, anyway.  A few years later, my mother broke her back in a bus accident at work.  Her only solace after my brother's loss had been gardening and even that was taken from her.  It's no wonder that drugs became a crutch for my mom and dad.  My sister and I tried to help to no avail.  After multiple surgeries, all we could do was watch as our mother slowly retreated into an Oxycontin haze.  Our father dealt with the situation looking like Richard Nixon campaigning for president holding two V signs in the air- only Daddy’s Vs weren’t for Victory; they were for Vodka and Valium.  

Not my dad...but eerily similar.

While I have friends for whom medication and therapy have been very successful, I believe I am more bored with my life than depressed about it.  And losing, for all intents and purposes, three immediate family members to the pitfalls of medication, I calmly - I didn't want her to think I was nuts- said, "No, thank you," to my doctor.  (Besides, I think the drugs for boredom fall more in the recreational variety, which I don't think my doctor would recommend...)

Option three, please...