A period of time in one's life categorized by extreme unhappiness, low self-esteem, and failure. The person experiencing it remains optimistic and refuses to acknowledge that their life lucks, even as they continue to fail and lose their sanity.
"Why are you sobbing hysterically and laughing as you stare straight ahead?"
"Yeah, I guess I'm just having a bit of a rough time."
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. PenguinBooks,1992. p. 38)