A burst of new books advises us that midlife, with its accompanying sports cars and divorces, is not the only stage of life when rash decisions are made in the midst of panic attacks.

Few of us actually need guides to our crisis points, because we are in complete denial about them anyway. But should you wish to see what’s happening to, you know, those “other” people, we made up this chart of life-stage crisis points that are probably happening to everyone you know. But not, of course, to you.

Middle-school crisis: Desperate to establish an identity, you become almost a clone of your best friends.

The irony is lost on you, because you’re too busy imitating “American Idol” routines to notice.

Midnight crisis: Now that you are a senior in high school, you have a 10 o’clock curfew.

You must demonstrate independence by breaking that curfew, an idea you later have time to contemplate from the juvenile detention center, where you are waiting to call your parents to tell them it was your friends, not you, who were found at midnight spray-painting song lyrics on the freeway overpass. You were merely nearby at the time.

Quarterlife crisis: The degree in Bulgarian literature had seemed like such a good idea, but now, in your mid-20s, you are depressed. This is what the authors of the real book “The Quarterlife Crisis” say hits when the easily measured successes of youth – grades, graduations – are replaced by unclear paths to sometimes vague goals.

Quarter-pounder crisis: The stage of life when you nickname your thighs “Mac” and “Whopper” and then realize that you really “have” to change your eating habits.

Third-decade crisis: You’ve hit the “snooze” button of your biological clock so many times that it quits working. Your virtual family of e-mail friends is beginning to lack the satisfaction of real, live people.

Middle-age crisis: You find yourself explaining endlessly the logic behind your plan to take a year off of work to drive a Hummer through South America.

Midstream crisis: Over age 70, you may want to turn around and do it all over again. But you can’t. So you try to make up for lost time. This usually involves adventure travel to exotic locales and a rapidly shrinking retirement fund.

Midday crisis: You forget what you did in the morning.

After-life crisis: Hey, it’s hot in here!