to be freaked out by how much our faces change between 45 - 55 years old?

[tallowspa]

I'm just back from visiting a friend in the flesh I haven't seen since 2019. It was really lovely to see her but she was very down about her looks and how much she feels her face has changed in the past few years as she is now 53. I think she still looks amazing but she does look different now. She is 7 years older than me and the last time we were together you wouldn't have thought she was older at all but now the age difference was visible.

I work with women of all ages and one woman in her late 50's keeps saying how she looked good and like herself up until she was about 51 then within a year her face, skin and body changed and now she has just had to get used to never really feeling happy about how she looks or like herself.

Even looking at photos of actresses with all the surgeons and treatments at their disposal you see the same changes so I don't think it is something you can really escape, its inevitable and natural.

It just freaks me out though, I am 46 and still look like myself and I finally feel happy with how I look probably for the first time in my life but I know that over the next decade my face will change and probably not for the better.

I'm not on about looking young, or attractive and I know that aging is a privilege and that the alternative to aging is death but I still feel so freaked out my how much our faces seem to change at this time of life, menopause I suppose. I am on HRT (since I was 42) and that probably helps but obviously it isn't a miracle worker and these changes still occur.

I don't mind going grey or getting lines on my face its everything else and how our faces seem to fundamentally alter that freaks me out!

I suddenly look more like the ‘face aging app’ photo version of myself I messed around with a few years ago. I was so sure that wouldn’t happen! I also look awfully like my Dad sometimes, who is a great looking 75 year old man but that’s not the look I’m going for. Oh well!

I like the one best in our m&S!

Keep popping into M&S, @lightand

Same place my chin visited and returned with its bloody twin...

My life has been fully lived (I am also an artist and have my own serious health issues) and while I don't expect to be happy all the time I have also never been suicidal or even seriously depressed. So thankfully I don't relate to Kahlo regardless of how much I admire her work. I also never said I expected my face to look ever youthful, it isn't youthful now, I am 46 but the face changes dramatically post menopause and I think its ok to be freaked out by that.

However this is an AIBU so of course you are entitled to your opinion.

Well you're very aggressive. I'll assume the sexual frustration is getting to you and let it wash over me, not least because either you're deliberately misrepresenting or you've failed to grasp what I've said at all.

I know grief all too well I'm afraid, which is part of why I'm not going to waste the time I have fretting about my face and who wants to shag me. But I'm sorry that it's making you so unhappy for sure. I hope you find a way to move past it, and fill the holes it's made in your life.

I think there is a sharp change in the skin around menopause and this change can happen over the course of a few years, whereas between say 40 and 45 the changes are less sharp, and post meno, say 55-60 again less sharp (obviously speaking broadly to get my point across here).

This is just my anecdotal opinion based on being 53 and my peers going through the menopause. My peers who have been period free for at least 12 months have different skin to those who are either still well into peri.
I will hit 12 months in April and I can see more sagging and a change of tone quite markedly.

I don't mind and apart from the broken foot am very fit and healthy.

You're absolutely right, it's incredibly difficult looking in the mirror and seeing the changes. It's more a reminder of lost youth, soft skin, suppleness, energy etc snd it's hard to accept that's more behind you and you probably have a lot less time in front of you. Menopause hit me hard - not in terms of symptoms, as I barely noticed it happening, but more in terms of how I now am on the other side. I've put weight on, lost energy, my joints all hurt, loss of flexibility and, yet, only 3 years ago, I was very slim, incredibly fit, toned and young looking. It's very hard to see ne as I am now and realise that's post-menopausal me!! However, all that aside, I love my life & am very happy!!

I have never been attractive to loads of men. I was never a looker. Whilst I was fortunate to find love anyway, and still have it, I don't like the changes in my face either.
I am in my 50th year and it's the first time I look...old. I am not even that wrinkly and I rather like the grey, but my jaw (which has always been my worst feature,being horribly square) has started to sag a bit, my eyes seem to have sunk more. In general, the crap bone structure I was unfortunate to be born with is crapper.
And it seemed to happen overnight. I probably mind less because I never had much to work with in the first place, but l suppose there's a renewed regret that I never got to experience 'pretty' and any hopes l might actually, like a fine wine, get better with age have well and truly gone.

What a colossally childish response. I'd expect better from my ten year old.

I've voted YANBU purely because it's totally understandable that you feel that way. I often feel that way too. We are taught from such a very young age as women to believe that how we look is the most important thing about us. DM has always been obsessed with looks, she was a beautiful young woman and that was her currency so the soundtrack to my childhood was a relentless commentary about how awful she looked now and how she couldn't bear to look at herself. She loved to quote some hollywood starlet who said 'beautiful women look in the mirror each day and see a diminishing asset'. It's very hard to shake off that kind of conditioning.

BUT I love and wholeheartedly embrace what @herewegoroundthebastardbush said - I think we have to make a decision to reject this nonsense and refuse to waste the second half of our lives obsessing about the cosmetic aspects of aging.

@CharlotteBog Do you do HRT? I wonder if it actually makes any difference, in theory it should but I am not that convinced myself.

From a science POV I wonder if it’s linked to coming through the menopause? It’s a massive
hormonal change

I can’t disagree, the sagging jawline and neck is utterly depressing.

Well as I say,vi am pleased to live my life without reference to what you or anyone else might expect 😁

I was happy with how I looked till I was 65, then ageing seemed to accelerate. 2022 I got covid badly, 18 months of long covid and only just starting to feel I'm over it and it has taken a toll. I think I look 20 years older than I did 10 years ago but then I think I was lucky to look OK up to then and now I look my age or maybe a bit more. Hoping I start to look healthier, less tired now I'm over long covid. Generally I'm just glad I'm feeling better.

I think people are being a bit disingenuous or they haven't reached that point yet.
.
It is very hard reaching the point of being invisible to the other sex and even being the point of being invisible. It's a major adjustment and hard to negotiate. It took many years to get used to it

I get what you mean OP. For me, my face changed completely due to grief in my 30s. It literally made my features different. I had people comment on how much my face had changed, and I also developed rosacea. I went through years of denial and bewilderment at my new face. But then finally accepted it and came to peace with it. Now I'm my 40s and the rosacea has subsided and aging doesn't scare me as I went through that period of grief in my 30s. Ironically, people now assume I'm in my early 30s.

@tallowspa what do you mean by this paragraph?

Even looking at photos of actresses with all the surgeons and treatments at their disposal you see the same changes so I don't think it is something you can really escape, its inevitable and natural.

Surely you can’t see the same changes as they have treatments/facelifts that mere mortals generally can’t afford, they won’t have sagging jowls or turkey neck so what are the same changes you are referring to?

No I don't. My symptoms are manageable.

Well that’s something to look forward to! (I’m 45).

Looking forward to @DelightfulDungeon’s tips.

I don't think being invisible is inevitable. I certainly haven't observed any changes in other people's behaviour towards me since I have become older.

Not the OP but I think she means no surgery and treatment in the world is going to make you look genuinely youthful.

And that's fine. I was just watching Sharon Stone on the Drew Barrymore and if anything she is more mesmerising now than ever. I know she's had botox after a stroke so not saying it's all natural.

Well at 62 I've got a few other issues like dry eyes , a bit of arthritis in my neck and a brown large flat sunspot thing in middle of my nose and about 3 stone surplus weight- - so I guess my looks have become a lesser issue in my day to day thinking - I scrub up ok and look pretty decent (for a 62 year old) but I'm never going to look 37 again- so I kind of just mentally think- do I look and feel ok for 62!!

Not all of us care about the attention of men, & given the number of creeps (even us inferior, ugly women aren't immune from them) out there I'm quite happy to slip under their radar.