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!

All is fine if I never look in the mirror.

Don't take it so personally, these are changes we all experience, they tend to start during and post menopause and continue till we die, it is what it is!

Perhaps you should take your own advice OP accept you are going to look like a decrepit corpse in ten years and get on and enjoy your youthful looks while you can🙄

Such a good point and one I have to constantly remind myself of. I've seen photos of DP when he was 25. I met him when he was 43 and now he's 50, he's balding and chubby and there are more than a hint of man boobs. He's still him - just a 50 year old version of him.

It happens to men too OP. But we women are supposed to feel ashamed of it.

Of course we change, we're getting older - it's normal. But your descriptions are just unpleasant and potentially quite hurtful to some posters.

But I'm not offended or upset so you don't need to apologise to me. Just maybe think about what you're saying and who your audience is.

Stating that looks changing is major shit is a very unhealthy way of thinking

Most people are a lot more than their face

😂

I think so. I look at princess Kate and how she looks at 42 but then caught a picture of how I looked then and it's really young compared to how I look now (at 53).

I increasingly see an older version of my mum looking back at me.

I fully blame the menopause.

Oh well, I have no desire to look like JLo. I am happy to look like my mum who has aged well, by just being busy and cheery.

I didn't freak out but was surprised, one morning, to see my grandmother in the mirror!

The best thing to do is pay no attention to it. Your body works so hard to keep you alive, don't be so ungrateful.
I am 55 and happy with how l look, which l would describe as healthy.
Inner self is more important, if your not happy within, it doesn't matter how you look, your feelings won't change.

What @herewegoroundthebastardbush said so perfectly. I loudly echo her "FUCK THAT!"

It was worth reading this thread just to get to this! Absolutely hilarious and I love the humour in amongst the "life is gloomy and my face is disintegrating" comments! Thank you!

I don't think its offensive to talk about what is actually going on to cause the somewhat dramatic changes people see in their appearance at menopause / 50ish. Lots of people here concur that they have seen big changes and its those underlying changes that are behind the alterations, its not shocking that they should be discussed on a thread like this!

I'm not ungrateful at all but I am also allowed to have mixed feelings about getting older.

I think there is some insight missing here.

It's not about an exterior, imposed image, at least not wholly. It's because we see ourselves every day, we carry an interior image of ourselves.

When your physical body suddenly doesn't match what you are seeing or experiencing, it makes you feel very disconnected, almost an out of body experience.

This is part of the reason teenagers have such a hard time - they are literally in a body that is almost wholly different from the one that they hold in their mind.

My grandmother once told me that when she looked in the mirror as an old woman, every time she had a few moments of feeling like it was someone else looking back at her, a person she didn't know. That's a very uncanny place to be.

I do think that learning ourselves again and being accepting is part of the solution, but when we've spent most of our adult life feeling like we have one face, it's very odd to sudden;y have another.

I’d say I’ve always looked young for my age. When I turned 40 people at work who I told that my ‘big birthday’ was coming up, were surprised. I occasionally got told I looked younger etc.
Now I’m in my early 50s and look back to those photos I look so young!! My face is fuller and not as haggard etc. my hands are getting more crepey - how I remember my mum’s being, and the turkey neck, well…
The rest of my body isn’t too bad - legs look the same etc, but it’s not going to be long now.

@TempestTost Well said, excellent post!

OP you are entirely correct. Until late 40s I looked very good. Now at 50 I look exactly like Eddie Izzard. Everything is just distributed WRONGLY and my hair is frizzy and gray and JOWLS. So sudden!!

I am 60 and my periods did not stop until age 56. I think it has helped me stay young looking.

I have no sign of a turkey neck whatsoever either.

Perhaps it's just me, but people who smile always seem to look younger and more attractive than those whose glass is half-empty.

Women who've ever smoked go through an appalling facial collapse at that age.

You can acknowledge that the body changes without saying that pretty much everyone over the age of 55 has "sunken eyes", "jowls", "receding gums" and "sliding brows", though

Sounds like 'cheer up, love, it may never happen'.

This is a bit mean. There's nothing wrong with enjoying and wanting sex.

And I do suspect that a lot of the comments from women saying it shouldn't bother us - while they're technically absolutely right - come from the security of a long term relationship with a loving partner.

Although I do agree with what you’re saying for me it’s nothing to do with men. I don’t ‘do’ relationships anymore, haven’t for eight years now but I still feel less than happy when I see my aged face. Up until my mid-fifties I still looked pretty good and liked what I saw in the mirror. Since then though I just can’t fight the signs of aging, which for me is drooping jowls. I hate them, even if I was living on my own on a desert island (with a mirror😁) I’d hate them.