Feel so ugly in my 40s

[LouisaJG]

Just that, really. I’m a stone and a half overweight and can’t bear to look at my fat pie face. Dry eyes as I’m getting older so I can’t really wear contact lenses any more, and glasses have never suited me. I had braces as a teen and nice straight teeth for a while but they’ve moved, so I feel a bit self conscious about my smile in photos. But I also feel like my face has fundamentally changed in some way I can’t put my finger on, it’s not particularly about wrinkles, but like my facial features have literally changed and got uglier, my face just used to be softer and prettier and more feminine. I grind my teeth and I feel like it’s given me this really square harsh wide man jaw that I hate, I sort of don’t recognise myself in the mirror. I hate feeling like this.

AIBU to feel like I’ve not just gotten older, my looks have changed in some fundamental way? Does anyone else feel like this?

Yes! Look less was the best advice I saw

Yep, totally relate. However I notice when I shed a few pounds (before swiftly gaining them again 🫣) my face always looks better and I feel ‘me’ again. Making an effort with my hair also helps. But generally I’m just too tired to do much.

I‘m sure weight loss would make a big difference. Unfortunately to get back to where I used to be it’s a few stone, not a few pounds.

I am absolutley getting the same face thing. The other day I put my fingers on the jawline skin under my ears to tighten it and wow, the difference. I'm definitely headed for jowls, also a stone or so to get to my "good weight".

I've considered botox, and honestly might start it. I think that there is a massive cultural change of what being 40 looks like in our parents era vs ours. We are expected to look/feel 25 somehow still, and our generation tends to have children later, and work full time, so we are exhausted, pretending to be a generation younger than we are. I have a friend ageing naturally, and she looks truly fantastic. On the other hand, my face has never been oilier (thanks perimenopause), my jeans are fitting tighter than they should, and I'm an exhausted hot mess :). I do love my body, I appreciate my body, but I think I might be ready to throw money at the problem. I didn't know that Botox did other face areas, but makes sense that it does. Interesting...

It's the jowls. They reach a tipping point & suddenly one day your face isn't quite your own anymore.

Have a cry, get over it, carry on, because we only ever get ONE face and ONE body and it does a brilliant job day to day and nobody else really gives a shit what we look like, they love us for our sparkling wit & personality.

(Goes off for a cry with lopsided eyes and turkey neck)

My nose got huge during pregnancy when I was 40 and hasn't really gone back to normal I dont think. I agree that if I looked like but old Id b e happier, but I dont look like me, its like my whole head shape is different. Im glad its not just me that thinks this though!

I think mid forties ageing hits. I looked young all my life. Im not even getting lots of wrinkles but my face just looks older and i feel so mehhhh. It’s not ageing that i’m mehhh about but i just don’t feel comfy in my own skin.

Its hard to describe but nothing feels right clothing wise and i always now feel frumpy and nothing hangs right. I think it’s hormones too. I haven’t put weight on, i exercise and eat v well etc.

I’m mid fifties and it’s the jowls and the saggy neck which appeared overnight that really gets me down, the top part of my face is lovely and taught thanks to high cheekbones but my lower face particularly the mouth area is really ageing me, like a previous poster said when I hold my skin back on my lower face the difference is startling, I may go down the face lift route, I don’t mind wrinkles so much but the sagging offends me when I look in the mirror, I hate it.

I feel weight gain due to unavoidable medication has made my face look awful. I’m struggling to lose the weight and trying to do lower face exercises every morning so if I do lose weight I won’t end up too jowly hopefully!! Also putting serum with retinol on my neck twice a day.

I had the jaw Botox and it had absolutely no effect whatsoever!

Does jaw botox hurt to administer? Ive got TMD from trauma to the face and this was recommended but im a baby when it comes to needles etc.

I started noticing the 'melting face effect' in my mid-to-late 40s, and was regularly shocked when I caught myself in the mirror off-guard. I'd do anything to go back to that face now! I'm early/mid 50s now and the change in the last 7 years or so has been so depressing. The jowls are descending month by month, like slow-moving lava inching down a volcano, and I rarely wear eyeshadow or eyeliner any more as it's like trying to apply it on a binliner. The worst thing, as cliched as it sounds, is the neck. I've lost a lot of weight recently, and the empty, sagging pelican pouch is real. I'll be scooping up fish in it soon. What can you do, other than surgery, which I cannot afford. I'm trying to practise acceptance but it's not easy. I feel so different internally to how I look on the outside, it's hard to reconcile. All I can do is remember all my privileges - a roof, warmth, security, life itself! - and be grateful.

Massive MN cliche but wearing colours that suit you really helps. When you’re young you get away with the wrong colours, but in my 40s I notice more and more that if I wear the wrong colour I look knackered. I notice lots of people my age plus wearing the wrong colours and the wrong hair colour, even people on tv and celebs who can get the best advice. It even affects how your jawline/jowls look (as a square jawed tooth grinder I always hope mine will scaffold up my face a bit)

I had a lantern jaw from grinding till I started getting Botox in it. It's gone right down, much slimmer, and I look way better.

I feel you . Something has happened in the last 5 years that I don’t look like myself. I have always been quite pretty and young looking but somehow my face is becoming more masculine as I get older and I look tireder. I’m think and quite fit and doing all the right skin care and make up but something is changing and it is beyond depressing. I feel I am out of step with my husband who is getting more attractive!

Big hugs everyone, this sucks doesn't it!

I’m sad to read all these posts, I feel better then ever in my 40s

I agree with this.

A good hair cut or change of style can do wonders as well.

Features do definitely change as you get older though, it is a thing

I bet you look fine to other people. We're our own worst critics and I wish I had the magic formula to make it not so.

I feel I look the best I've ever looked now I'm in my 40s.

Aged 39, I decided to lose weight for my 40th. I've kept it off for the last 9 years.

My children were older, so I had more time to spend on myself. Make up became a thing again.

Success in my career meant I had more money to spend on decent regular haircuts and better clothing. I now spend money on eyebrow threading - something I'd never have considered before.

I've faithfully cleansed and moisturised since my teens, and that's paying off. My skin is glowing. I wish I'd used hand cream daily, but there we are.

I smile a lot. I know it lifts my face.

My face probably has changed over the years, but I look at me and say "you look great". I choose to be my own best friend in this. Maybe give that a go?

My jawline was never great but it seems to have disappeared entirely. I’m so thick in the middle now and get fatter and fatter every year. Very grey hair which washes me out. I look like a bag of shit. I’ve always been quite plain but it’s veering into proper ugliness now.

It’s worth getting your thyroid checked. Underactive thyroid can cause dry eyes.

My 40s has been my worst decade in terms of crappy things happening, illness, stress and aging. I feel about 50 years older than I did 10 years ago. Interested about the tooth grinding though as I do it and have a very square jaw. I look pretty masculine to the point that I am sometimes mistaken for a man. I lean into it now and have just had my straw like perimenopause autoimmune disorder hair shaved to a number 2 round the back and sides. It's easy to manage and in my opinion looks better than dry thinning wisps of long "feminine" hair. I never was a looker so I guess I don't miss it as much as someone who was but I'd love to be 30 again.

I’m diagnosed with a borderline underactive thyroid, for which I take a small amount of levothyroxine daily - someone else told me it’s the levothyroxine that can cause dry eyes?! I don’t know what to believe now!

I didn’t enjoy it, they have to go quite deep to get to the muscle so it’s uncomfortable but it only takes a couple of seconds on each side and it has been very worth it for me