News for March 12th 2009
MALE MENOPAUSE: THE SURVIVAL COURSE: THE PHYSICAL FOUNDATION – THE FACE (INTRODUCTION)
Nothing short of cosmetic surgery and silicone injections can remove bags and wrinkles. In the process of aging the skin loses its elasticity and starts to sag or fold, and under the eyes bags form as little pads of fat force their way through the tissue beneath the skin. The older a man gets until he is sixty the more deeply etched the wrinkles appear to be and after that he may develop an additional skin problem, random pigmentation, where age-spots appear on the face or back of hands. These can be removed by special creams that contain bleaching agents.
All actors and movie stars take particular care of their faces whether they are known for their handsome looks or the character parts they play. Stars of the calibre of Paul Newman and Robert Redford are often seen visiting a well-known New York salon for facial treatments and many others the world over take equal care. How else could they keep their photogenic looks?
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Edited: March 12th, 2009
MALE MENOPAUSE: HOW TO SURVIVE – WORK REVERSAL OR THE CAREER NOSEDIVE 2
But what can be done when worklife becomes intolerable and a daily drudge and when, after a number of years as the bright-eyed executive ripe for promotion, others younger or less qualified seem to be getting ahead, and what was once a career in ascendence now appears to be a career taking a nosedive? Or, when you feel trapped by your dependence on your work (for money responsibilities) and all you can see are the prison-wall limitations your work represents? In this situation every man feels resentful. He feels embittered and as he is under stress, he is prone to increased anxiety and, perhaps, a heart attack.
The regrettable fact of life is that around forty, whatever your field, opportunities are less rather than more. A man may have considerable expertise and talent to offer but at forty-plus he will find he is over-qualified for some jobs and too old for others where training or study is required.
If you are among the fortunate who can readily change jobs, the solution offers you no problem but for any man without firm prospect of a new job ahead the answer remains problematic. Dropping out or quitting without first finding new work is both foolish and risky and no one should move without taking full, mature reflection and consideration.
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Edited: March 12th, 2009
MENOPAUSE : ON BEING YOUNG … OR NOT
‘The worst thing about facing up to age is going into shops and seeing things like leather jackets and jeans by designers like Armani, Versace and Venluri and knowing now that I can afford them I am too old to wear them. True fashion is for guys in their twenties.’
Michael, forty-five.
Until the male-menopause strikes few men are accurately aware of their age or aware of the true process of getting old. Or how they look. They see aging in others perhaps but not in themselves. In their eyes although they spot the occasional greying hairs and the morning-after baggy eyes, they see themselves as still around thirty and never remotely consider themselves like the middle-aged people they see in stores, hailing taxis or sitting placidly in airport lounges. Never.
So the moment a person refers to their correct age as being old or compares ages in the office or, at a party, attractive company in its twenties talks about forty as being old, it comes as something of a shock.
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Edited: March 12th, 2009
MISSING OUT OR FEELING CHEATED – AT WORK (DISAPPOINTMENT)
The moment of realization that they are not only disillusioned with their work but also disappointed with themselves can be chastening. Nothing seems to go right, work least of all. Their career has come to a halt and work represents hell. Life, it seems, has them trapped unfairly, one survivor, an ex-gynaecologist now running an art gallery in Italy, sums up this moment: 7 thought surely there must be more to life than this job, retirement and death.’
With sympathetic help and understanding an M-M man can at this point shake off the sense of defeat or revise his ambitions and priorities. Perhaps he can be encouraged to realize a life’s dream of moving to the country to open a bookstore, for example, or to the coast and owning a boat. Without help at this moment the risk is a man can become a middle-aged dropout — and there are many of those to be seen in countries where the cost of living is low, the sun high and the drink cheap.
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Edited: March 12th, 2009
WHAT IT IS – MALE-MENOPAUSE 4
And at home, after ten to fifteen years of marriage many feel trapped by a life over which they have no control. There are the responsibilities of mortgage, children’s education, perhaps also aging parents. And then there is sex, or the lack of it.
By good fortune many men miss the male-menopause entirely because a lucky turn has taken place at exactly the right moment and given their lives the impetus and change other men with M-M are striving for. It could be a change of work that has saved them, maybe a promotion to a more interesting work field or, perhaps, a chance to move home to a better neighbourhood — anything that seems like a beneficial fresh start. Because, for all the references made to getting older, this is not essentially a quest for eternal youth. It is a crisis about change. Change and the chance of a fresh start.
A lament once voiced about different matters by novelist Edna O’Brien aptly sums up all a menopausal man asks at this time.
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Edited: March 12th, 2009