On Midlife Depression

Help, I Forgot to Save the World!

What’s up with midlife? I notice people telling jokes about death more often, snickering about going on Viagra, and everyone trying to hunker down, hold onto their jobs and real estate. It all makes me feel old! I have this impulse to throw off my coat and run naked through the streets shouting, “I just can't take it anymore!” I mean, what does make life worthwhile when you’re middle-aged?

Overall, my husband and I had a lovely time away this weekend. We took a hot tub, hiked and read. It’s good to see him happy again, after some difficult times. He is renewed these days and so attentive to me too: what a great combination! We had very few conflicts. Still, I’m moody tonight, with low energy.

I can’t sort through it: My life is so good! I went to my family doctor last week, and he said, "You have very low serotonin.” He gave me some pills, not Prozac, but Gaba or something. I know I’m also worried about money, but I think a good portion of it is that I turn sixty in December.

Getting out my hairball here on paper, I realize that I’ve centered my life on trying to get “dad’s” love in my relationships with men. I don’t feel I have enough interests of my own. My mate is coming into his prime while I’m sinking below the mark! As a woman in midlife, I have belief systems to wrestle with, and right now, I’m in the swamp. I criticize myself for still dealing with eating too much, being a workaholic, and wanting to take antidepressants and sleeping medications. I hate myself for it, even though I am working on it in therapy. I have to remember that the process is ongoing no matter what my age.

I also grieve my sex life: we had so much excitement in the beginning. I’m used to thriving on the attention of men, and now I can’t rely on that. I really don't want to give up my power that way, but it lost its luster. I miss the newness, the hunger—the lust! While I wrestle with long hairs growing out of my chin, he’s still got the “younger women market” going for him! My friends are all taking tantra workshops. What’s up with that? At $500 a pop, is a new orientation towards lovemaking only for the rich?

I used to think my resentments were influencing my desire level, but now I just don't know. I’m in new territory. All I know is, long-term relationships are a challenge. I notice my energy is flat and I hear my mother’s voice echoing in my head: she decided she was “less than” at fifty. She said things like, “Men keep their looks; women don't."

I guess I should be grateful I’m still alive. I can have orgasms, walk, read, laugh and go out for dinner often enough. But I have a dull gaze, like I’m looking past people for some reason. Still, I try to listen more lately because I’m bored with my own perspective on life.

Poking through my hairball diaries, I know that many of midlife’s changes are affecting me. I miss my best friend of thirty-five years, Mona, terribly, since she died of ovarian cancer. I do not know how to grieve her. There’s a hole in me since she left this earth. I was always good at letting my friends come and go, but this has been different. The world is less aglow now. I miss my other best friend, my brother, so much since his stroke, which reduced him to a vegetative state.

But more than anything else, I think my outstanding bluesy feeling comes from my sorrow about the state of the world. The truth is, in the 1960s, I really thought things would change. I am an idealist and these last few years have hit me hard.

The only time I’m really happy and chuckle a lot, is when my husband and I cuddle and he tells me I'm cute, or when I’m moving my body in nature, hiking with a friend. Or, I’m also content in groups of women when they tell the truth. I’m enormously comforted by this type of sharing: it relieves my self-doubt and leads to bubbling laughter just in the natural course of conversation. There’s something strangely jubilant about honesty in a culture that relies on empty comments like, “I’m fine, how are you?”

Being a sensitive person and reading the news is even hard. How can I find joy in the routine, everyday, bleak and frightening reality? I look in the mirror and wonder if jazzercise is worth it anymore; I watch people eating hamburgers unconsciously and hear more conversations about hernia operations and back problems. I just was not prepared for this part of life. Does moving past midlife have to be a downhill slide? Can I read more affirmations, meditate, accept reality, serve the planet and find solutions?

In the book I’m reading now, The Bitch, the Crone and the Harlot, Susan Schachterle talks about women’s power, self-esteem and dignity. Her writing makes me feel alive again and her use of the word “bitch” is respectful, not a put down. She says, “She’s an extraordinary woman, this Bitch. She’s the one who can be counted on to do what needs to be done, to make sure goals get reached on time and with excellence, and to be a role model for women who want to live exemplary and tremendously productive lives.” So there you have it—bring on the bitchy midlife women! Perhaps we have a special role to play after all.