Comes A Time In Life Shadow Of The Black Dog Looms For Middle-Age Men

It is fair to say that the medical establishment still won’t buy the concept of male menopause. Mostly, men themselves won’t admit it when they hit it. But if you’re closing in on 45 then don’t be surprised if your world starts to fog up on you. And though this is a story of my own personal slide into the shadow of the Black Dog, as they called depression in the 1700s, it is, I’m afraid, all too common for us men. Menopause manifests itself in a thousand ways, but there are some classic signs that I have seen, many among my own family. In fact, I was waiting for male menopause.

I come from a long line of menopausal men. My father, the great white doctor, hit menopause a little late, but when he suddenly got a tan and a sports car, starting working out, and then found himself a much younger wife, I figured this was what male menopause was all about. Then several years later when my older brother called to say he’d just bought a BMW convertible and was going crazy, I wanted to call my sister-in-law and brace her, but it was too late. In both of these cases the families exploded and the psychic scars remain on all involved. Neither man, however, can explain what happened to them, or exactly where it came from.

So I was prepared, sort of. In fact, Mecca, my wife, and I have laughed about the coming menopause for years. Turns out it was no laughing matter.

The Numb began last summer when writer’s block took over. There was a quiet that pounded into me. So much needed to be felt and done that I was immobilized by need. I thought at first that I just might be depressed. I am used to mood swings, such is my nature, but even depression took too much effort. It was the lack of depression that first caught my attention. It was, finally, the lack of any emotion that told me something was really wrong. I didn’t care that I couldn’t write. Oh, I cared, but I didn’t care. The only active emotion I had left was anger. About what, I didn’t know.

I looked around for the culprit. What was at the base of it? What was wrong? Was I afraid to admit to myself that I no longer loved by wife? My children? Did I, in my heart of hearts, want out? Should I be checking out a new red Miata?

As much as I thought about it, no active emotion came to the surface, and leaving would require something overt and I had no energy for action. I was just angry. It was all I had left.

I lost complete interest in sex. My wife took it personally. It was bad enough that I didn’t care about anything, and now I had to take on the guilt of making her feel unloved. It was time to get help.

I felt cheap and trendy looking for a therapist. It was too easy. I made it clear to the female doctor I found that I wasn’t there to explore my childhood relations with my parents. The first question she asked me was “How old are you?” I told her 45 and an “aha” look came over her. She explained that at around 45 biochemical changes take place that can easily trigger depression, or worse.

To my good fortune she did not prescribe some mood-elevating drug to mask what was really wrong. She was highly pragmatic. Part of my therapy was to explain all this, including the worst of my numbness, to my family. As a man, trained to be the strong support, admitting weakness, and worse, isn’t easy. I broke down trying to tell my wife and my 17-year-old daughter, Jessica. As I explained the situation and what I was to do, Jessica sat quietly with tears streaming down her face. When I was through, she bellowed, “Oh, Dad, it’s all MY fault.”

“No,” I said, “this has nothing to do with you. It’s ME that is the problem.”

“But Dad, I spend my whole life making you feel guilty. It’s how I operate with you.” Amazing what revelations come out when the chips are down.

Can you STOP male menopause? No. Can you survive it without tearing your family apart? Yes, if you’ve got the guts to face it. Problem is, most men don’t recognize the problem or put it off on something, or someone, else.

Seems the Black Dog starts to growl about the same time physical changes take place, like more hair growing out your ears than on your head. Psychologists differ on why men react to this natural chemical change in such dramatic ways, but it has something to do with self-image in the first place. The more virile and macho your self-image, the harder the fall into the reality of middle-age. And men, being slow on the uptake, aren’t given to self-examination much and thus assume that it is the outside world that is doing this to them.

Sadly, the tan, the sports car and the new wife rarely solve the problem. It is our own fear of aging, evidence we see more and more in the mirror, and our creeping realization that the wild years are behind us, that drives us into a numbness that becomes a way of life for too many men.

Of course none of this is helped by a society that has reserved all the fun and glory for the young. No one has prepared us to grow old gracefully. It isn’t in our program. Thus too many men center themselves on proving they’ve “still got it.”

The bottom line? Deal with your own mortality. Peter Pan never actually existed. Whether we like it or not, the chemical changes will happen; they can drive you in to depression and bizarre behavior. Be aware, be open and honest with your family and friends. Find your worth in who you are now, not who you were then. In other words, be a man about it.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MANAGING MALE MENOPAUSE Here are a few tips my therapist gave me to help combat the Black Dog: 1. Get more sleep. At least nine hours. Sleep deprivation is ruining the mental health of America, she says. 2. Be ever vigilant about your own emotions on a moment by moment basis. Ask yourself, ” Can I affect change?” and if you can’t, get over it. 3. Take at least one day off a week. Learning to be selfish during depression is essential in recovery. 4. Lastly, drink a glass of orange juice on the way home. In her years of counseling she’s found that 90 percent of all divorces started just before dinner time, when everyone’s blood sugar is at rock bottom. -Peter Gordy