The significance of age?

Everyone in the mental health team that meets me comments on my age and I don't know why. I'm starting to feel a bit paranoid about it! I know I don't look 33 and I dress fashionably, though nothing unsuitable for my age. Most people think I'm early 20's but society usually considers it a good thing for a woman to look younger than her years! I don't think I'm immature in my head, my friends range in age from 25 to 55 and people often come to me for advice if they have a problem. I can be a bit like a 5yr old on a sugar-high when I'm happy, but I'm almost certainly bipolar, though it's undiagnosed. Chloe is 17 and she talks to the mental health team a lot, especially at first meetings because I'm scared, so maybe it's that. Sophie is 10 but she doesn't speak to the mental health team. But really, why do they all keep commenting on my age? Does it matter? X

No I don't think it does matter. Age is so fluid in everyone, not just individuals with dissociative disorders. I don't really know why they keep commenting on it. What is it they say?

Bourbon

It's hard to describe. If I'm talking to an everyday person at some point they'll ask my age, as you do in conversation, I'll tell them and they'll be surprised, but that's it. Older people sometimes ask specifically because they're thinking I'm talking like someone older than I look. The mental health team will randomly stop me in the middle of a conversation, look at me with a puzzled expression like I just grew a second head or something, and ask "**** (my real name that I'm not putting here), HOW old are you?" then say I seem younger, look younger and ask me how old I feel. It just feels to me like there's some significance to it. It probably doesn't help that Chloe, who is often rattling on at them at the time, tends to look at them blankly and say "30...ish?" because she knows not to say 17 but the question catches her off guard. X

Perhaps next time the mental health team ask, ask them why they keep asking.... you're allowed to ask questions too.

Bourbon

Thanks. I keep forgetting that! I'm not used to being allowed to question people. X

I've had a weird thing going on about my age. I've read in more than one place that people with DID often look much younger than their age. I have no idea if this may be true but I've had so much trouble with age that I stopped telling my real age long ago and even started misleading people when they guessed by saying something like "oh, really close." I thought it might be vanity or something but it didn't feel like that. This year I started thinking it was just Quato having me mislead people for unknown reasons. People guess me for 10-15 yrs younger than I am. It started getting weird in my mid-twenties and did show up with mental health caregivers. (Do many people suffering from mental health issues tend to look older than they are?)

Some people have reacted as if I were lying, claiming I'm older than I am. I'd show them my ID and they'd get annoyed, as if something were wrong with me for confounding their original guess. Like how could I act and look the way I do and be my age? Frankly I know there's always been something less than mature about me, though I've had serious jobs. I have a lot of littles, but they weren't the ones out (though passive influence is possible). Yeah, I'd like to feel good about it but it usually feels uncomfortable. I have no explanation but the reaction you're talking about sounds pretty familiar.

Johnny-Jack wrote:I've read in more than one place that people with DID often look much younger than their age. I have no idea if this may be true but I've had so much trouble with age that I stopped telling my real age long ago and even started misleading people when they guessed by saying something like "oh, really close."

I posted something similar yesterday that was deleted when the board crashed. I can't find the links, but have read the same things. One site said it is because stress makes your face age. When you switch a lot, stress doesn't stay on your face causing wrinkles.

I'm in my 30s but people guess I'm in my early 20s. I get weird looks when my oldest calls me mom in public. I remember when she was in kindergarten, I went to the school for a parent's day. I got so many dirty looks. Then I talked to the other moms, told them how old I was (I was 24 at the time) and they all thought I was 15.

It was annoying when they were little because people would say "oh, you're such a good big sister" when I would have my baby and toddler out somewhere. They were shocked to hear me say "they are my kids, I'm 22." Other moms would guess I wasn't a day over 12.

So I know the feeling well. A doctor once asked after he looked at my chart and saw my age if I had botox done. I was in my late 20s at the time. How many in their late 20s have botox done to look younger?

It's frustrating.

I look younger than my age too. For years it seemed to undermine my credibility at work, people treated me like a little girl and were condescending. Nowadays not so much anymore. Still, people have difficulties to decide what age I am and they often ask it. I don't like it because it makes me feel like I'm a freak. Like when I was in my teens, older men would mistake me for a boy.
Nowadays if I mention my daughter in conversation, people automatically assume that she's a toddler, and are astonished when they hear she's almost grownup. Then they tell me I must have been a very young mother and so on.
People have also thought that my sister is my mother. It's embarassing.

Unless I'm with several friends, I avoid going to places where there are people who are looking to meet members of the opposite sex. They are bound to think I'm a lot younger and I feel like I'm misleading them. In fact, a few of my female friends have told me I'm enjoying it, which is as incorrect as can be. I'm not a flirt at all and I don't enjoy that kind of attention.

Thanks everyone! This age thing is starting to make sense now.

My diagnosis from my doctor is depression and anxiety, which I think makes you look older. When I was solidly depressed for 5yrs, before the bipolar mood swings started new people always aged me in my early to middle 20's when I was in fact 15-20, to the point they wouldn't believe me when I said my real age. Then I became bipolar (I think) and suddenly everybody thinks I'm a child! I went to place a bet on a horse race last year and got asked for ID because I apparently looked under 21. I'm 33. I don't have a diagnosis from my psychiatrist because she doesn't know what's wrong (I've only seen her twice). But I'm reasonably sure my last CBT lady has put potential borderline personality disorder on my file, which somebody who has it told me it is basically 24/7 emotional pain. So if people are meeting me with depression anxiety or BPD in their heads then I guess I'm not presenting as expected, not looking old and haggard enough lol.

Plus, that thing about botox - doesn't botox make your face expressionless so wrinkles don't form? Because depersonalization does the same thing, and I've spent most of my life like that. X

In my teens, outside of school I hung out with people who were about a decade older, and most of them assumed I was their age. Many assumed I was a graduate student and displayed shock when they learned I was in high school. In my 30's it turned over and again people began to express surprise on learning my actual age. Now in my 40's I get a lot of disbelief. You're forty what?! Wow.