Do you look markedly younger than your age?

[fresh_eyes]

I was reading a bit about neurasthenia (which - of course! - may or may not have any relationship to CFS), when I came across this factoid: it was considered typical that patients with neurasthenia looked 5-10 years younger than their actual age. This was striking because it's true for me, and also for my best friend since childhood, who also now has CFS (she first became ill at 18, I at 33). We both look markedly younger than our other friends. I never thought anything of it until now.

Thought I'd just throw the question out: anybody else look strikingly younger than they are?

 

[Jody]

I don't know if I'd say I look strikingly younger than my age. Certainly a few years ago at my sickest, I certainly wouldn't have said so.

But I often get a reaction from people when they find out I'm 54, that they are surprised. They'd have said I was a few yrs younger.

Funny, when I was 15 and 16, people thought I was older. Up till I was in my mid-twenties people thought I was a few yrs older. Since ... hmm, early 30s people have often thought I was younger than I am.

 

[gracenote]

younger AND older

Thought I'd just throw the question out: anybody else look strikingly younger than they are?

I'm frequently told that I look up to ten years younger than I am. When I tell people I have grandkids they nearly fall off their chairs. I haven't decided if this is a "good" thing or a "bad" thing. To look way younger, but to feel way older is a very interesting phenomena. I think I'm glad I don't look as old as I feel.

 

[Katie]

Yep, I look younger than I am. But I'm short so that doesn't help. I think I'm closing the gap, I used to get guesses a lot younger but now I average at around early twenties, maybe nineteen (ironically online people have always guessed I'm older, I like to think that's because I'm all mature and stuff ) I think I'd get guesses of younger sometimes but the wedding rings and... other blessings... help boost my age! Quick poll *asks husband* He says "how old do you want me to say you look?" lolol, some man alarm in his head must have gone off at the mention of ages!

Does this mean I'm hysterical now because I can start smoking, drinking and hit the sunbed and I'll look thirty in no time

 

[Katie]

But I often get a reaction from people when they find out I'm 54, that they are surprised. They'd have said I was a few yrs younger.

*coughs and splutters* From your avatar pic I'd had you pegged at 34!! You sure you didn't just make a typo? If you're doing any beauty regime bottle it and sell it, you'll be a millionaire by midnight

 

[coxy]

yes i look younger i think/hope. I've often thought or kidded myself to believe it might have something to do with some of the supplements we take i.e large amounts of omega 3/6, enada, vit c etc etc

 

[gracenote]

(ironically online people have always guessed I'm older, I like to think that's because I'm all mature and stuff

Katie I always think of you as older and I think you're right your ARE "all mature and stuff" and smart and, what I think really does it, you are also very wise for such a young one.

 

[Jody]

Katie,

I'm lovin' this thread. :Retro tongue:

I just lucked out with the avatar pic. I have other photos where I look older. Some, alot older.

I also think, people often get surprised to hear someone is 50 or over, because we have an outdated idea of what 50 looks like.

LOL When I was 49, I remember for the first time in my life really dreading my next birthday.

Eventually realized that I had this idea that 50 meant hair in a bun, wearing sensible shoes, and a cardigan buttoned to the neck and sitting in a rocker.

Some image I got in my head as a kid I guess. Funny too because people can wear their hair back and up, say in a bun; they can wear flats or oxfords; they can do up their cardie; they can even sit in a rocker ... and not be old. Or look old.

But this image I had was definitely an old doddery, wrinkly, bent over crone. At fifty.

I started looking around at other women I know who were my age or older, between 50 and 60 ... realized none of them fit my stereotyped image. And the ones that looked old ... most of them had looked old at 35.

Fifty year old women are not the same now as they were a couple generations ago. They are not wearing old lady clothes because they are "of a certain age". They are wearing the same jeans and sweaters (at least I and the people I've known) do.

None of which has much to do with this thread. Just my thoughts on getting 'way old.

 

[flybro]

Same here, however I feel as though since I've been ill I am aging much faster.

When I was thirty six I gotten taken for 22.

Also same here Jody 'Funny, when I was 15 and 16, people thought I was older'

 

[Sing]

People used to think I was 5-10 yrs younger than I am, but I am quickly closing the gap. Like the picture of Dorian Grey, I expect to suddenly turn into a shocking old creature--it could happen--I feel that way sometimes. And when I am, fully, that shocking old creature, there may be moments when I am filled with joy and dance a few steps to Michael Jackson. I guess there is the soul and then there is the body.

Sing

 

[Katie]

Jody, my mum got her first tattoo at 54, she's up to three now and planning a fourth for her 60th. Age ain't nothing but a number.

 

[fresh_eyes]

Very interesting, y'all. Jody, I thought you were way younger.

I still get asked for ID buying alcohol - a pretty objective test, I think - and I'm 39.

On the flip side, I also often get asked if I'm pregnant, and I'm not.

 

[Jenny]

Crikey - I look much older when I'm in a relapse. People have looked at photos of me when feeling very ill and been shocked.

I have dark rings under my eyes, skin dry, deathly white and sagging, and somehow my mouth seems to sag to one side as if muscles aren't working properly.

 

[flybro]

Crikey - I look much older when I'm in a relapse. People have looked at photos of me when feeling very ill and been shocked.

I have dark rings under my eyes, skin dry, deathly white and sagging, and somehow my mouth seems to sag to one side as if muscles aren't working properly.

Snap especially the 'my mouth seems to sag to one side as if muscles aren't working properly'. I thought it was due to a car crash. Hoever I've looked at photos from B4 the crash and its there even when I was 20.

People have commented that I look like I've had a stroke.

I've read somewhere that its a common feature in lymes.

 

[talkingfox]

@ jody I got pegged as older when I was younger too. When I'm in a good patch people generally guess my age at about mid to late thirties. I recently turned 48. When I'm flared up usually guessed at about 45.

Of course when I had my dreds people guessed younger, and if all my tattoos are visible they guess younger yet. I chalk that up to social conditioning.

 

[Jody]

Jody, my mum got her first tattoo at 54, she's up to three now and planning a fourth for her 60th. Age ain't nothing but a number.

Good for her.

Errr .... tattoos aren't a requirement for the over 50 crowd now are they?

 

[Sushi]

OK, I'm not going to totally fess up to my age (there is still that marginalized thing about being "old") but I am notably older than most here, sigh, but I've noticed on forums that chronological age really doesn't seem to "show" in our posts and the attitudes behind them--most of us seem to mature beings (whatever that means!). That said, yes I am taken to be a lot younger than I am...and when I was young, I was taken to be older. So what the hell is this about?

I kinda thought before that because I had been sick so much in life I had learned early the basics of self-care--diet, exercise nutrients--and maybe that was why I looked younger. Yipes, my hair is not even noticeably gray and statistically it damn well should be. I also have not really changed my life-style basics, even though I have had to adjust them radically. On a good day I'll still take off on my bike or go skinny dipping in the middle of the night!

For me, age is one of those "how did this ever happen?" things. Last time I took note, I was 30!

Sushi

 

[Jody]

Same here, however I feel as though since I've been ill I am aging much faster.

When I was thirty six I gotten taken for 22.

Also same here Jody 'Funny, when I was 15 and 16, people thought I was older'

I started feeling awfully old during the worst of illness, from when I was mid-forties till a year or so ago. I feel younger now, simply because I'm healthier than I was then.

I got pegged at about 22 -25 for a long time by other people. From the time I was 17 till I was late 30's. Then I put on 50 lb from new food senstivities and cfs, and from lack of activity due to the joint and muscle pain. Got big dark circles and bags under my eyes ...

I look younger now than I did a few years ago.

 

[Jody]

Very interesting, y'all. Jody, I thought you were way younger.

I still get asked for ID buying alcohol - a pretty objective test, I think - and I'm 39.

On the flip side, I also often get asked if I'm pregnant, and I'm not.

LOL

I got the pregnancy question once or twice when I was carrying the extra weight.:Retro tongue:

People must remember -- never ask someone if they are pregnant -- in case they aren't!

 

[talkingfox]

Good for her.

Errr .... tattoos aren't a requirement for the over 50 crowd now are they?

LOL In my circle they're not so much a requirement as a given. But then again I was a tattooist for a decade or so.

The facial piercings (of which I have several) are also optional at last consensus.