"We Took Forever 21 a Bit Too Literal" — Woman Says She Suffers From Millennial Age Dysmorphia

A woman wrestling with aging says that she's just coming to grips with the fact that she suffers from "age dysmorphia."

TikTok user Helen McPherson (@helsmcp) admitted in a social media post that she only recently started realizing that the world around her sees her as her actual age. Even if she still thinks she's a youngster. And she believes that there are other millennials who also suffer from the same problem.

"Millennial age dysmorphia is a real thing. I have it and I think lots of us have it and don't realize. I think more of this generation has it than has ever had it before," Helen says at the top of her video before explicating more on the phenomenon that she believes disproportionately affects folks of this particular age group.

One of the biggest indicators the TikToker points to as proof of her not believing that she's aging is how she views other people who are her same age.

While she can clearly see the signs of aging on their bodies, Helen doesn't think she's beholden to the same rules of time as they are.

"I do not identify as the age that my paperwork says that I am," she says into the camera. "And it's always been that secret super fix that I thought that like other people are getting old. But I'm not getting older. I'm exempt from the aging process and I will see someone that that I went to school with or someone I haven't seen for a long time," she tells her viewers.

"I will just think, God, they have gotten old. And then I think that's okay. I wouldn't say it's a smugness, like self soothing and comforting myself that like but that's okay. Because you don't look any different," she says in a whisper, re-enacting the pleasant, pep-talking lies she relays to herself as a means of combating existential dread.

Helen continued to rattle off the little lies she tells herself: "You're not actually getting older. I almost have like this inability to accept the world around me perceives me to be the age that I am. I don't know if it's like a delusion but I have only recently in the last year, realized this and start to come out and I'm kind of accepting that oh, okay, actually the outside world is perceiving me [as being older]."

The TikToker went on to detail how a comment she made, fully intended to reinforce the idea that she's still young ended up backfiring: "I said in a garden center I said like a silly joke about like oh, must be perimenopausal and then I was fully expecting it to be like don't be so silly. Like, you're too young for that, you're just a baby."

However, the person she made the quip to didn't satisfy the desired perception she wished others had of her. "But she didn't say anything ... things have just started to creep in," she says, mentioning that the attitudes her children have towards her have made her reassess her age.

"Like realizing that my kids are actually embarrassed of me. I was thinking that I would never embarrass them. I would actually make them cooler. I would elevate their cool statuses somehow," she reveals.

Next, she explained why she thought this would be the case, "Because I was so cool and I was so youthful. I thought I would go and look around secondary schools with my daughter and people would be like what are you doing here? Were you a teen mum? But no one did," she remarked.

"No one is surprised that I am turning up, no one is surprised that I have a child that is in year 8. No one is surprised at any of this stuff. I don't get it. Now I'm starting to realize that perhaps the outside world is actually [correct]," she said to her followers.

Another incident that had her stare her mortality in the face is the response she received to a post where she asked other individuals online to tell her how hold they thought she was. This turned out to be a mistake as several people replied that they thought she was in her 50s.

"I'm a literal baby, what are you talking about?" she said, again, sharing her incredulity at the fact that other people see her as her actual age.

Others have commented on the phenomenon of "age dysmorphia," even if some don't agree that this is an actual medical term, like the author of this Life in Pleasantville blog, who commented on folks not acting their age.

This Medium post by Randall H. Duckett also penned about this behavioral trait some folks suffer from. And there's no shortage of memes that also speak to fears about growing old. Like this one featuring Jon Hamm from the series Your Friends & Neighbors that often shows people yearning for their younger days when they'd go out partying in cramped dance halls long into the night.

Duckett argues that "growing old disrupts our inner sense of self." But it could be argued that this sense of self is predicated on the pros and cons of youth. Some may feel a sense of independence in believing that they have plenty time left on the clock to live out their dreams and make the most out of their lives.

Or maybe if you were a person who hit the genetic lottery and put a lot of stock in the fact that you looked a certain way or were awesome in high school, growing older and entering different environments where that social currency isn't worth much could leave you feeling lost as to how you can feel valued again.

Deluding yourself into thinking that you're just a baby or that your youthful energy matters could ultimately be a trap. After all, everyone dies, and the greatest mysteries as to what awaits us after we shift away from our physical bodies have befuddled people for centuries.

Perhaps the way to best handle the blues of getting older is to invest heavily in being the type of person that you'd respect and ultimately be happy to interact with at any stage of your life.

This way, you're not worried whether or not the kids at a college campus or fellow parents at a youth sports game don't think you're any younger than you really are. Because all of the validation you're looking for is the feelings that you cultivate and create for yourself.