At what age did you realise you were "old"?

Looking at some instructions for new medication I discovered I am now in the "special advice for the elderly" group - that's 65 and over, and I'm 66

I find myself getting more critical of other people's parenting.
I serve in a cafe as a volunteer and last time a mature parent (could have been a young gran) started to ask her 2 yr old charge which cake he wanted.
I began to tell the parent that the child was far too young to have an opinion on the cakes when I heard myself and stopped in my tracks
Disapproval wasn't going to encourage customers and anyway it's none of my business.
I am left feeling very old with old fashioned opinions.

My mind has never had an age. - it is just my mind and seems much as it always was.

In the last year I have twice had to do cognitive tests. The first one was part of a research project, and because the test results showed no sign of mental decline andd all the scans showed no physical brain deterioration, I have been invited to join another project looking at a sample of people like me to see how and when dementia develops - if it does.

However, the one that made me feel old (I am 79) was after I had a TIA earlier this year - and was referred to another research project at my local university hospital looking at people who have had strokes.

Part of the assessment was a set of standard cognitive tests, and the medical staff's clear amazement that at my age I could do all of them without error, made me realise the institutionalised ageism inherent in young people that, if you reach, effectively 80, your mind must have lost its edge.

I know that strokes can affect brain clarity, but the doctors had already seen my brain scans, so they already knew that my TIA was too slight to cause brain damage. It was very much they were amazed that anyone my age could do well in these tests.

Yet, we have a lot of friends, our age and older who would do as well as I did. DH is still working. He spent the afternoon working on a complex engineering problem that he has been asked to suggest solutions to. Others are leading voluntary groups, negotiating with local authorities, running reaerch projects.

In fact DH recently had an emergency referral to hospital and part of his medical assessment was a brief oral 10 question cognitive test, which he waltzed through. Over the hours I sat with him, I heard this test being administered to a succession of older, and ill people being brought in and nearly all got through it just as well as he did.

Realising you are old is closely related to what other people see you as, and realising that you have got to an age where everyones expectations of what you can do are falling and amazement that you can still do things you always did, is a key part of this realisation.

I’ve never thought of myself as elderly. Until April. I was doing a class at the gym, felt dizzy, and left the class. I remember getting to the stairs but nothing else till I woke up in an ambulance. I had lost several teeth (front of course), fractured my nose and jaw. It’s an ongoing treatment problem and for the first time I look old! Maybe at nearly 83 I’m entitled to but have never considered myself old. It was the first time I’d fainted and that bothered me most of all. However while I’m waiting for the cosmetic improvements I’m glad that I can still walk and feel my normal self while recognising that I could have done far more damage. I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel really old though.

Bellanonna how awful for you but you are alive and enjoying life so well done!

Last week, I realised I'm almost 75yrs and NOT 33yrs (which I felt like) so THAT'S why I can't run up and down the stairs quite so quickly

Grammaretto

I find myself getting more critical of other people's parenting.
I serve in a cafe as a volunteer and last time a mature parent (could have been a young gran) started to ask her 2 yr old charge which cake he wanted.
I began to tell the parent that the child was far too young to have an opinion on the cakes when I heard myself and stopped in my tracks
Disapproval wasn't going to encourage customers and anyway it's none of my business.
I am left feeling very old with old fashioned opinions.

Oh, I just so agree with you. I come out of the early 20th century and find myself using the word 'lovely' on most occasions now to mask my inner 'Victoria Meldrew'.

At 73 I am usually able to maintain the delusion that I am not old. That is until I inadvertently catch sight of my reflection in a shop window and wonder who the old biddy is.