afraid of aging

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i have a strong sense of anxiety when i think about my age or the future, im 17, and i fear the fact that ill never be 15, 8, or 5 ever again. i know im not old yet, but every day its creeping up, death. do other people have this fear, i looked it up, and it said its a common attachment to anxiety in general, which is what i have. don't you hate having anxiety. it ruins EVERYTHING! any tips, any similar feelings?
im also afraid of loosing looks and abilities, i dont want to be so afraid of death at such a young age, i dont want to be so mentally f****d up at such an age, but i guess this is the age when such feelings are most concentrated right?

I'm surprised that you are thinking about this at such a young age. When I was that age, I though I was immortal. What really sucks for me is I just learned that I had AS when I was 41 and I wish I had known about it when I was in my 20's. I feel like I miss out on a lot of life because of it. but as they always say "better late then never.".

I became very aware in my teens for the first time on an emotional level that one day I would die and I found this very frightening at the time. I am in my late fifties now, so am considerably closer to dying than I was forty years ago. Have also come through two life threatening illnesses where death was a strong possibility. However I fear death less now than I did in my teens, partly because my life has been incredibly lonely and not very happy, but also because with increasing age death seems less frightening, at least to me. I don't think you are unusual in any way for having this fear and for feeling sad that you will never be 8 or 15 again. Increasing age can being difficulties such as the ones you mentioned, but it also brings good things. People generally expect less of me now than they did in the past and it is good not to have to carry the weight of their expectations (for career success and all that sort of thing) and they are slowly starting to become more protective towards me-more understanding if I admit to being lonely, standing up for me on crowded buses etc. These may not sound like much, but they mean that I am being allowed to be human and don't have to pretend to be strong all the time any more. So yes you will suffer losses as you get older but you will also make gains. Besides, you have forty years yet till you get to my age and this is a lot of years

I'm 54, and I share the shame fear.

I wish I were 44 again!

I felt that way when I was 29 years of age. After a few months of anxious dread, I realized that I hadn't thought about aging for a week, a month.... I suddenly didn't care about it. A human's mind changes with certain conditions. It apparently adapts to aging and the idea of aging. I don't know what caused it for me, but I immediately didn't care about it anymore.

So, worry about it if you choose to do so, but realize that other ideas will likely push that idea to the margins over time.

I might still live to my IQ--which is consistently in the upper 110's (WAIS). On these "online" tests, I tend to score around 125.

I once scored 131 when I was 15. This despite scoring in the 80's in block design, and 90's overall in the Performance category (WISC).

Now....if I could live till I attain YOUR IQ!

Human mortality sucks. We're programmed to be scared of death (self-preservation instinct), and to know that we're going to die (intelligence).