It's interesting that you brought this up, because I literally had a conversation about this exact topic with my friend tonight over dinner.
A little info about me: I'm 22, and just restarted college as a freshman. Between pre-transition depression, during-transition awkwardness, and post-transition family fallout, I never got around to finishing my education/pursuing my professional goals. (I had kept my transition a secret from everyone in my family, except my mom, up until 3 days before I got FFS.)
I absolutely feel that my transition journey has "aged" me at least in terms of consciousness, and perhaps emotion too. The stress of transition for me (which was concentrated mostly in the 3rd phase I mentioned, the fallout) makes me feel years older than I actually am, based on "life experience" alone. Rape, homelessness, hunger, cold, alcoholism, attempted suicide, prostitution, etc--all in less than a single year. It takes a toll on you. Someone said to me over Christmas that I "lived" enough in one year to fill the entire lives of at least 3 average people. The rational part of me considers that hyperbole, but the part of me that still relives all those memories daily can see her point.
Add to that the fact that now my school peers and my friends, with whom I interact everyday, are all 18 and 19, and I feel ancient! Someone complains that the Internet reception on their iPhone4 isn't fast enough, and I almost want to give them the "walked uphill naked in the snow in my day" speech (which isn't even that far from the truth honestly).
The irony though, is that I now look several years younger than I was when I started transitioning. One of my clearer drunken moments from last year consisted of a concerned woman asking me "What are you 16 or something? And you've been out drinking like this???"
