Photo: Zara (center) with her 23-year-old sister and 42-year-old mother (left).
The girl suffers from a rare genetic disease - "lipodystrophy", which is associated with premature skin aging. This disease is hereditary - Sarah and her sister Jolene "got" it from their mother Tracy.
Curiously, five of her other children did not inherit this gene. Even in early childhood, Zara looked like a little old woman, and now a teenager looks like an aging woman.
In fact, Zara is only 15 and suffers from a rare and incurable disease called lipodystrophy, which makes her outwardly look decades older than her school friends. Her mother Tracy, 42, and sister Jolene, 23, also suffer from this genetic defect, which breaks down fatty tissue under the skin's surface, causing premature aging.
Photo: kasjauns.lv
While many girls use makeup to look older to get into a pub or adult movie, Zara has the opposite problem. “I can't buy a children's movie ticket, and when I wear a school uniform, people think I'm in a fancy dress,” says Zara. - Living with lipodystrophy is really difficult. Somehow they refused to sell me a children's bus ticket in front of everyone. I blushed, went out and went home. In my first week at a school, a teacher gave me a lesson plan. I said, "I am not a teacher, I am a student." I have never felt so bad. I just wanted to die. The same thing happened a year later … My teeth are very weak, and although I brush them regularly, I have already lost four. Two of them are in the front, which makes me shy, and I don't smile with my mouth open."
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Photo: kasjauns.lv
However, there are positive aspects in Zara's condition. The girl says that she never has acne, and jokes: "If I want, I can easily buy cigarettes and alcohol!"
Zara Tracy's mother admitted that she cannot get rid of her guilt, as she passed on an incurable disease to her own children: “I have endured a lot in my life … Other children did not want to play with me, I became very nervous and literally pounced on people … Every day I look in the mirror and see the face of a woman twice my age. But I'm so proud of the way Jolene and Zara handle it."
Tracy is also the mom of Gareth (24), Michael (21), Tommy (19), Rosie (20) and Chloe (16), who are fortunate enough not to have this genetic defect.