22-year-old woman who looks like an 8-year-old due to rare condition, reveals she can’t do many adult things in public because people judge her

When a 22-year-old woman “trapped” in the body of an 8-year-old wears makeup in public or performs things that other adults do, she says she is scrutinized.

Shauna Rae was diagnosed with a rare kind of brain cancer when she was six months old, but the treatment’s adverse effects prevented her from growing properly.

She discusses her stress and problems living in a 3ft 10in physique in an upcoming TLC show. Strangers mistakenly believe she is a toddler trying to do adult activities, which has drawn negative attention to her and her mother.

Shauna’s mother Patty said: “Shauna likes to dress up like any other 22-year-old girl, but we go out together and she gets look like ‘oh wow, what is she doing?’, ‘what is that kid doing?’ “And then I get the looks of ‘how could you let your child dress like this?'” Shauna said: “My mum has to explain that I’m old enough to make my own decisions and they don’t believe her.

“They call her a liar. So that’s not fun. “I feel horrible for my mum because I don’t have to deal with the backlash because they don’t think it’s appropriate to come up to the child to say these things. “They think it’s appropriate for them to come up to the mother, which isn’t appropriate at all in my opinion.

” Shauna, who said she is a “woman stuck in the body of an 8-year-old”, tried to do different things to prove to herself that she is an adult. She said: “I started vaping to look older.

I’ve always been attracted to edgy kind of lifestyle – tattoos, piercing, vaping. “But doing anything adult-esque wasn’t to show anybody that I’m an adult, it’s to prove to myself that I am an adult. “It makes me feel I am who I want to be.