Is this called a metaphor or how would you describe it?

I posted a photo of me on social media back when I was living in a different country, doing a different job, living a different kind of life.

So much has changed in my life since then that it seems like a different lifetime.

I posted the photo with the caption ''Me in my previous life''

Now of course I wasn't implying that it was literally my previous life. I was implying that so much has changed in my life since then that it's as if it was a different life.

One person commented ''You should say: an earlier part of my life'' and went into a big literal explanation of how my comment implied reincarnation.

I want to know what the grammatical term for what I was using here. Was it a kind of metaphor or something else ?

Solution 1:

Simile directly compares two things(unrelated) by the use of like or as. Hyperbole, on the other hand is an exaggeration and is devoid of words like as or like.