I'm 24, but I feel like I am 10 sometimes

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I feel like an 8 to 9 year old boy most of the time. I may be 42 years old but I feel like a child through and through. As I mentioned in another post, I'm not even ashamed to say I still sleep with a teddy bear. His name is Bruno O'Bear and I love him very much. When I come home from work, I give him a great big hug and when I sleep I put my arm right around him and he makes me feel safe, happy and not
alone. Sometimes I start to cry happy tears when I do this. Just like a child because that's how I feel.

My emotional development appears stunted and unmoving and despite my greatest efforts I can't seem to change this. It feels locked and uncompromising and perhaps this is typical of all Autistics. I don't presume to speak for everyone on these forums and I apologize if I have offended anyone with the immediate above statement.

I would strongly recommend a teddy bear to sleep with for every ASD out there. Regardless of age.

I am 34 and most of the time I feel like I'm still a kid. I don't think I will ever really grow up. But I like it that way

Exactly that!

The strangest for me is visiting some of my old university friends who I've known since my late teens. The realisation that their teenage children are now more mature and worldly-wise than me can be strangely unnerving sometimes.

Yep. A lot of teenagers make me feel that way

The worst thing about feeling like an overgrown kid is seeing people half your age achieving things that you still can't and then realising they're more mature than you'll ever be.

I think most people tend to actually like my quirks, but in such a way that it tends to make them feel a bit protective of me.

I think might be part of the reason that I often feel quite a bit younger than I actually am.

I have a sonic the hedgehog duvet cover, and a large bedtime bear teddy shares my bed with me.

I don't feel grown up at all, even though I have two children.

Does anyone else find it easier to talk and relate to younger children socially, than with adults?

I used to spend lots more time with my daughter, but now she's 20 she is more confusing to me, and spending a lot of time with her makes me anxious and want to go home, but my 6 year old son seems a lot less complicated to be around.

Maybe children are less deceptive, and say what they think more, and what they actually want, without you having to guess and read between the lines. I know when he gives me a hug it doesn't have any ulterior motives, unless it's toys or sweets.

Maybe it's just me though. If I tried explaining this to "normal" people they might thing I'm a pervert or something, it's just that my son is just a lot easier to read.

No, definitely not just you. Little children are more direct, they tell you straight away when if they don't like some thing like a food or a program so you don't have to stress trying to work it out. I also think they don't tend to hold a grudge the way adults particularly women do.

Yes, very much so. I grew up around children (mom and grandma were babysitters) and get along great with them. When I told someone this, they reported me, saying they felt 'very uncomfortable' with me around children. What's ironic is that if I were female, the same person would probably have complimented me and told me what a great mother I would be. Luckily though most people think it's great how good I get along with kids and are amazed how kids are drawn to me like a magnet.

I have never understood why people say toddlers are so hard to deal with as adults are the ones I find give me a headache. They are very straightforward and have a iron will, something if adults had would mean a much better planet for us all rather than the mess we live in now. Children say some very intelligent things and are very genuine with their feelings. I've always said adults can learn a lot from both children and animals.

I just looked in the mirror this morning and realized I am in my mid 30s. I certainly don't feel that way in any way, shape or form a day over 25 just like in my mid 20s I felt like a teenager.

No. Children are like alien creatures to me. I can't talk to them because we have so little in common that there's rarely anything for us to talk about.

But I usually find it very easier to talk and relate to teenagers because effectively, I'm a 30 year old teenager.

Yes! It feels like kids are actually kind of drawn to me for some reason.

I still feel like I'm wearing a mask when with kids, but generally kids want to play games and things like that rather than making small talk.

That made me grin. Pretty much all of my friend's children have at some point said directly to my face that they think I'm "strange", "weird" or something similar. Mostly it seems to have been when they were at some age around 5-10 years old. I always got the sense that they were not being judgemental or critical, just stating a fact that had no bearing whatsoever on whether they liked me or not. Pretty similar to my own social behaviour on the whole!

I'm definitely far more comfortable playing with the kids than chatting with the adults when there is a family gathering. My brother's kids all have very similar interests to the ones I had as a child too. When I get immersed in one of our Lego marathons, I half expect to look up and find myself back in my childhood bedroom, musing about the weird day-dream I just had about being a grown-up.

Yep, for me too. My body is the only thing really that reminds me of my age.

Rarely I feel older, and strangely I often did as a kid.

I usually feel much younger than I am, 20-30 years younger than my 40 years depending on the day and mood.

Some of my tastes are more like that of a teen. When I reread old favorite books I am as into them as I was when I read them as a kid or teen. ATM I'm rereading The Famous Five series (I developed the wish to do so when I watched the movies earlier this year) and I'm as hooked by the stories and taken in by the ideas of all those exciting places, ruins, her own island, all the catacombs and passageways they encountered.

Most of the books I like are for teens. I can more easily relate to the characters there than in adult fiction, despite not being able to deal with kids at all.

^
The Famous Five

^ You like them too?

^ I wouldn't read, I could, I just wouldn't until I was seven. My sister had The Famous Five books and I think it was because they were for her age group not mine that I tried them. I really liked George, and I wanted an island and a dog. By the time I moved on from them, I was ready for Agatha Christie, which our house was full of.

I didn't know there was a film made.

A thought:

From Wikipedia

" In a number of parts of the nervous system, neurons and synapses are produced in excessive numbers during the early stages, and then the unneeded ones are pruned away".

Autism Link

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/heal ... gests.html

"Now a new study suggests that in children with autism, something in the process goes awry, leaving an oversupply of synapses in at least some parts of the brain."


This is talking about sensitivity, but I think that maybe the child in you was never pruned away. I feel like I am still 5 years old, not everyone feels like that but some people do.