Emotionally very immature?
Even though I'm middle-aged now I feel that my emotional responses to situations are very much younger than my years, a child's responses in fact.
I don't show these emotions - I pretty much don't show emotions of any kind- these are just the way I feel inside when greeted with certain situations like perceived rejection, mockery and so on
Can anyone else relate to this?
It's very easy for me to feel hurt, lonely, rejected etc - big, simple emotions that a ten year old might feel. Somehow I haven't grown beyond this and I can't, no matter how I try.
I try to do the CBT thing and analyse my feelings and I'm often able to intellectually reason a more sophisticated response to a situation but there is a complete disconnect between my feelings and my reasoning.
I also find that my dreams are also stuck in my childhood. I dream almost every night of friends/school bullies I haven't seen for 30-40 years. People I've known in the intervening years rarely feature. Of course this could be a completely unrelated issue. ![]()
I think I know, what you mean. I am 29, I feel intellectually much older, maybe mid-fourties, but emotionally much younger, maybe 15.
It was always this way, I remember during secondary school, I was commented, how mature I am, not taking part of all that girlish and childish stuff. But I just had read so much, and was occupied with "serious things". Emotionally, I was just stuck in childhood.
Some years ago I talked to some fellow math students about if we feel "adult", and they predicted, that I would feel "adult" and be adult to my standards, when I am 90 years old.
It has been getting better though, I have the impression, that during the last 5 years or so, emotionally I developed from a twelve year old to a 15 year old.
I don't show the emotions that come with this. What I do is, argue, discuss, talk work things out, with people like my parents in my mind only. So no-one knows, what is going on inside me.
It feels sometimes as if I am working through puberty right now on my own. To my mind, with all that theoretical bookish knowledge it seems ridiculous, but my emotions are totally unimpressed from my mind.
I relate to it a lot
I'm 47 yet I seem to still overreact to stuff even young children are more stoic about
I don't know if it's due to not mixing enough and hence not being sufficiently influenced by a peer group
or if my parents were too soft on me
I think it's because I've often run away from situations I've found difficult rather than learning appropriate coping methods
so I haven't developed adult responses

