stuck in pause while everything is in fast forward???

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Your advice is useless to me as I am aware of it, I hope other people can make use of it

I think that life moves so fast for me that I never seem to have enough time to catch up and grow up. I look at the calendar and I sometimes have to wonder where I've been all my life.

Count me in. I know just how Age1600 feels.

I know how you feel Age1600. I feel stuck. I actually felt like my growing has stunted, and stopped when I was a teenager. Now I feel that I'll never grow up. Friends are getting married, having babies, been to college for a few years. And I'm in the same spot.

Growing up in alot of ways can be over rated. Just try and see the postives, I guess.

Stuck in 'Pause' is how I feel as well.As John Lennon said 'Life is what happens to you while
you're busy making other plans'
I feel like I make plans while people around me are just spontaneously doing things and
moving forward.

I know the feeling. I'm struggling to lift myself out of my personal bubble of stopped time, to join my acquaintances that are graduating college and getting married and moving out of Jersey... I feel like I'm exactly where I was when I got out of High School 4 years ago, while everyone else has gotten on with their lives. Then again, I've been afraid to live, to commit my life to any single thing since I've been so unsure of if I'd be happy with that decision or come to regret it for the next 40+ years. My life stalled because I don't know where I belong in the world, and I'm jealous of everyone else who so naturally flows into things and find their place.

Yes, I feel as if I lag behind the scale/pace at which other folks are living-in several ways.

As mentioned by a few other posters, I have not done most of those "normal" things that people are expected & assumed to do once they become adults. Can't afford house, can't hold self together enough to work, have no interest in procreation, I enjoy pretty much the same kinds of things I did 10 or 20 years ago: reading, writing, drawing-stuff like that. And, of course, I like "hanging out with" friends-if I have any at the time (it's harder to make friends now that my "path" has diverged so far from that of my same-age peers).

Part is just the overall rate of change is accelerating in these modern times, in many societies-including this one (U.S.). "Future shock", as book title from decades ago named it. Therefore, it's experience/perception not limited to one "group"-it's happening globally.

Part is my personal traits/quirks (or to some proportion, influenced by ASD or OCD).
Am often bemoaning discontinuation of or modification to products that I used to like, and can no longer acquire-or they're not the same & I can't stand the new "improved' version they're trying to market. Plenty of examples of foods/snacks/drinks, also soaps/shampoos, etc.

Also, in social interaction, my thoughts move quickly but not in relation to what others are saying. Know how to react to my own mental content, but am baffled-at a loss-when attempting to respond to someone else's topic or trying to focus my attention on them.

I behave much better, more diplomatically and "appropriately" via writing-versus having to communicate in the moment, immediately. My emotional modulation/moderation takes much longer to "kick in" than my intellectual awareness "knowing better" level, which can keep up with things better. So, my psychological equilibrium is easily disturbed, takes long time to settle down-and for me to get more balanced view/sense of situation, and how I might best respond/act. Can't make fast decisions-my emotions are volatile & fluctuate between extremes-and this tendency is exacerbated when confronted with uncertainty (often the case).

In this manner, others seem on "fast-forward" while I seem stuck in "freeze-frame".

yes I know EXACTLY what your talking about. Thinking about it it's probably partly why I take adderall

My mother had no sympathy for that,.. it is so resentful that people on this planet will do anything: abuse, torture, to get you to adapt to the culture!! !!

Mother said 'how old are you'? so mean and nasty, as a response to my telling her about aspergers. If I tell her '12, 12 yrs old emotionally' she keeps getting angry and trying to FIX it... she thinks this feeling can be 'fixed'.

I agree with your mother partly. I'm going to be living proof it can(not fixed) be smoothed out so to speak. When I do that I'll write a book about it and send one your way for free so you can see.

Goog god, what you write Belfast is like a profile of me. Very well expressed. At fifty I have to do a lot of 'keeping out of the way' of others. always have. I can put on a brave face, maybe thats due to acupuncture or our monthly meetings with him - vey much the alpha male. I can suffer confusion big time as i have right now its 11.00am and I can't figure out how to spend the day. Work or countryside. Stuck.

Academically, I've accomplished quite a lot, with four college degrees. However, in a lot of ways, I'm definitely playing catch up. There are some things I know I probably won't ever do, so I have to let them go.

At work, while I have been working at the same job for over six years, my responsibilities have greatly expanded over that time. I work just 19 hours per week, but accomplish a great deal in that time period.

I don't drive or cook, and I'm not married. My cats are my kids. I am happy with that.

I did accomplish one of my goals by placing second in the spelling bee sponsored by the Adult Literacy Council, moving up three places from my performances of the past two years.

I feel the same way, Age1600, even in day to day life, like at work or something, I feel like I am in slow motion or something. It is weird, one of my best friends is now a manager at a Target store making ALOT of money and I am still the same as I was 6 years ago, when we used to hang out together all the time.

Depends on whether the clock you watch has a second hand (and I don't mean this to be flippant). I have digital clock, but even that, I stare at it (while waiting for my cup of tea to brew) and as soon as I think of anything else, suddenly the numbers are already getting to that point & the clock's indicating it's time to go get my tea.

Am very fast at thnking & feeling "on my own terms", within my own mental sphere, private (internal) world, but am ever-so-slow (sluggish) at catching up, keeping up, with other people's lives, over the long haul or in the moment.

Good to hear that my words were not too far off base, that how I articulated was identifiable to you.
I fear getting older (hope that doesn't sound insensitive to say), as it seems to get harder & harder to meet, let alone get to know (successfully, in mutually rewarding way) others. My inability to keep up with other folks psychologically is quite an impediment (doesn't improve).

Yes. Like my biological clock is frozen. I'm emotionaly eight and still veiw myself as a child. It's like I don't change or age -I still look like I'm fifteen. My clock stopped when I was in the fourth grade -it was the first time I felt that 'distence' between me and my peers.

Effectively, we seem to be 'ageless' -I read in one autism book that aspies/auties age emotionaly 5 years behind.

But at the same time I never want to grow up anyway. What's the point? Adults just complain about how busy they are and how they don't have time for anything. Some of them blame social problems on teenagers while others say that they're 'doing this for us' when really they're just screwing up the world and leaving it to their kids to pick up the peices.