Does anyone feel like they never "grew up"?

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I found out the hard way that advice on how to behave and what to expect is usually only correct for one setting of genders, races, ages, and levels of wealth in the encounter. Also, any of them usually need some practice before they work well.

I feel like i never grew up.

I'm growing up but I've always felt that I was behind my peers in that sense. I remember at school, when everyone hit puberty I became very withdrawn because I really felt like I was just getting the hang of being a kid and now everyone was too cool to 'play' and do anything I thought was fun. This continued in late teens when people started getting into girls and drinking and drugs and music, I just found it all frightening - I wasn't ready for any of that stuff until I was in my 20s.

So now I'm early 40s and my peers own their houses and have started businesses and lease nice cars and clothes and take their families on holiday and I'm still running out of money at the end of month, renting, buying cheap second hand cars and driving them until they break irrepairably.

I don't know how much of it is to with being on the spectrum but I've always felt years behind my peers developmentally.

I can't use an exact number to describe who I am.

I will likely live out on my own. But probably can't do it without my stuffed animals.

Yes, though I'm much older now, I still have inherent child-like qualities pertaining to having a fondness of interests usually indicative of someone much younger than myself as a whole.
I still enjoy my interest in comic books and other media for said timelines of my life.

In ways I do feel stunted, it is odd because I do have a job (though all my jobs have been lowly, cant seem to progress much there) and am married. My husband bless him does help me navigate things, hes kind of like my spokes-person. Its awful because I am aware of my deficiencies and how Im not like a "normal adult" my age, but there will never be a fix for it because the autism will never go away, nor the lifetime effects of it on me and this does get me down but I guess the only thing is to keep going. I always have this fear that Im not gonna be able to handle things on my own if i need to and its hard not to think bad thoughts about it sometimes. I know its hard to navigate things, things normal people kind of take for granted then look at me like whats wrong with you?

^^ I have stayed much poorer in material things than many early peers, but I was aiming for the world average as a reasonable goal, and the sustainable world average as my stretch goal. When people see what their pursuit of wealth has done to the planet, I expect some colossal regrets.

i am stunted in multiple ways. thankfully i'm much closer to the finish than to the start.

Well now.

I seem to have missed the stage where NTs learned how to ignore all the contradictions and problems in their world.

Because I can't / won't mask, to pretend I agree with a lot of things that are blatant bollocks, apparently I'm socially deficient. Whereas au contraire mon frere, actually I might be ahead of the game? Simply by not being delusional.