Does anyone feel like they never "grew up"?

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The general consensus of much of my father's family tended to be "Why have a second childhood when you can just stay in the first?"

I can't really say what age I feel like. I've always felt like me. And that hasn't changed over the decades so I guess I never grew up.

I've always liked this quote. When I was young I thought it probably described me and now I'm pretty sure of it.

          *Some suspect Franklin was an Aspie.

To my mind they both sound like parasites, but I guess the first example sucks more blood out of the community than the second, unless the second is burning through a heck of a lot of expensive video games and associated hardware etc. I presume the relevance to maturity comes from the idea that children are "natural" parasites, consuming without producing, at least in a materialist sense. But materialism isn't everything, that's for sure. So yes, it is very complex and subjective.

I think something that makes it harder for me to "feel like an adult" is the fact that older adults don't really treat me like I am one. Even ones that know my age often treat me like I am a kid and it's frustrating. I am not massively immature or anything, so I don't get why they do that. It's also not the "normal" way that adults treat adolescents and very young adults, they treat me like I am 10-12.

I've always thought that maturity was just as much to do with achievement as mental age.

A very extreme example is Bill Gates. He seems to have poor social skills but he's an absolute unit in all other areas of his life. He is defiantly someone who I would consider more mature and grown up than most adults I know. To buy multi-million dollar mansions, a fleet of nice cars and run a huge business isn't something a immature person is ever capable of despite his questionable social skills and appearance of not being that grown up.

I know a lot of party animals with large circles of friends in their 30s who's list of qualifications and achievements can't fill a postage stamp and I would never consider them to have ever grown up. Biggest man child's I know.

When you say you feel young, Hero, are you referring to your skills and abilities being underdeveloped, your interests being more like a child, or your social-emotional behaviour being more like a child? Or all of the above?

In my case it's my mostly my social-emotional behaviour. My interests vacillate between childlike and old-fashioned / mature. My skills and abilities were beaten into me by the world, but they still feel somewhat unnatural.

Yes I can pay bills, drive a car, and I used to work, etc. I've raised two children by myself. But I kind of feel like I'm in the movie Freaky Friday, and I'm an imposter in an adult body.

You're at a time in life where everyone your age is transitioning from the teenage drama they used to thrive on to becoming adults. Fear not however as you're also at an age where the men and boys are separated and you might have a lot to give compared to others you feel look down on you.

Some of the most domineering and socially skilled peers from my collage and school days are now fat, ugly and flipping burgers. A lot of people much older than me are still flipping burgers. Do as best as you can and flex in front of them when you can.

I think it's more my social-emotional behaviour, and kind of my interests, though a lot of adults like the things I like.

I can do a lot of adult things (sans being able to drive lol), but I learned to do those things out of necessity and there are still gaps in my ability to pick up and carry out "adult" skills. I do kind of feel like I am roleplaying an elaborate game of "House" or something, except I can't just stop playing whenever the responsibilities I have exceed my stunted limitations.

I don't think it's just me being 20, either, since other people my age don't feel stunted at 11-12 and act like I'm crazy if I mention that.

I feel the same. It's weird and something that I doubt I will ever get to grips with and I'm not alone in thinking that.

Thank you, this is helpful and encouraging. I just hope that I can kind of "catch up" to my peers soon, because not being taken seriously by other adults is annoying. lol

I grew up very quickly some ways, and slowly in others.

I think it's very common for people on the spectrum to feel this way. It is a developmental disability, after all. There are parts of our neurology that didn't grow up properly, or was severely delayed. It's not that we are silly immature little kids, but we're very thoughtful people torn between adult minds (overthinking) and underdeveloped coping mechanisms.

I almost feel like it should be in the diagnostic criteria.

At one point my therapist was going to get my daughter to teach me how to be a teenaged girl because I plateaued before that stage. She was going to teach me different ways of styling my hair, doing makeup, dancing, flirting, and all about the nuance of female communication. I still feel like my daughter knows all those things and I don't. She learned those stages whereas I stopped dead cold at 13 and haven't progressed since.

It's easy to take what human qualities one admires the most and call that "maturity," but I don't think it's useful to do so. There's little consensus on what constitutes maturity in that sense because there's little consensus on what people admire. Bill Gates is a hero to some, a villain to others. I think all we can objectively do is to state our preferences and own them for what they are. From what you've said, it appears that you admire people who manage to concentrate material wealth and power into their own hands. That's entirely up to you of course.

Me, I don't measure it with sports cars, trophy wives, enormous wallets, or high-powered careers. In as far as I admire anybody at all, I suppose I admire people who manage to live whatever kind of life makes them happy as long as it's not at the expense of the happiness of others. If that means just piddling around with some childish hobby, that's fine by me. I'd prefer people not to criticise them for it or to tell them to "grow up," and I think it's sad that sometimes the victim of that criticism will internalise it and dislike themselves for being themselves.

As for socialising instead of getting qualified and rich, naturally it depends on the person. If I had to choose for myself, I'd go for the social thing (though in a fairly specialised form), because having good, close friends to work and play with makes me feel happy and fulfilled.

I think not having a formal diagnosis is frustrating sometimes, because other adults may get full on upset with me for not being fully an adult yet. They think I am just misbehaved or immature, when in reality I have a developmental disorder and I don't think I got to develop past 12 or so in certain aspects.

It's also part of why I don't have a lot of support from my family members, because they get angry when I don't have the abilities and skills a 20 year old has, so they refuse to help me because I'm "already not trying hard enough."

I'm so sorry to hear that. Do you think a formal diagnosis would help, or would they still have this mindset?

I hate to say though, I'm more than double your age and people still think I'm underachieving or not trying hard enough.

I think it's a vicious cycle for us. On one hand we're told to grow up, and on the other hand people tell us to chill out and stop being so serious and cerebral.

We'll never win, it seems.

I don't know if it would entirely fix it, but I think certain family members would certainly stop picking on me as much.

I do agree that it doesn't seem like autistic people can win in this regard. There will always be people who don't understand autism and who are more concerned with judging others, than just accepting that others may have a different "pace" in life than they do.

I'm familiar mostly with the "stop overthinking it" advice. As if I didn't know I was doing it. What's always missing is a method for working out which bits of thinking to discard.

I guess the presumption of a neurotypical mind is so ingrained in the species that they don't know it's there, and therefore can't rise above it. Hence a lot of the useless good advice and criticism they come out with.