I can't grow up

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I am 23 and I feel like a kid or a teenager. Most of my peers are far more advanced than I am. A lot of them have already graduated college and are starting their careers. Some of them are even married and have children. I have never dated before and I don't have many friends. I have been going to college for over 4 years now and I've changed my major so many times and have very few interests. I am on the autistic spectrum and I also suffer from depression, anxiety, and ADD. Everyone else my age seems so accomplished and I feel I will never get ahead. I feel like I will never fully grow up. I still enjoy the same things that I have enjoyed since I was a kid and I just don't feel like an adult. I have never really wanted to grow up. I hate change and I just like things to be the way they are. Sometimes I just feel hopeless like I will never amount to anything.

I relate to you. I also have ADD & anxiety & been through depression before. I never went to college but I was unemployed alot & currently cuz of disabilities. I struggled alot in the relationship department thou I currently have a girlfriend I've been living with for 4 years now; she's on the spectrum too. I always felt behind compared to my peers but it never really bothered me except with the relationship part because I was really lonely single. I don't have much advice except try not to compare yourself to your peers. Those of us on the spectrum should have different standard for ourselves than the standards our peers have.

I'm fifty, graduated from college to move onto being an unpublished writer, so all I can say is: welcome to the club. Admittedly, I am married, and do have a child, though this came to me relatively later in life. My wife and I have decided we are happy living in genteel poverty, as worldly success is never going to materialize. This is when my friends from high school, who I've kept in touch with, have moved onto one degree of success or another. But you know, my closest friends these days are also bohemians living below the poverty line, who are involved with the arts. What I realize is, sometimes not growing up makes you a more interesting person.

You're right, Bill!

I'm 55, and haven't grown up.

I have no kid.

I just have a clerical job.

I feel less mature than my nephews who are in their 20s.

Age doesn't matter.

It's just a number.

At 54, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

Don't beat yourself up.

Fun fact: your friends who are getting married are 75% likely to get divorced if they're under 25... and probably within the next few years. Also, in the long run your friends who got married later will probably accomplish more than the ones who did so earlier.

I graduated college at 23. I have a friend who graduated at 32. Don't think about how old you are in relation to other students. Think about how useful your degree is, specifically with what career you want to pursue and what you want to achieve in life. Don't just get some degree for the hell of it. If you want to be a teacher, make sure to get on track for education. If you want to be in the sciences, accept that you're going to be in school for a little longer and focus on that path. If you want to be a doctor, again, make sure you have a base in the life sciences. Want to live in the woods as a hippie? Study forestry. Business? Take some business classes. Think of your degree as part of a career. But I do urge you to choose a direction ASAP, because if you're just wasting time in school, then you're also wasting money. Choose a direction and stick with it - you can always change later, but even if you switch to a different path later on, you'll be better off than just standing still, paralyzed with indecision.

As for change, it's never going to be painless, but you can become habituated to it, and you need to do so. Changing is inevitably an uncomfortable process, but you grow. You need to get used to "biting the bullet" and forcing yourself to change when you see it's necessary. You'll be much happier in the long run if you learn to fight through the pain, rather than just avoiding it.

ted turner said that "life is kind of like a b-grade movie, in that while you wouldn't leave before the end of it, neither again would you wish to see it again." some lifetimes are diamonds, some are stones, but all are necessary in the grand scheme. this stone is heading towards the final stretch, the majority of life is behind me now, and I'm thankful for that as well as for the knowledge that even for somebody as high-muckety-muck as ted turner, that life still is merely the prelude to greater things beyond the veil.

I saw a shirt that said
DON'T GROW UP
IT'S A TRAP

When I was 23 I thought I'd never grow up yet I still did.

You may be a late bloomer but that doesn't mean you won't grow up.

I just wish things would be content to settle into a nice groove, and stop getting FUBARed and SNAFU'ed. I guess that means that I don't wanna "grow up."

There seems to be about a 20% difference between my actual age and the age I associate myself with. I don't know if anyone else is the same, but imagine feeling 15 on your 18th birthday. Or 17 for your 21st. I moved out of my dad's home at 27 and I definitely didn't feel older than 23. Even today I feel more like 29 instead of 36. Is anyone/everyone else like this?