How old do you feel relative to your actual age?
Interesting question... I can feel both younger and older than my age, which is 22. The majority of the time, I feel like I'm stuck at the age of 11 and in the throes of middle school. When I'm around people acting stupid or immaturely, I feel really, really old. (Which I think can be said for some NTs, as well.) But in my heart, I feel like both a child and an old soul simultaneously. It's very odd.
Also, I'm 4' 10 1/2", which doesn't help me feel mature when I walk into a room full of people much taller than me wearing suits, ties, a-line skirts, and high heels when I still have to go to the kids' section for pants and shoes... I've taken a few women's things I've gotten to be tailored, which helps with job interviews and things like that. Also, I still get asked if I want kids menus at restaurants and not only does that make me feel kiddish, it's demoralizing, as well.
I'm not sure I'll ever feel like an adult, except in short bursts like when I do something I know an NT adult would do, such as the dishes, make appointments, interviews, etc. But then those short bursts remind me that I hardly ever feel like that and I'm back to feeling like a child again.
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"Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day." ~Author Unknown
"Autism: it's not a processing error, just a different operating system."
I'll be 28 on the 11th, but I feel like I'm around 17. It actually feels weird to think of myself as an adult!
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Standing on the fringes of life... offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.
---- Stephen Chbosky
ASD Diagnosis on 7-17-14
My Tumblr: http://jetbuilder.tumblr.com/
Sometimes I feel like an infant, and other times as old as the sun and moon....
I look at people my age (19), and just think "Are you really, truly that stupid"? They talk about idiotic celebrities as though they are gods, while I try and discuss things like history, art or mythology and phylosophy. Sometimes it makes me wonder if their lives even mean anything in the long run, whne they just waste it that way.
And other times I become absorbed in a rainbow around the moon, watching the ocean or laughing at a squirrel and I feel as small and curious as a four year old, innocent and clueless. I wish I could be that way more often.
I don't know whether thats related to being autistic, or is just something everyone feels.
I feel intellectually older than my peers. I don't see much of people in their late 20's though. They still seem to be doing the same things; going to see bands, drinking, and dating.
In stressful situations I regress to a 7 year old though. I'll pick up my model planes or my sonic screwdriver and start playing with it like a little child. I also get quite hyper and cheeky.
Emotionally I'm about 12-14 years old. I even look that age.
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My band photography blog - http://lostthroughthelens.wordpress.com/
My personal blog - http://helptheywantmetosocialise.wordpress.com/
I can kinda relate to this. I was selectively mute and friendless for 9 years so I can easily minus 9 years off my age. But then within the last 6 years or so I've had to speed up the social/emotional maturity development part. Its kinda like having a little kid being throw with a bunch of college students and forced to sink or swim.
Sometimes I feel older than my true age (15 since the 25th of July) and sometimes I feel much, much younger. I play with childish toys but I read the newspaper on my old man couch (what my sister calls it, anyway). I speak as if I am stuck on 'formal' online and sometimes at home, but around my friends I try not to be so strange and I speak like the rest of them (which, to my disliking, is in a mock country accent with insults thrown in every now and again). However, it is usually very hard for me to tuck away my formalities and be a 'normal' teenager. So, I suppose I am about seven to eight years old at times, but thirty on up at others.
Often much younger than my actual age, depending on the situation. I very rarely feel my age, partially because I seem to be fixated on comparing myself to people around my age or younger and sizing myself up to where they are in terms of work, school, finances, and independence. It sucks and it makes me feel very inadequate.
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Given a “tentative” diagnosis as a child as I needed services at school for what was later correctly discovered to be a major anxiety disorder.
This misdiagnosis caused me significant stress, which lessened upon finding out the truth about myself from my current and past long-term psychiatrists - that I am a highly sensitive person but do not have an autism spectrum disorder
My diagnoses - anxiety disorder, depression and traits of obsessive-compulsive disorder (all in remission).
I’m no longer involved with the ASD world.
I really can't say. Everyone has ''childish moments'' sometimes, but I feel I am a different age for different things. Like when it comes to controlling my tempers, I can be very immature, depending on how bad the temper is. If I'm in a generally bad mood and have got wound up by something, I can act like a sulky 14-year-old; slamming doors, running to my room, sulking, and becoming unsociable with family (yes, I have seen NT adolescents behave that way sometimes). If the temper is at the point where I'm going to have an outburst, I can act like a 3-year-old; screaming, crying, stamping my feet, throwing myself on a settee or the floor. Or sometimes I just act like a druggie, of any age; swearing, yelling abuse, acting hysterical to the point of worrying others, and threatening to commit suicide.
But when I'm with my peers (NT peers) I feel I am more mature than them, mostly when I'm at the pub with them. I feel they base the whole night around their silly shenanigans, and go all silly over them, and I find myself tutting to myself and thinking how stupid they are being, and I feel much happier when at a pub with people who are a lot older than me, I feel that they sit and chat about descent things and I feel I am more on their wavelength more. I do enjoy a joke, but sometimes it gets a bit silly and boring.
I feel around my own age when just walking out in the street. I wear stylish clothes that people of my age wear, and I find kids and teenagers silly, and I smile at older people and politely make small talk if they do like, say, at the bus stop. I also expect respect (sorry for the tongue-twister) and I shall not endure ridicule when I am not encouraging it, and I shall not endure immaturity, with adults or children.
Also I find I don't speak like girls my age normally do. I don't say ''like'' after every other word, and I don't seem to put on this strange accent what a lot of young girls seem to speak in. I speak like a cockney, but not like a rough hag, I just speak more like a woman in her 40s, in quite a mature sort of way actually, but not at all in a posh way either (thank God).
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Female
I definitely get what all of you mean about the "split".
Emotionally I feel like 12-14, as many of you say, and socially probably even younger.
I do feel more mature around friends my age, when they seem to want to do nothing. Though, I think it's really that the 20's is the worst, in that typically developing people are grown up in the ways I'm still a child, and childlike in the ways I'm grown up. Many haven't found their passions yet, and most of those who have, are much better-off employment-wise. Also, many of the women already feel some sort of biological clock ticking, whereas I want to date someone who will act like a kid in the bedroom, not want to conceive one!
When they're much younger, kids actually play games, and those I can get into. But they also have not really discovered their passions yet. As adults, they only seem to want to talk about mundane real-life things like houses, cars, jobs, and kids, and have lost a certain open-ended curiosity. They don't seem to ever see the world through wide and un-socialized, un-cultured eyes, unless they're dulled enough by drugs that they have a hard time intellectually analyzing the experience.
I can be profoundly intellectual yet be hyper, sensual in a "raw" way, and have all the bodily function fascination of a second-grade boy at the same time. This combination, I feel, has contributed greatly to the success of many poets, writers, scientists, etc. but it is also very isolating. It places you in the position of a visionary alone at the top of a mountain, where nobody wants to climb the mountain with you lest they lose whatever grounding in the ordinary they already have.
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