What did/do you enjoy more, childhood or adulthood?

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What did/do you enjoy more, your childhood or your adulthood?


If you go by these definitions:

Childhood: 0-14 years old.

Adulthood: 15 years old and up.

Adulthood far more. My childhood sucked. At least I have more control over my life now and can find fulfillment and happiness in some things. This was not possible as a child.

I wasn't diagnosed till my senior year of high school, so I had absolutely no assistance or guidance to help me integrate into the neurotypical world. Instead, the ways of the world were pounded into me. I never knew what was "strange" and what wasn't, so I was teased mercilessly throughout my childhood.

But now after my trials and tribulations, I have come out better and more fit to live in this world.

So yeah, adulthood < childhood.

I'd have to split my childhood between school year and non-school year.

With the notable exception of one bully, I didn't encounter much bullying in the summers. The exception was because we went to the same church.

I not only lived twenty miles from town, but my trips to town in the summer were nearly always to a different town. Other than just passing through the town where the school was located, I spent no time in that town from the last day of one school year to the first day of the next school year. So it was quite rare for me to run into the bullies in the summer time.

Regarding the bully in church, I ran into him a couple of years ago at a major church event where many former members who had moved away showed up. I was standing in line to eat and said hello to the guy behind me in town. I didn't recognize him at all, but when he told me who he was, it was the bully. I just turned around and ignored him the rest of the time in line. With the prosopagnosia, I don't know if I saw him at all later that day.

Childhood: birth to 11 NICE!!
Age 12 to 30 - pure, unadulterated HELL
Age 30 to now (51) Fine!

Drawing various things, cars, planes etc.

Also enjoyed studying about airplanes.

Outdoors activities - to shake off hyperactivity.

Computer games.


Nowday I enjoy nothing at all.

I voted I enjoy my adulthood about the same as I enjoyed my childhood because it seems to me that both had their own unique set of problems and opportunities.

I think I enjoy reading, eating, drinking good coffee more than outdoor kind of things in my adulthood.

I cannot really remember what I really enjoyed in my childhood.

Can't really say I enjoy/enjoyed either one, but being an adult isn't as bad in some ways....at least now I am not forced to go to school every day to be around people that would prefer I wasn't around. Except for the ones that might have been disappointed not to be able to pick on me anymore.

And now I know of more ways to allieviate symptoms and/or have more freedom to leave situations that start effecting be badly...which I didn't exactly have as a child. I did briefly enjoy life quite a bit when I was 20, but that went to sh*t just as quick as it started so that didn't really get me anywhere.

I honestly can't tell the difference between the two.

Adulthood does win, I didnt get diagnosed till I was 18. Although adulthood was a lot harder in many ways, I am so much more educated, less naive and in control of my own identity. Whereas childhood, I was very naive and mindlessly listened to my parents. Also I was selectively mute till 17 so I had no friends until I was 18. And its much better now to have friends and a better grasp over my social network. In highschool, I spent my days as a loner at school feeling like a loser. And now as an adult, no requirements to hang with my peers I dont want to be in, no mandatory assembilies, etc. In fact now, if I feel like I feel forced to hang with people I dont wanna hang with, I start to mentally freak. I can choose to get away from people.

Definitely childhood. I miss it so freaking much.

I had a huge imagination and poured my immense creativity into "projects" of my own interests that were heavily detailed: I would spend hours upon hours on these. The world became my playground and I imagined vivid imaginary worlds in my daily settings. I played in these worlds without a care of what people thought of me. This, coupled with a lack of social awareness and unusual sensory experiences where I was heavily affected by colours, sounds, smells, sights, and sensations made me feel free and uninhibited.

It's that freedom to fully and completely express myself that I miss so much. It has become increasingly harder to get into that state again as I get older. In adulthood, people expect you to succeed constantly and to focus on what needs to be done...with childhood, I didn't have a sense of that and just lived in the present moment. It's why I feel I need to escape from daily life so much...why I like things like yoga and meditation that allow me to ground myself, but also why I drink and smoke weed to get myself in that highly expressive state (although I've trained myself not to do each excessively).

The downside to my childhood was that I had meltdowns constantly and would become very upset about minor things, which frustrated those around me. These meltdowns were almost always the result of sensory issues and inability to tolerate change, so things like having a cut, having snow in my boots, or having to stop an activity I was interested in would make me cry unconsolably. I was also the odd one out in all my classes and would be lectured/yelled at by teachers and bullied/avoided by students that I wanted to connect with. However, I don't think about the bad times much and focus on my sense of freedom and inhibition, which I can't easily get back because of my adult responsibilities, constant anxiety, and heavy amount of self-conciousness.

Neither one has been majorly better than the other overall, my level of cognizance is the same, just with much more experience, and I still live below the poverty line. I chose Childhood slightly more though, mostly because decisions had less serious repercussions and I didn't know troubling things about my family or the world in general.

You should split it three ways.

Childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

Most NTs seem to be moderately happy in all three.

Aspies happiest during childhood, and sometime adulthood, but never during adolesence.

ADHD'ers are adolescent oriented, and hate childhood, and adulthood.

0-9: Generally very good.
10: mostly dreadful
11-12: Generally very good.
12, 5 -13: Very bad thanks to child care services and child shrink.
14-32: Generally good (but some very hard times due to losing loved ones, as well as the effects of earlier hardships I hadn’t dealt with).
32 going on 33 – somewhere between 35 and 35, 5: Hard. Depressed due to loss.
From a few months ago and till now: Improvement. Depression gone. Have finally put some issues behind me.

It’s not easy to say which was better, especially based on dividing it between 14 and 15. With the two exceptions my childhood was a happy time for me. I didn’t like school (thought it a waste of time, and more so the longer the school days became) but I still had some fun in school, and I loved my sparetime. The same hold true for my adolescence. During my later teen years I started developing a rage that would stay just under the surface and increase throughout my 20’s. That’s on top of my innate flash temper.

I’d say the best time in my life was up to age 22 (minus 2, 5 of those years).