Anxious about getting older with low emotional maturity age

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I haven't posted here in a very long time but I'd like to ask about something that is giving me a lot of anxiety-- getting older. I'm 45 with an emotional age of 15. It's embarrassing to me to come across as I really am deep inside and I'm trying to hide it a lot. Does anyone here have a similar problem? If so, how do you come to terms with it? I don't want to grow into an old woman still acting like a teenager one day. Besides, I don't like looking more or more in a way that does not reflect how I feel inside. I don't like people talking to me as if I am more mature than I am and I also don't like them talking to me like a child. I can't win. How do I successfully come to terms with myself and with aging?

It's really becoming a bizarre and distressing thing for me, too. I'm approaching mid 50s, with an internal emotional age of about 17-26 at best. I don't really relate much to people my own age, but being from a generation now 5 decades in the past, I don't really relate to anybody much younger than me, either. I feel like a teen or 20something trapped in a middle aged body, and I do everything I can to keep that aging as slowly as possible. I guess it doesn't matter much,as I have no friends and never meet anybody anyway, but it just adds to that isolated feeling of being marooned on an alien planet.

In previous generations, this probably wasn't as pronounced a problem for someone with HFA, as changes in technology and social expectations were much more gradual, but today, being a child of the 60s, 70s and 80s is almost as far removed, in terms of day-to-day technology and methods of socialization as our world was from the days of horses, buggies and the telegraph. As non-social as I am by nature, I don't see texting as a healthy or constructive method of communicating with someone you like, on a day-to-day basis. Hell, I'm only on WP because I have absolutely nothing better to do with my time.

So now, I'm not only on the Wrong Planet, I'm also trapped in the wrong time period.

Willard, thanks for commiserating and relating to what I'm going through. I feel less alone. I just hope there is something we can actually do about it!

I don't see the point of measuring myself against a ruler of expected decorum. I try to be adept with putting on my adult hat when necessary, while still being able to relax and goof around sometimes.

I think finding people who accept you for who you are is a huge help with self acceptance. I know it can feel insurmountable at times, but having that support makes a huge difference.

Thanks MjMajor. I got panicky for night for some reason. I'm scared of getting older and especially scared because some parts of me won't get much older at the same time. The disparity looks weirder all the time but I shouldn't worry how it looks. I need to just be me. Why drive myself insane? I really need to keep working towards self acceptance. Any experiences people have with making progress in this way will be helpful.

You know much more at 45 than at 15, and knowledge is power, because generally when you know better, you do better. OP, maybe you are being too hard on yourself? I can understand fears about ageing, because we live in a society that is not on board with confronting ageism, unlike every other ism. The awareness you have of your emotional challenges is a strength and you have masses of insight and experiences that you didn't have at 15 (I am guessing) and may be selling yourself a bit short?

I feel the EXACT same way. In fact, every time it's my birthday I start to freak out because on the inside I still think that I just left high school but in reality I am almost 40. I feel that I have very little to say to others my age but get along really well with others who are in their early twenties or people who are much older than I am. I know that I am very immature and I worry too about how I will come across in a few years when my age is no longer so dubious.

B19, yes, it does help very much to have the experience and intellect of a 45 year old. But, I don't see the world through adult eyes, either, so all of that experience and intellect just helps me compensate and "pretend" better. Structrix, I'm relieved to hear I'm not alone. It's disturbing, but less so when I know I'm not alone. I wonder if anyone out there has worked through this issue well who has suggestions?

At the moment, I accept it. I have no empathy for a person my age because I don't have the life experience. It is like I am still a child at the age of 30. Loneliness sucks but there is a lot of negative stuff that comes with being a typical adult. I am glad that I am not married or in a long-term committed relationship. I don't want the drama that comes with that. I am glad that I am not a parent. I am glad that I don't live on my own. I don't value money other than paying bills and I don't have friends to impress. I made a conscious decision to stop trying to be normal a few months ago, and I feel good about it. Do you ever think about all the problems you can avoid by maintaining a childlike outlook?

(By the way, for people who are older than me and say that I am still a child at age 30, I plan on staying like this for as long as possible. If I get all the trappings of adult life, it will be because I fell in love and I wasn't thinking rationally. Let other people go through the misery that accompanies the typical life cycle. Who's to say that the typical life is better than the one I am living?)

I asked someone who knows me pretty well if I really seem to have an emotional age of 15 and she didn't think so. She said that in some areas of life, I have real struggles that may mimic some of the ones teenagers have, bu that I should not see myself as totally immature because she doesn't think that's the truth at all. That made me feel a little better.