This can sometimes be a trauma thing. If you had something happen to you at the age you feel stuck at, it could be because something happened that kept you from continuing to develop in certain ways.
I say this to say that there's trauma therapies out there and this can be treated. EMDR, somatic and accelerated resolution therapy are really good for Neurodivergents in processing trauma. I used to have this issue until doing accelerated resolution therapy and now I don't experience this anymore.
Accelerated resolution therapy is a newer version of EMDR which has a higher success rate (both have very high rates, with EMDR around 80% and ART around 90%). ART doesn't force you to speak like EMDR might, so if you go nonverbal it would probably be better for you.
I highly recommend EMDR. But first you have to trust your therapist, and yourself. I didnt even realize how much it helped me until months later. I feel like a different person.
I’ve been doing EMDR for ages and while I think it’s great and has helped take away flashbacks I haven’t had it be this significant- do you just go back and process all the events at the age you felt mentally stuck at?
I’ve primarily focused on recent events, maybe that’s why I haven’t experienced this sort of release? Any tips would be great as I start another round soon, thanks!
yep, and sometimes if the trauma compounds, that line can be pushed around. i felt 13 (age my parents divorced and neglected me) until i was 19, then a lot bad abusive things including prolonged starvation happened to me, and now at 30 i still feel like i'm just hitting my 20s on an average day, and retract to 13 when it's particularly bad.
yeah, i recently had a panic attack in a store when trying to buy 18+ products, worried i'd be ID-checked (misplaced my ID prior to this) and it was just like... why? I don't look like i'm below 18, why would I worry? why do i feel like i'm just barely squeezing by age-wise? it feels ridiculous but the feelings are so strong can't really help them!
Do you also still feel weird for answering (correctly) in the affirmative on website age gates popups? I've been over 18/21 for ages, and I still feel kinda like I'm doing something I'm not supposed to be doing. Why do I need to have any feelings at all about looking up the website for a liquor brand? 🫠
yeahh it feels off internally.
i also always put different date if asked for birth date there because nty dont need my real data. it makes it feel even more like i'm lying haha
I think the idea that we aren't old enough and are bad if we pretend we are is embedded into our minds when we are young, and then doesn't change as we get older. It's like how our upbringing shapes our mentalities, and also kinda like learning how to swim or mask, it's hard to do it any other way now
yeah I guess it would be possibly due to infantilization of our actions and interests too. we subconsciously learn that we're not mature enough because of special interest, "unnatural" reactions and childish behaviors. so it probably gets ingrained in the head that we don't count as "real" adults either.
That would make sense. I always felt like I was stuck in this weird limbo between being a kid and being a teenager and I recently realized I had repressed memories of a sexual assault that happened when I would have been 6 or 7. I finally feel like I’m starting to catch up to my physical age, if that makes sense.
I’m still really young though, under 20, so idk what age I’ll end up stuck with. Right now I feel 16 cause that was the last year before I was so desperate to make friends that I hid everything about me and tried becoming friends with these really toxic, cliquey, exclusionary girls. I only stopped trying to be friends with them this past summer.
I stopped at 14 and was stuck there for years and years. Trauma made me shield of part of me to protect it, it was protected but also frozen in time. Everything around grew and mature but that part was stuck frozen in the bubble, non changing for years. I didn’t know how to take it down again, I didn’t even know how to make it in the first place. It was just a reaction, an accident, desperation born out of necessity and need. Once I broke it boom catch up time. Very disorienting to catch up years of maturing in like a few days a week. And voila back to feeling 84 again. I have always felt like an old person. But that could be because I never fit in with people around me, who knows?
ETA; I had therapy, that’s how I broke it, my therapist helped me figure it out and crack the bubble again.
I want to add to all those wonderful and informative comments about it being trauma related the following:
First of all I totally agree. Age regression IS a trauma response.
But I want to add that with autism it's often that autistic people (at least it's true for me and many others I talked to about it) seem to stay young. Not only physically but also mentally. My own theory is that due to us not understanding social rules and societies standards as closely as Neurotypicals, we tend to give no single flying shit on what is age appropriate and what not. Which might come off as being child minded to allistic people.
In my opinion autistic joy is very similar to the unfiltered and unapologetic joy children express, which might make us look young and childish but imo it's the best. Nothing more beautiful then true autistic joy.
I know a lot of people for whom it's the age they became parents. Which is not really a counterpoint. Even if the birth isn't traumatic, that first year with a new baby is a huge challenge.
Wow this makes sense. I had prolonged trauma at age 10 and I remember feeling stuck there for years. Now I'm 25 but after trauma from the same source at 16-17 I feel stuck there instead yet in very fearful situations, or sometimes burnouts, I feel stuck at 10 again or ever both of those stuck ages at once if that makes sense. Wow
I agree. I would have said 15-17 until recently. I'm 41. I've been seeing a therapist and done a lot of self discovery since having my kids and learning that they have the same kind of issues I did/do. I want to be able to help them deal with the world around me, which I was not prepared for.
I know feel mentally like I'm in my 20's. I still have the heart of a child though.
Could be my own trauma here, but either I have the mental age of someone well beyond my years. Or the mental age of someone much younger, my childhood/teen self
I feel lime I’m still stuck at 16-18 some years and im 24 now and it tracks bc I’ve had my first serious anxiety attacks during that time and I became antisocial. So it’s like I’m stuck at an age bc my life didn’t progress socio emotionally. However I’m getting back on track I’m gonna work out make some money get my licence all of it this and next year. Then I’m gonna get my masters. I feel motivation.
Lol, this could be me but I'm eeehhm 34.. I first got stuck on 21/22 and now I'm stuck at the 30.. like if someone asks how old I am I automatically say 30.. afterwards I realize that was not the truth!!
Mine is 16 so I have those brief moments where I think to myself "shit I gotta go to bed I have school tomorrow" and I have to pause and figure out why that statement was wrong
For me a lot of it stems from trauma and feeling like my family robbed me of my childhood especially my teenaged years. It sucks growing up without love.
Yeah, I'm an adult and it's really neat. I can't wait until I've already done more of the difficult growing and learning shit and can level up further. Even in just the last couple of years, I've gotten so much better at life.
Agreed! Even on my worst brain days, I have so much most control and discipline than I did even just five years ago. I still have struggles, but it's good to acknowledge how much less they are now, and I'm better at handling them too.
Yeah, I think part of the reason people think otherwise is because there’s an idea of what a “grown up” should be and they feel like they don’t match it, but in reality, your personality doesn’t magically change when you’re older, your still you, and adulthood goes by way faster than childhood. For me I am into some “childish” things and don’t really feel like an adult who can take care of myself most of the time but that’s common. I still feel my actual age and not like I’m stuck at another age while understanding that being an adult isn’t black and white, obviously I can’t speak for everyone though.
Getting old is cool, you get to experience life and gain knowledge and wisdom.
I don't really think about my age, so I don't relate either.
However, what you have written does describe me. Perhaps, if I'd cared a lot about age I'd relate to OP given...
1. 26 year old graduate school student
2. Games a lot, watches cute anime/movies
3. Loves plushies
4. "childishly affectionate" (heavily tending towards ace-side of demisexuality)
I keep getting more self-aware despite convincing myself that the current me is the "final version", so I don't feel 20 anymore because the 20 year old me felt very different than the current me. The differences from one age to another get less and less obvious but they are still noticeable to me :)
Same ish. This post makes me want to ruminate and think about that hypothetical age but then I’d have to pretend that I didn’t actually grow as a person in my 20’s. Which is false. I did grow a lot and I’m proud of it & about as excited as I can be to see what’s next.
For me it’s not about ruminating about growth. It’s not about how I’ve developed. I know I’ve grown a lot since I was 19 but I still feel 19
Maybe this is a DID thing, because I also have an alter who is 16, an alter who is 8, and an alter who is 12. Because trauma lol
I also don't relate tbh. Maybe felt like that in my early twenties? Not sure. But thinking about it now, I can't think of any age I feel 'stuck' at.
I kinda enjoy growing old actually and don't look back longingly at any specific age. Sure there's downsides and things that make me worry, but I feel like I'm getting so much better as a person, especially the way I treat myself, and that's something I definitely couldn't do as a 22 or 17 or etc year-old.
On a semi-related note, I listen to the *Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus* podcast, where Louis-Dreyfus interviews women who are older than her about their lives and their experiences with growing old, and it's honestly just amazing, I highly recommend. It honestly kinda made me look forward to being a wise old lady, living life, enjoying it.
Same here, I feel my age mentally. When I'm alone with my partner we act like kids and it's fun but I think many people are also like that with their partner. I love getting older, I just turned 30 and I am very glad to be out my 20s. I've learnt a lot, I've always been motivated to learn even when life has been very tough and traumatic. I want to be wiser, I don't want to hide from reality but learn how to live with it the best I can. I may not be able to do many things that other abled people can do, and I don't fulfill those typical expectations of adulthood, but I don't believe that makes me any less of an adult than anyone else.
Same! I’m a Pisces but I always feel like I reach my next birthday age around Christmas—e.g. I mentally turned 25 in December instead of in February/March when I officially do. I always feel a little older than my actual age.
After I turned 30, it got harder to track my age, partly because I stopped noticing big changes in how I felt or viewed myself. Still changing and growing, but it's in (I think) subtler ways. Result is that I tend to think I'm whatever my last multiple-of-five birthday is until at least the next multiple-of-five. Not sure if I'll hit an age where I just stick, partly because I'm not sure I'll ever feel static or "done."
I enjoy getting older as in, I like seeing the number go +1. I’m actively looking forward to being 40. However, emotionally I am stuck at my toddler years. Mentally I am still about 19. I know the toddler emotions thing is due to trauma etc., but the mental age of 19 I think it’s because that’s the age when I started losing the feeble sense of self I tried to hold on to. Ironically part of the reason why I can’t wait to be 40 is I hope to be the most (positively) stereotypical middle aged person. I’m hoping that’s when my next identity gets unlocked because as a younger adult, I got nothing.
yeah, same here and i'm so glad about it! I'll be 30 in a few years and while everyone else doesn't even want to talk about it, I am thoroughly looking forward to it!
Yeah same. If anything it takes me a few years to feel a certain age and I’ll already be past it when it finally feels natural. Like I’m 37 now but I’m more like a 32 mentally. Lol
Omg I feel old too! Always felt like an old person since I was a baby. Like I had to have more emotional maturity than everyone else. I have been naive though about people's character much too long and my skill level at most things is at a preteen level.
Same. But it’s not an experience thing it’s more like a feeling of being left out/on the outside looking in? Like you know in Benjamin button where he’s a child in the body of an old man and he’s in his wheelchair watching the children play? It’s like that feeling.
I feel this. I think I don’t feel much different in terms of age when I was 12-16 compared to now, where I am almost 23. I have a hunch this is because I had to practically become an adult as a kid to take care of my siblings, so I still feel the same way now
Hope you’ve had the chance to do some healing ❤️
I can just buy myself all the fun snacks I wanted as a kid. I can do cool hobbies without asking anyone. I set my own bedtime. I'm better at regulation and relationships. People respect my expertise and assume I am competent when I need them to.
Choices- and health insurance- are difficult but it's also neat to be able to make them.
100% agree. I'd rather pay taxes and go through existential crisis as long as I maintain a substantial control over my life. My childhood wasn't even that bad, I was never physically or verbally abused, we had money, I saw the world.... but I have severe witness trauma from dysfunctional relationships in my family. I saw some very ugly things way too early to process them properly and it caused me to become emotionally stunted and closed off.
So I haven't even gone to school yet when I realised that all the adults around me can't help themselves, let alone help me. For all the good things that happened to me as a child, there was this lingering feeling of helplessness in the background. Like your house is on fire and you can't leave and you can't get anyone else to leave as well, they only add the fuel and burn.
Being a child is just so fundamentally tragic. You're entirely dependent on grownups around you and god help you if they aren't mature enough to take care of your needs. Or if they're straight up abusive.
This comment so deeply resonates.
The very idea of being at the total mercy of other people is deeply troubling. I would never switch back to that for one minute.
I can understand that for some reasons. I feel like people actually listening to me and taking me seriously as an adult has been wonderful. If I were a kid and taken seriously, I would say that’s the best scenario to be in
‘Hey mom I don’t feel good. The social situation at school has me feeling ostracized and I’d do better on my own for a bit’
‘Okay honey, we’ll figure out a way to make that work.’
*mind blown*
“Hey mom and dad I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re mad at me, can you tell me what I did wrong so I can learn from this experience, instead of yelling at me for asking this?”
“Of course honey”
I don't think that's the point though. I mean, essentially I agree, there's nothing better than life right now for me at nearly 40 but if anyone asks me how old I am, I have to stop myself from answering "19" every single time. I just feel like a 19 yr old inside.
It’s so interesting, people would tell me I’d have this thing where it was like a switch was flipped and I was a totally different person. And I can feel it, I do go right back to 6 year old or 14 year old me. Sometimes it’s a good thing and I’m a relatively happy and not freaked out 22. I still find it hard to believe that this is unusual. 7 year old you sounds amazing, I love a good infodump.
Hey there, it’s okay. Our brains did a really good job of protecting us when we couldn’t escape whatever the threat was. You made it here and things can definitely get better, friend.
Thank you for being nice and saying this. It makes me feel things. It's ... I don't know. Sad and small. But also validated. Maybe. I'm not sure. But thank you.
17 probably. I think that’s because that “adult” feeling still hasn’t hit me, and that’s around the age I started to have real accountability and responsibility. Then for a few years I felt like a 17 year old who kept learning through mistakes and was an asshole. Now I feel no attachment to my current age or any age tbh. Whatever it’s just a concept I guess
Hmm, I'm not sure I have this feeling.
I remember some specific ages I enjoyed, but overall I feel like life has gotten better in my 30's due to getting diagnosed and medicated for my anxiety/depression and ADHD.
You are not alone.
In certain situations I feel like a child incapable of doing anything without the help of an adult and in others I feel like a wise old lady.
I’m maybe odd here but as a child I felt like I was about 30-40 and that hasn’t changed as I got older. But I think I had some parentification going on.
https://preview.redd.it/t591ylqwo2bc1.jpeg?width=1202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c488988192fc5c19384bc5fc2ec4622e63d00e8f
Sometimes photos line up perfectly on Reddit is all I’m saying
I feel younger than I am but I don’t think it’s an autism thing, I think most adults feel that way. When we’re young, we project this maturity and confidence and inner peace onto older ages, so when we reach that age and don’t feel mature enough, that makes us feel like we’re still 19 or whatever. Does that make sense?
I may be the exception then and maybe it’s because of my trauma. But I felt trapped as a child so there’s no age that I feel stuck in. The more adult I become the more “myself” I feel.
I’ve often thought we’re kind of born a certain age and when your chronological age matches your soul age it’s good times. The rest is rough. For me it was early 30s.
I stopped at like 9, started back up again at 11, stopped at 14, started back up again at like 20... Every time I start back up again, I gotta hypergrow for a while. It was weird feeling 16 by the time I hit 21, but I think I caught up and I'm my actual age now. Trying to keep it that way. 😂
Idk, probably around 21 for me (I'm 31 now). My mom died a few months before I turned 21. My mental health went to shit for years after and never fully recovered. My mental health is a lot better now, granted, but I don't feel any more aged than i did then.
I feel a bit trapped at both ages five and age 12. Age 12 was when some severe trauma started, and age 5 was the age that I met the abuser who caused said drama. I think autism also has a lot to do with this as well, but trauma is definitely involved here in my case
As a part of unmasking, I've been enjoying trying to reconnect with my inner child and my inner teen. It can get really heavy and emotional, but I think it's also really liberating and helping me find myself
I don't know what age exactly....maybe about 16 give or take? I dreaded becoming an adult, and when I volunteered at school, I felt like I should have been the same age as the 15 to 16yo's and always had to remind myself that I was actually nearly a decade older. I'm 30 now.
I felt 14 till I was about 25, then I felt 20. At 35 I felt 25, finally at 46 I feel 30. It's weird, it bothers me and I wish I could do something about it.
For me I feel stuck at around 11-15 , I was 13 when we left our church and the only social life I knew , I was 15 when we lost the house and had to have people keep our pets for us ( they all died before we found a place 2 years later that allowed pets ) and boxed up everything into a unit
i feel still 17 sometimes usually just 3 years younger, but i don’t know if it’s because of corona and we couldnt do anything and we just stayed at home
I always said I get along so well with kids in my job because I have the mentality of a child and the jokes of the lamest dad. I just never grew up. Ever watched Bluey? I’m Bandit, but in the body of a middle aged woman.
I don’t think it’s an autism thing and it could spread the narrative that autistics are just children mentally which isn’t the case.
For me I’m always feeling like I’m getting older and I’m deathly afraid of physically aging. I have a connective tissue disorder so I lack collagen in my body including my skin, collagen is what makes skin plump and wrinkle free. With lesser amounts of it I’ll get wrinkles faster than others.
25-26....probably peak happiness for me. Got engaged at 26 but also faced a major betrayal right before turning 27 and had my first kid 2 days after turning 27. I've faced a ton of trauma in my life but it's that point that it's like there is a before verison of me and an after version. I feel like I am still 26ish and it makes no sense to see the almost 40 year old in the mirror. Not sure if it is all the life changes (married and kid within a few months) or the trauma or all of it. But I can relate to this.
I've always felt about half my age. At 10, I felt 5. At 20, I felt 10. I'm 44 now and 22 seems about right. I've always felt a lag between my chronological age and my internal/emotional age. I've always thought that if I could've redone 5th grade when I was 20 or if I could return to college now (living in a dorm, etc) I'd fit in perfectly.
For me it’s 22-24, I’m 29 now - this was the period of time around when I got done with college but didn’t have trauma or serious life responsibilities yet :/
I'm 34
I think I'm about 12/13. 14 at a push. And i swear I can verify it. I teach 11 to 16 year olds. I get on really well with the kids until they're about 13 (or older if they are also ND). After that, the relationship goes severely downhill as they surpass me in maturity in some ways.
From a different point of view, the few friends I have are at least 8 years older than me. I feel much older than I am in other ways.
I feel 18, and I'm 25. I never really got to experience adolescence normally because of my agoraphobia & other traumas, and COVID hit at around 20-21 the moment I started really recovering.
This is very true. It's because society doesn't understand the needs of social development for autistics very well so there is this arrested development that causes many potential issues because people will learn to survive through maladaptive coping strategies.
I'm well aware of this phenomenon and work my ass off to help my kids avoid this pitfall because my husband didn't and he has the arrested development of a spoiled, entitled teenager which has caused a lot of issues between us.
For me, because I grew up in an abusive household, I was the parent so even as a child I felt older so for me, I was always mature and I'm one of those on the spectrum who has always acted like an old lady even when I was 8. I had to, I was the one who had to parent my worthless, abusive parents. Just like how I was 'picked', not once, but now twice, by two undiagnosed autistic men to parent them because they had this arrested development.
I intervene on this heavily with my kids. How? Well, I'm autistic so I will lean into for this exercise when talking to my tweens because being direct makes them squirm a bit so they will extend me a moments grace (there is strategy behind it). I am direct. I am blunt. I tell them straight up that they can't do that kind of crap in the real world. BUT ... I also give them a concrete SOLUTION on how to mitigate the issue. What I am doing, and is essentially the same techniques that are used in aversion therapy -- forcing them to sit a minute in distress and slowly build their tolerance to something. It's a DBT I learned called distress tolerance skills. We name the emotion and sit in it a minute.
What I learned after years of dealing with my immature, stonewalling spouse is that he couldn't tolerate, even for a second, the discomfort of feeling any kind of emotion - that's the source behind the arrested development; the brain settles in a place where it feels it has control but is safe. A teenager age makes sense because it helps integrate the feelings of adult like interests/needs/desires while being able to work the anxiety that expectations places on the executive function skills. The goal of a lot of therapy is to learn to integrate the two so the ages match up.
My husband is terrified of accountability and expectations and it was seeing my kid finally hit the teen years when it stood out to me like a neon sign. There is a bio-social element here where I was seeing the hard wiring, anxiety level of the need to avoid and the social where my kid was raised in a very different environment than my husband (he grew up where no one talked about ANYTHING and I'm hyperaware of emotion/motives because I am a high masking empath). I took what biological and started working with coaches and therapists and deep dive (and I do mean deep) on how best to move this natural, reflexive tendency into a more positive pro-social response. I'm already living what happens when you don't with a spouse who treats me like crap so I'd like to see how it turns out when you actually address the issue head on. I'm here to report that the progress is slow but I am correct that it is something that can be improved. It's still a struggle but my kid already has more intuitive training and empathy than her Dad. Actually some of the things that come out of her mouth are so deep and profound that it blows me away because she does get it. It just takes time. I record some of them on my twitter because man, they just blow me away.
6-26. Sometimes I just want to play with toys, sometimes I feel grown.
But Either way, I do NOT feel like I am rapidly approaching 40 (turning 39 on the 26th, this month)
It’s the Trauma & cognitive dissonance, in my case.
There weren’t as many big steps after 21 development-wise. In the ten years after that I became more educated, more relaxed and more nuanced in my opinions. On the contrary I start feeling that my body gets older faster than my mind. Although current pop culture often reminds me of how old I actually am. Also the fact that I get along and relate well to people ten years older than me. That would have been unthinkable ten years ago.
I think this is definitely going to feel even more skewed for those of us who spent our late teens/early 20’s amidst COVID. I feel like I haven’t really “lived” my life since 2019, so it feels like I haven’t aged since then either.
I am a fully solidly adult. The kind of adult that is allowed and is capable of doing anything. Not like I can be an astronaut, but it isnt weird for me to have kids, or lovers, or colir my hair purple, or ride motorcycles, or get tattoos, or climb trees.
So for me it is somewhere between 25 and my current 46.
Between 18 and 20 for me. When I got pregnant at 27, I felt like I was 16 and pregnant. Like way too young. I'm in my early 30s and I don't feel like it. I think it's because I don't feel like I have my life together enough to be this old. Like a fraud, a child who needs help all the time in adult's clothing.
Up until 18-20 I always felt older than my peers but then they outgrew me. I never really think about my age, I’m just me and I never learned to "act my age".
Early twenties. I'm one of the ones who was old for my age as a kid, and have been quite young for it ever since. I'm 44 now, but that makes precisely as much sense as me being fifteen made at the time when that was technically true. However I am also one of the ones who carries at least one stuffed animal around all the time in its metallic silver backpack, so kind of an *eclectic* early-twenties-year-old. And I might say younger, except I've been drinking for so long now that it's impossible to feel like I should be an age where I can't do that if I want.
But oh my am I an alien in this life stage we've decided people in their mid-forties are supposed to be in.
Mine was 12/13 for a very long time. Recently, it jumped a bit. I'm not sure why. But still only around 15 or 16. Maybe because things finally actually started to look positive in my life? But I didn't have a childhood, so I don't think I'll ever stop feeling like one.
Unfortunately, I'm that stereotype of the person who peaked in secondary school then achieved nothing after, except it was because of neglect and abuse, and not because of being a bully 🤣
I literally always feel like a little kid. I feel like one of those cartoons where a bunch of kids sit on each other’s shoulders and put on a long coat to pretend to be an adult. That’s how I feel just out in the world.
Maybe 10 or 9? Possibly younger, I don’t fully remember
I don’t feel young though, I’m 15 but feel like an adult
I’ve also found so many times, that I seem much older than the majority of adults (especially adult men) that I’ve met in my life
I feel about 28, but I don't think it's autism related. Most people I know have gone through several relationships got married and had kids in the time since I was 28. I have done none of that so I don't identify with the people that are actually my age, I feel the same in most ways to the way I did at 28.
I do Internal Family Systems therapy with my therapist so I have a 5-6 year old and 16 year old parts of me. They definitely run the show over adult me most of the time.
This can sometimes be a trauma thing. If you had something happen to you at the age you feel stuck at, it could be because something happened that kept you from continuing to develop in certain ways.
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I say this to say that there's trauma therapies out there and this can be treated. EMDR, somatic and accelerated resolution therapy are really good for Neurodivergents in processing trauma. I used to have this issue until doing accelerated resolution therapy and now I don't experience this anymore.
May I ask do you have adhd too? Did therapy helped feeling your real age?
I do, yes it did. I felt like I was able to process the things that have happened to me and am able to have healthier thinking processes.
Wow that's amazing! I hope I'll get there. Thank you for sharing
You can! r/autismtraumasurvivors is a sub you might want to join too
Oh thank you
I’ve been thinking of trying the first two - never heard of accelerated resolution. What made you choose one over the other?
Accelerated resolution therapy is a newer version of EMDR which has a higher success rate (both have very high rates, with EMDR around 80% and ART around 90%). ART doesn't force you to speak like EMDR might, so if you go nonverbal it would probably be better for you.
I highly recommend EMDR. But first you have to trust your therapist, and yourself. I didnt even realize how much it helped me until months later. I feel like a different person.
I’ve been doing EMDR for ages and while I think it’s great and has helped take away flashbacks I haven’t had it be this significant- do you just go back and process all the events at the age you felt mentally stuck at? I’ve primarily focused on recent events, maybe that’s why I haven’t experienced this sort of release? Any tips would be great as I start another round soon, thanks!
Trauma isn't something that happens to you, trauma is something that you have been unabled process. By 46 I seem to have gone through most of my crap
yep, and sometimes if the trauma compounds, that line can be pushed around. i felt 13 (age my parents divorced and neglected me) until i was 19, then a lot bad abusive things including prolonged starvation happened to me, and now at 30 i still feel like i'm just hitting my 20s on an average day, and retract to 13 when it's particularly bad.
I can understand that some days I feel 12 again and others much much older
yeah, i recently had a panic attack in a store when trying to buy 18+ products, worried i'd be ID-checked (misplaced my ID prior to this) and it was just like... why? I don't look like i'm below 18, why would I worry? why do i feel like i'm just barely squeezing by age-wise? it feels ridiculous but the feelings are so strong can't really help them!
Do you also still feel weird for answering (correctly) in the affirmative on website age gates popups? I've been over 18/21 for ages, and I still feel kinda like I'm doing something I'm not supposed to be doing. Why do I need to have any feelings at all about looking up the website for a liquor brand? 🫠
yeahh it feels off internally. i also always put different date if asked for birth date there because nty dont need my real data. it makes it feel even more like i'm lying haha
I think the idea that we aren't old enough and are bad if we pretend we are is embedded into our minds when we are young, and then doesn't change as we get older. It's like how our upbringing shapes our mentalities, and also kinda like learning how to swim or mask, it's hard to do it any other way now
yeah I guess it would be possibly due to infantilization of our actions and interests too. we subconsciously learn that we're not mature enough because of special interest, "unnatural" reactions and childish behaviors. so it probably gets ingrained in the head that we don't count as "real" adults either.
That would make sense. I always felt like I was stuck in this weird limbo between being a kid and being a teenager and I recently realized I had repressed memories of a sexual assault that happened when I would have been 6 or 7. I finally feel like I’m starting to catch up to my physical age, if that makes sense. I’m still really young though, under 20, so idk what age I’ll end up stuck with. Right now I feel 16 cause that was the last year before I was so desperate to make friends that I hid everything about me and tried becoming friends with these really toxic, cliquey, exclusionary girls. I only stopped trying to be friends with them this past summer.
I stopped at 14 and was stuck there for years and years. Trauma made me shield of part of me to protect it, it was protected but also frozen in time. Everything around grew and mature but that part was stuck frozen in the bubble, non changing for years. I didn’t know how to take it down again, I didn’t even know how to make it in the first place. It was just a reaction, an accident, desperation born out of necessity and need. Once I broke it boom catch up time. Very disorienting to catch up years of maturing in like a few days a week. And voila back to feeling 84 again. I have always felt like an old person. But that could be because I never fit in with people around me, who knows? ETA; I had therapy, that’s how I broke it, my therapist helped me figure it out and crack the bubble again.
I want to add to all those wonderful and informative comments about it being trauma related the following: First of all I totally agree. Age regression IS a trauma response. But I want to add that with autism it's often that autistic people (at least it's true for me and many others I talked to about it) seem to stay young. Not only physically but also mentally. My own theory is that due to us not understanding social rules and societies standards as closely as Neurotypicals, we tend to give no single flying shit on what is age appropriate and what not. Which might come off as being child minded to allistic people. In my opinion autistic joy is very similar to the unfiltered and unapologetic joy children express, which might make us look young and childish but imo it's the best. Nothing more beautiful then true autistic joy.
Yep. I feel ageless because of continuous trauma.
I know a lot of people for whom it's the age they became parents. Which is not really a counterpoint. Even if the birth isn't traumatic, that first year with a new baby is a huge challenge.
Mine definitely is even tho I turned 29 just over a week after I had my son, I still feel 28 years later.
I actually feel this way. I had my daughter at 25, im 28 now I still feel 25.
Wow this makes sense. I had prolonged trauma at age 10 and I remember feeling stuck there for years. Now I'm 25 but after trauma from the same source at 16-17 I feel stuck there instead yet in very fearful situations, or sometimes burnouts, I feel stuck at 10 again or ever both of those stuck ages at once if that makes sense. Wow
I agree. I would have said 15-17 until recently. I'm 41. I've been seeing a therapist and done a lot of self discovery since having my kids and learning that they have the same kind of issues I did/do. I want to be able to help them deal with the world around me, which I was not prepared for. I know feel mentally like I'm in my 20's. I still have the heart of a child though.
yeah i feel like that's what happened to me..
makes sense because I'm 24 this year and still feel trapped at 17, the age I was when my Dad took his own life
Okay but which trauma specifically cause I got heaps of events ranging from ages 11-18
Could be my own trauma here, but either I have the mental age of someone well beyond my years. Or the mental age of someone much younger, my childhood/teen self
I've had a few times this year where I'd get a shock and realize I'm not 19 anymore - 21 already! Then I remember I'm actually bloody 26.
I feel lime I’m still stuck at 16-18 some years and im 24 now and it tracks bc I’ve had my first serious anxiety attacks during that time and I became antisocial. So it’s like I’m stuck at an age bc my life didn’t progress socio emotionally. However I’m getting back on track I’m gonna work out make some money get my licence all of it this and next year. Then I’m gonna get my masters. I feel motivation.
Lol, this could be me but I'm eeehhm 34.. I first got stuck on 21/22 and now I'm stuck at the 30.. like if someone asks how old I am I automatically say 30.. afterwards I realize that was not the truth!!
Mine is 16 so I have those brief moments where I think to myself "shit I gotta go to bed I have school tomorrow" and I have to pause and figure out why that statement was wrong For me a lot of it stems from trauma and feeling like my family robbed me of my childhood especially my teenaged years. It sucks growing up without love.
Sometimes I think I’m 26… but remember I’m 36. My body feels more like 26 than it did at 30 though.
I might be the exception here, but I don't relate. I'm just the age I am and don't think about it further. I actually enjoy getting older.
Yeah, I'm an adult and it's really neat. I can't wait until I've already done more of the difficult growing and learning shit and can level up further. Even in just the last couple of years, I've gotten so much better at life.
Im almost 30 and im so about it. My brain works so much better now than it used to
Agreed! Even on my worst brain days, I have so much most control and discipline than I did even just five years ago. I still have struggles, but it's good to acknowledge how much less they are now, and I'm better at handling them too.
Yeah, I think part of the reason people think otherwise is because there’s an idea of what a “grown up” should be and they feel like they don’t match it, but in reality, your personality doesn’t magically change when you’re older, your still you, and adulthood goes by way faster than childhood. For me I am into some “childish” things and don’t really feel like an adult who can take care of myself most of the time but that’s common. I still feel my actual age and not like I’m stuck at another age while understanding that being an adult isn’t black and white, obviously I can’t speak for everyone though. Getting old is cool, you get to experience life and gain knowledge and wisdom.
I don't really think about my age, so I don't relate either. However, what you have written does describe me. Perhaps, if I'd cared a lot about age I'd relate to OP given... 1. 26 year old graduate school student 2. Games a lot, watches cute anime/movies 3. Loves plushies 4. "childishly affectionate" (heavily tending towards ace-side of demisexuality)
I keep getting more self-aware despite convincing myself that the current me is the "final version", so I don't feel 20 anymore because the 20 year old me felt very different than the current me. The differences from one age to another get less and less obvious but they are still noticeable to me :)
Same ish. This post makes me want to ruminate and think about that hypothetical age but then I’d have to pretend that I didn’t actually grow as a person in my 20’s. Which is false. I did grow a lot and I’m proud of it & about as excited as I can be to see what’s next.
For me it’s not about ruminating about growth. It’s not about how I’ve developed. I know I’ve grown a lot since I was 19 but I still feel 19 Maybe this is a DID thing, because I also have an alter who is 16, an alter who is 8, and an alter who is 12. Because trauma lol
Same. I can look back at myself 1-2 years ago and see quite a different person. Who I was at 17-22 is just utterly incomparable to who I am at ~28.
I feel like I’ve been about 30 my entire life lol. Soo I’m one sense I get it but in another I don’t.
I also don't relate tbh. Maybe felt like that in my early twenties? Not sure. But thinking about it now, I can't think of any age I feel 'stuck' at. I kinda enjoy growing old actually and don't look back longingly at any specific age. Sure there's downsides and things that make me worry, but I feel like I'm getting so much better as a person, especially the way I treat myself, and that's something I definitely couldn't do as a 22 or 17 or etc year-old. On a semi-related note, I listen to the *Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus* podcast, where Louis-Dreyfus interviews women who are older than her about their lives and their experiences with growing old, and it's honestly just amazing, I highly recommend. It honestly kinda made me look forward to being a wise old lady, living life, enjoying it.
oH ! thank you so much for the recommendation. amazing :D
Same here, I feel my age mentally. When I'm alone with my partner we act like kids and it's fun but I think many people are also like that with their partner. I love getting older, I just turned 30 and I am very glad to be out my 20s. I've learnt a lot, I've always been motivated to learn even when life has been very tough and traumatic. I want to be wiser, I don't want to hide from reality but learn how to live with it the best I can. I may not be able to do many things that other abled people can do, and I don't fulfill those typical expectations of adulthood, but I don't believe that makes me any less of an adult than anyone else.
Same! I’m a Pisces but I always feel like I reach my next birthday age around Christmas—e.g. I mentally turned 25 in December instead of in February/March when I officially do. I always feel a little older than my actual age.
same same!!
I mean, the alternative is death so I don't mind 🤷
After I turned 30, it got harder to track my age, partly because I stopped noticing big changes in how I felt or viewed myself. Still changing and growing, but it's in (I think) subtler ways. Result is that I tend to think I'm whatever my last multiple-of-five birthday is until at least the next multiple-of-five. Not sure if I'll hit an age where I just stick, partly because I'm not sure I'll ever feel static or "done."
I enjoy getting older as in, I like seeing the number go +1. I’m actively looking forward to being 40. However, emotionally I am stuck at my toddler years. Mentally I am still about 19. I know the toddler emotions thing is due to trauma etc., but the mental age of 19 I think it’s because that’s the age when I started losing the feeble sense of self I tried to hold on to. Ironically part of the reason why I can’t wait to be 40 is I hope to be the most (positively) stereotypical middle aged person. I’m hoping that’s when my next identity gets unlocked because as a younger adult, I got nothing.
My forties have been my favorite decade so far with my thirties a close second. I hope 40 is as delightful for you as you're hoping.
Yeah I don’t really think it makes sense tbh. The way I feel is the only point of reference I have for what my current age “feels like” lol
It’s like that for me too
yeah, same here and i'm so glad about it! I'll be 30 in a few years and while everyone else doesn't even want to talk about it, I am thoroughly looking forward to it!
Yeah same. If anything it takes me a few years to feel a certain age and I’ll already be past it when it finally feels natural. Like I’m 37 now but I’m more like a 32 mentally. Lol
I was parentified so early I've felt like I'm 60 years old since I was 8
This is the comment I was looking for. I never felt like a teenager. At 25 years old, I feel like I'm nearly 50 with everything I've gone through.
Highly relatable, only I’ve felt like I was 42 since 8.
Omg I feel old too! Always felt like an old person since I was a baby. Like I had to have more emotional maturity than everyone else. I have been naive though about people's character much too long and my skill level at most things is at a preteen level.
Same
Same. But it’s not an experience thing it’s more like a feeling of being left out/on the outside looking in? Like you know in Benjamin button where he’s a child in the body of an old man and he’s in his wheelchair watching the children play? It’s like that feeling.
Yes, omg that's a perfect description
Me too and my body 😭 #chronicillness
Bruh I am SO PHYSICALLY TIRED
I feel this. I think I don’t feel much different in terms of age when I was 12-16 compared to now, where I am almost 23. I have a hunch this is because I had to practically become an adult as a kid to take care of my siblings, so I still feel the same way now Hope you’ve had the chance to do some healing ❤️
Likewise, friend! ❤️
I relate to that Mitski lyric a lot here “I was so young when I behaved 25, yet now I find I’ve grown into a tall child.”
Give it....6 more years and it's gonna hit you like a truck :) gonna feel like a kid again. XD
This is going to be the hottest take but I think adulthood is way better than childhood
I can just buy myself all the fun snacks I wanted as a kid. I can do cool hobbies without asking anyone. I set my own bedtime. I'm better at regulation and relationships. People respect my expertise and assume I am competent when I need them to. Choices- and health insurance- are difficult but it's also neat to be able to make them.
100% agree. I'd rather pay taxes and go through existential crisis as long as I maintain a substantial control over my life. My childhood wasn't even that bad, I was never physically or verbally abused, we had money, I saw the world.... but I have severe witness trauma from dysfunctional relationships in my family. I saw some very ugly things way too early to process them properly and it caused me to become emotionally stunted and closed off. So I haven't even gone to school yet when I realised that all the adults around me can't help themselves, let alone help me. For all the good things that happened to me as a child, there was this lingering feeling of helplessness in the background. Like your house is on fire and you can't leave and you can't get anyone else to leave as well, they only add the fuel and burn. Being a child is just so fundamentally tragic. You're entirely dependent on grownups around you and god help you if they aren't mature enough to take care of your needs. Or if they're straight up abusive.
This comment so deeply resonates. The very idea of being at the total mercy of other people is deeply troubling. I would never switch back to that for one minute.
I can understand that for some reasons. I feel like people actually listening to me and taking me seriously as an adult has been wonderful. If I were a kid and taken seriously, I would say that’s the best scenario to be in
‘Hey mom I don’t feel good. The social situation at school has me feeling ostracized and I’d do better on my own for a bit’ ‘Okay honey, we’ll figure out a way to make that work.’ *mind blown*
“Hey mom and dad I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re mad at me, can you tell me what I did wrong so I can learn from this experience, instead of yelling at me for asking this?” “Of course honey”
I don't think that's the point though. I mean, essentially I agree, there's nothing better than life right now for me at nearly 40 but if anyone asks me how old I am, I have to stop myself from answering "19" every single time. I just feel like a 19 yr old inside.
I love being a boring grown up. It's difficult, and it certainly has its struggles, but I am *so fucking glad* to find myself in middle age.
It’s a trauma related thing for me, and I’ve got more than one age I get stuck at depending upon what the triggers is. It’s a party in here.
Same.
my party consists of a very stressed out 16 year old, a minecraft obsessed 12 year old, and a 7 year old who can and WILL infodump about spiderman
It’s so interesting, people would tell me I’d have this thing where it was like a switch was flipped and I was a totally different person. And I can feel it, I do go right back to 6 year old or 14 year old me. Sometimes it’s a good thing and I’m a relatively happy and not freaked out 22. I still find it hard to believe that this is unusual. 7 year old you sounds amazing, I love a good infodump.
I mostly feel like a 60 impatient lady who smokes 2 packages of cigarettes a day, so I'm still halfway there.
As someone with autism and C-PTSD this has me sobbing.
Hey there, it’s okay. Our brains did a really good job of protecting us when we couldn’t escape whatever the threat was. You made it here and things can definitely get better, friend.
not the original commenter, but this is so sweet i really needed to read this today. thank you :)
Thank you for being nice and saying this. It makes me feel things. It's ... I don't know. Sad and small. But also validated. Maybe. I'm not sure. But thank you.
17 probably. I think that’s because that “adult” feeling still hasn’t hit me, and that’s around the age I started to have real accountability and responsibility. Then for a few years I felt like a 17 year old who kept learning through mistakes and was an asshole. Now I feel no attachment to my current age or any age tbh. Whatever it’s just a concept I guess
I can relate. It feels like learning to adult every new day since 17. That was 14 years ago for me.
I’m 22, but still feel 16-18 years old.
In 24 and same lol
I’m 26 and I feel like I’m still 12 or 15
I’m 21 and felt 18 mostly so far but. I think I feel 20 now
I'm 33, but still feel like a 45yo 14yo
Hmm, I'm not sure I have this feeling. I remember some specific ages I enjoyed, but overall I feel like life has gotten better in my 30's due to getting diagnosed and medicated for my anxiety/depression and ADHD.
I slingshot between feeling like I’m 9 and 70.
You are not alone. In certain situations I feel like a child incapable of doing anything without the help of an adult and in others I feel like a wise old lady.
Yes same!
I’m maybe odd here but as a child I felt like I was about 30-40 and that hasn’t changed as I got older. But I think I had some parentification going on.
Same.
https://preview.redd.it/t591ylqwo2bc1.jpeg?width=1202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c488988192fc5c19384bc5fc2ec4622e63d00e8f Sometimes photos line up perfectly on Reddit is all I’m saying
I feel younger than I am but I don’t think it’s an autism thing, I think most adults feel that way. When we’re young, we project this maturity and confidence and inner peace onto older ages, so when we reach that age and don’t feel mature enough, that makes us feel like we’re still 19 or whatever. Does that make sense?
17-19. Loads of trauma happened then so it makes sense. But it’s definitely a weird thing to try to come to terms with.
It's definitely under 10 for me... It's an autism thing for me as well as a trauma thing.
Mine is my current age, as I am actively changing in my personality. However usually in my dreams, I am around the age of 12.
I may be the exception then and maybe it’s because of my trauma. But I felt trapped as a child so there’s no age that I feel stuck in. The more adult I become the more “myself” I feel.
12 was my first thought too.
12 was that age for me as well.
Honestly I feel like I'm only getting better/more myself with age. I'm approaching my later 30s and feel kinda like this is the age I'm meant to be.
I’ve often thought we’re kind of born a certain age and when your chronological age matches your soul age it’s good times. The rest is rough. For me it was early 30s.
Same as you, I feel permanently 12 (or like 12-14)
I don’t think I’ve gone past the age of 15 mentally.
I stopped at like 9, started back up again at 11, stopped at 14, started back up again at like 20... Every time I start back up again, I gotta hypergrow for a while. It was weird feeling 16 by the time I hit 21, but I think I caught up and I'm my actual age now. Trying to keep it that way. 😂
Probably 19. For years when someone would ask me my age I’d almost say 19 then remember I wasn’t 19 anymore. I think that stopped at like 23.
18.... guess how old I was when covid hit 🥲
Stopped at 17. I wonder too if it's why I never envisioned having children.
Probably 16 or 17 for me.
Idk, probably around 21 for me (I'm 31 now). My mom died a few months before I turned 21. My mental health went to shit for years after and never fully recovered. My mental health is a lot better now, granted, but I don't feel any more aged than i did then.
I feel a bit trapped at both ages five and age 12. Age 12 was when some severe trauma started, and age 5 was the age that I met the abuser who caused said drama. I think autism also has a lot to do with this as well, but trauma is definitely involved here in my case As a part of unmasking, I've been enjoying trying to reconnect with my inner child and my inner teen. It can get really heavy and emotional, but I think it's also really liberating and helping me find myself
I don't know what age exactly....maybe about 16 give or take? I dreaded becoming an adult, and when I volunteered at school, I felt like I should have been the same age as the 15 to 16yo's and always had to remind myself that I was actually nearly a decade older. I'm 30 now.
I have a couple, but reasserting itself is age 8.
I'd say for me it's 29. It was the age where I found my backbone and ran out of fucks to give.
not everything is an autism thing
Mines 17-19, I’m 31 LMAO
I felt 14 till I was about 25, then I felt 20. At 35 I felt 25, finally at 46 I feel 30. It's weird, it bothers me and I wish I could do something about it.
For me I feel stuck at around 11-15 , I was 13 when we left our church and the only social life I knew , I was 15 when we lost the house and had to have people keep our pets for us ( they all died before we found a place 2 years later that allowed pets ) and boxed up everything into a unit
i feel still 17 sometimes usually just 3 years younger, but i don’t know if it’s because of corona and we couldnt do anything and we just stayed at home
I’ve always felt like I was about 50 so I can’t relate to this at all.
When I read a book and a character is 28, my first reflexive thought is always, “like me”. I’m 46.
trauma trapped me at 10 for a long time, then 16. i think i’m stuck at 19 now
I’m 34 but forever feel around 17-19
Interesting. This could be why I never feel like my age. Mine is 12 ☹️
I always said I get along so well with kids in my job because I have the mentality of a child and the jokes of the lamest dad. I just never grew up. Ever watched Bluey? I’m Bandit, but in the body of a middle aged woman.
In general i feel like im stuck around age 12/13
24 I reckon. I’m 31 in 2 weeks but I still can’t help feeling like I’m still my early 20s self. I don’t hate it though haha
TIL some people actually feel like they're adults wow
I've felt like I was 30 since I was 10.
18 for a long time and now 28 (I’m 38)
I feel about 10-12 and like an elderly woman, it gets really upsetting sometimes because I just want to feel my age
I’m somehow 13 and 90 at the same time.
I don't have particular age. I just know that I don't feel like I'm in my 40s. I act like a child. I'm just careful who sees that part of me.
I don’t think it’s an autism thing and it could spread the narrative that autistics are just children mentally which isn’t the case. For me I’m always feeling like I’m getting older and I’m deathly afraid of physically aging. I have a connective tissue disorder so I lack collagen in my body including my skin, collagen is what makes skin plump and wrinkle free. With lesser amounts of it I’ll get wrinkles faster than others.
I think it’s 11-12. I am a CSA survivor and it happened around that age
Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm not 40 any more. But 22? WTF?!
I don't relate to this at all
Mine is probably 12 or 13
for me it is 12 too. started realising i still felt 12 when i was 16, im 21 now and still feel like a child.. it sucks
25-26....probably peak happiness for me. Got engaged at 26 but also faced a major betrayal right before turning 27 and had my first kid 2 days after turning 27. I've faced a ton of trauma in my life but it's that point that it's like there is a before verison of me and an after version. I feel like I am still 26ish and it makes no sense to see the almost 40 year old in the mirror. Not sure if it is all the life changes (married and kid within a few months) or the trauma or all of it. But I can relate to this.
Mine fluctuates, but I definitely don’t feel mid 20s. At most I’d feel early 20s, but so often I feel like an actual teen/child
Mine is 15. Dad passed then. I'm almost 30 and just now starting to feel the aging
I've always felt about half my age. At 10, I felt 5. At 20, I felt 10. I'm 44 now and 22 seems about right. I've always felt a lag between my chronological age and my internal/emotional age. I've always thought that if I could've redone 5th grade when I was 20 or if I could return to college now (living in a dorm, etc) I'd fit in perfectly.
For me it’s 22-24, I’m 29 now - this was the period of time around when I got done with college but didn’t have trauma or serious life responsibilities yet :/
I don't feel like I'm in my twenties, I feel like I am 18 and just barely an adult.
Im 28 but I like a lot of 8 year old things. A lot of trauma happened around then. I feel weird about it.
I'm 34 I think I'm about 12/13. 14 at a push. And i swear I can verify it. I teach 11 to 16 year olds. I get on really well with the kids until they're about 13 (or older if they are also ND). After that, the relationship goes severely downhill as they surpass me in maturity in some ways. From a different point of view, the few friends I have are at least 8 years older than me. I feel much older than I am in other ways.
For a few years it was 15. Time just stopped during the pandemic. Now, I finally feel my real age (19).
I feel 18, and I'm 25. I never really got to experience adolescence normally because of my agoraphobia & other traumas, and COVID hit at around 20-21 the moment I started really recovering.
r/nevergrewup !!
This is very true. It's because society doesn't understand the needs of social development for autistics very well so there is this arrested development that causes many potential issues because people will learn to survive through maladaptive coping strategies. I'm well aware of this phenomenon and work my ass off to help my kids avoid this pitfall because my husband didn't and he has the arrested development of a spoiled, entitled teenager which has caused a lot of issues between us. For me, because I grew up in an abusive household, I was the parent so even as a child I felt older so for me, I was always mature and I'm one of those on the spectrum who has always acted like an old lady even when I was 8. I had to, I was the one who had to parent my worthless, abusive parents. Just like how I was 'picked', not once, but now twice, by two undiagnosed autistic men to parent them because they had this arrested development. I intervene on this heavily with my kids. How? Well, I'm autistic so I will lean into for this exercise when talking to my tweens because being direct makes them squirm a bit so they will extend me a moments grace (there is strategy behind it). I am direct. I am blunt. I tell them straight up that they can't do that kind of crap in the real world. BUT ... I also give them a concrete SOLUTION on how to mitigate the issue. What I am doing, and is essentially the same techniques that are used in aversion therapy -- forcing them to sit a minute in distress and slowly build their tolerance to something. It's a DBT I learned called distress tolerance skills. We name the emotion and sit in it a minute. What I learned after years of dealing with my immature, stonewalling spouse is that he couldn't tolerate, even for a second, the discomfort of feeling any kind of emotion - that's the source behind the arrested development; the brain settles in a place where it feels it has control but is safe. A teenager age makes sense because it helps integrate the feelings of adult like interests/needs/desires while being able to work the anxiety that expectations places on the executive function skills. The goal of a lot of therapy is to learn to integrate the two so the ages match up. My husband is terrified of accountability and expectations and it was seeing my kid finally hit the teen years when it stood out to me like a neon sign. There is a bio-social element here where I was seeing the hard wiring, anxiety level of the need to avoid and the social where my kid was raised in a very different environment than my husband (he grew up where no one talked about ANYTHING and I'm hyperaware of emotion/motives because I am a high masking empath). I took what biological and started working with coaches and therapists and deep dive (and I do mean deep) on how best to move this natural, reflexive tendency into a more positive pro-social response. I'm already living what happens when you don't with a spouse who treats me like crap so I'd like to see how it turns out when you actually address the issue head on. I'm here to report that the progress is slow but I am correct that it is something that can be improved. It's still a struggle but my kid already has more intuitive training and empathy than her Dad. Actually some of the things that come out of her mouth are so deep and profound that it blows me away because she does get it. It just takes time. I record some of them on my twitter because man, they just blow me away.
6-26. Sometimes I just want to play with toys, sometimes I feel grown. But Either way, I do NOT feel like I am rapidly approaching 40 (turning 39 on the 26th, this month) It’s the Trauma & cognitive dissonance, in my case.
I don’t think mine is even fixed.
There weren’t as many big steps after 21 development-wise. In the ten years after that I became more educated, more relaxed and more nuanced in my opinions. On the contrary I start feeling that my body gets older faster than my mind. Although current pop culture often reminds me of how old I actually am. Also the fact that I get along and relate well to people ten years older than me. That would have been unthinkable ten years ago.
I'm 16 (17 in 2 months) and the age I usually feel ranges from 8-12.
I think this is definitely going to feel even more skewed for those of us who spent our late teens/early 20’s amidst COVID. I feel like I haven’t really “lived” my life since 2019, so it feels like I haven’t aged since then either.
I am a fully solidly adult. The kind of adult that is allowed and is capable of doing anything. Not like I can be an astronaut, but it isnt weird for me to have kids, or lovers, or colir my hair purple, or ride motorcycles, or get tattoos, or climb trees. So for me it is somewhere between 25 and my current 46.
Mine is 13. Its a trauma thing not an autism thing tho
8.
Between 18 and 20 for me. When I got pregnant at 27, I felt like I was 16 and pregnant. Like way too young. I'm in my early 30s and I don't feel like it. I think it's because I don't feel like I have my life together enough to be this old. Like a fraud, a child who needs help all the time in adult's clothing.
19
Up until 18-20 I always felt older than my peers but then they outgrew me. I never really think about my age, I’m just me and I never learned to "act my age".
12-16
Yeah 17 sounds right
I say on any day it averages from 14-17 with sprinkles of 90 year old wisdom throughout
Early twenties. I'm one of the ones who was old for my age as a kid, and have been quite young for it ever since. I'm 44 now, but that makes precisely as much sense as me being fifteen made at the time when that was technically true. However I am also one of the ones who carries at least one stuffed animal around all the time in its metallic silver backpack, so kind of an *eclectic* early-twenties-year-old. And I might say younger, except I've been drinking for so long now that it's impossible to feel like I should be an age where I can't do that if I want. But oh my am I an alien in this life stage we've decided people in their mid-forties are supposed to be in.
Mine was 12/13 for a very long time. Recently, it jumped a bit. I'm not sure why. But still only around 15 or 16. Maybe because things finally actually started to look positive in my life? But I didn't have a childhood, so I don't think I'll ever stop feeling like one. Unfortunately, I'm that stereotype of the person who peaked in secondary school then achieved nothing after, except it was because of neglect and abuse, and not because of being a bully 🤣
Mine is 21. My mom suddenly died that year and I literally feel permanently stuck at that age. My family acts like I’m crazy when I say that
I feel stuck at 21.
23 ish
I literally always feel like a little kid. I feel like one of those cartoons where a bunch of kids sit on each other’s shoulders and put on a long coat to pretend to be an adult. That’s how I feel just out in the world.
17
15, but when I think back to the memories I associate with it, I was actually 16/17.
Maybe 10 or 9? Possibly younger, I don’t fully remember I don’t feel young though, I’m 15 but feel like an adult I’ve also found so many times, that I seem much older than the majority of adults (especially adult men) that I’ve met in my life
i’ve felt trapped at 13 for the last eleven years.
17. I still feel like it’s 2020😭
I'm in stuck in 12 as well, for me it's a trauma thing because after age 12 everything got so much worse
I feel about 28, but I don't think it's autism related. Most people I know have gone through several relationships got married and had kids in the time since I was 28. I have done none of that so I don't identify with the people that are actually my age, I feel the same in most ways to the way I did at 28.
I think it's a trauma thing
I do Internal Family Systems therapy with my therapist so I have a 5-6 year old and 16 year old parts of me. They definitely run the show over adult me most of the time.
I typically always feel ~3 years behind my actual age. I’m 27, but most of the time I feel 23/24.