Not Growing Up Properly

Post Reply New Topic

I feel that I didn't grow up/mature properly.

I'm 47 and still like to play kiddy games. Don't get me wrong. I can pay bills, hold down a job, etc. etc. but, for example, when I finish a cigarette, I like to see how far I can flick the butt (A good backwind and height help tremendously ).

I also still like to throw stones to see how accurate I still am.

I can't think of other examples at the moment but there are many and if THIS thread ends up being popular, I'll add more examples as I remember/do them.

I always suspected that I never grew up right.

Does anyone else feel like this? Probably not!

I feel that I did mature at the average stages.

I started getting bored of nursery rhymes and preschool videos at around the age of 7, and become into watching Disney films instead, and even some PG-rated films. Then at 11 I started getting into the Simpsons, then went on to 12-rated films.

I started to avoid being seen playing imaginative games when I was about 12, unless I was playing with one of my younger cousins. I then stopped playing imaginative games and toys altogether when I was about 14. Sometimes I still did if I was with a younger cousin.

Although I do love looking at toys on the internet and thinking about all my toys I used to have as a child, I still know that if a toy was placed in front of me now, I would get bored with playing with it after a few minutes. Also I would feel silly, even if there was nobody else around to see me.

But in some ways I can be immature. I believe I have ADHD, and sometimes I can act like an excitable child (not too extreme though). And I suddenly feel I get enjoyment out of watching preschool stuff on Youtube, like Tweenies and Sooty. I still love the Simpsons, but I don't consider that immature. I love teddy bears, but I know a few female adults that like to collect teddy bears, so I don't think it's immature, unless you like to play with them. And I also have gone back to listening to old children's songs, like Puff the Magic Dragon and Teddy Bear's Picnic.

I think as a kid I was so busy growing up fast and being more academically advanced for my age that I missed out on the classic kiddy stuff-- so now as an adult I do indulge those whims as often as I can.

I feel I'm the same as the OP -- I can pay bills, do my taxes, hold down a job (only just...) and be a grownup in the important ways you can't get out of, but I also feel I never really grew up and I'm still very much a kid.

I used to wonder when I was going to grow up.

Because I could wash dishes, and clean house, and not let a baby die, and make a budget, and pay bills, and hold a crappy job, and all the grownup things...

...but I still liked to play Dungeons and Dragons and skip through the woods and go on long drives for absolutely no reason and hang out with my friends.

I was, like, 25, and I thought I ought to be all serious and responsible by now.

Well, now I'm 36. I don't enjoy roleplaying anymore, I don't hang out with friends, can't remember the last time I was in the woods, and tend to b***h about having to drive more than 20 minutes to anywhere.

My idea of "fun" now consists of alcohol and finding someone more f**ked-up than me to hate on.

I guess I'm all grown up now???

Enjoy childlike pursuits like throwing rocks, flicking cigarette butts, and playing games while it lasts. Especially if you can pay bills and hold a job, there's nothing wrong with it...

...and once it's gone, it won't come back.

Playing games as an adult isn't childish, it has been affectionately called "normal." It's unhealthy for grownups to not be able to enjoy little fun things or retain the ability to play. How far CAN you flick a cigarette butt? I'll bet I have a better aim.

I never really grew up myself. In many ways I feel like I'm 16, I still play video games, listen to music the kids listen to now a days and wear T-shirts & blue jeans like I did when I was younger. In other ways I'm an adult of course but in the areas it really counts I don't think I qualify. I don't do responsibility, I'm living on my own for the first time in my life (with the help of my mom). I've never ever paid a bill, I can't bring myself to walk to the laundry mat in my apartment like 40ft away so my mom does it for me. I seriously don't believe I should be living on my own but since my mom got a divorce from her 2nd husband and is living with her new boyfriend in a place I can't stand to live in I have no choice.

I often feel like I'm still a child, especially the more upset I become, as if I'm still 5. I love reading children's books much more than adult novels, too, because I feel like I relate better to them. I certainly don't feel like I'm almost 30 with two toddlers and a house and everything... It kind of scares me sometimes that I'm responsible for two little kids...

I can relate to this.
Although i have a job and am 21 already i definitely still don't fit to the adult stereotype that i learned to be the correct.
I don't drink, i don't go out on dates (and most of the time don't even want to), i don't like to talk about adult stuff (other people life, politics, sports, girls, mine and others social life and stuff like that), i don't go out every friday/saturday night and never want to, on the university i don't find any group of students that talk about things that could make me interested... There are more things that i don't remember right now.
I don't see myself as an immature person, but depending on your point of view i surely am.

I feel the same way you do
My social responses and mentality is a 5 year old's leave a lone my behaviors lol

The dominant AS learning style is autodidactic (first hand experiments, conscious observation and analysis, critical analysis of the experiments and observations made by others, ?) rather than social (intuitive and mostly subconscious copying of the behaviour of others).

Any form of experimentation involves an element of individual playfulness and creativity as opposed to social playfulness. Progress can be slow, and the journey can sometimes be as enjoyable as the resulting insights, certainly for those who have the brain wiring to notice all the subtleties and emerging patterns along the way.

Of course social learning is faster. It relies on the adoption of external belief systems without validation via explicit experience. It enables people to blend in seamlessly into the world of typical culture, leading to the notion that replacing childlike playfulness with social learning and social ?competence? is the essence of becoming a ?mature? adult.

Humans and a number of other species are capable of retaining playfulness well past the phase of physical growth. In particular the long phase of childhood and the relatively late onset of puberty seen in humans is an important motor of human creativity.

Modern education systems put a lid on the natural creativity of children, and have brought forward a focus on social learning. At the same time, in today?s environment, puberty seems to start earlier and earlier, for reasons that are not yet well understood. The net result however is a hyper-social culture and a suppression in all non-social forms of creativity.

Aspies seem to enjoy a much more extended or life-long phase of individual playfulness and creativity. Attempts to suppress this tendency may turn out to be highly detrimental to human societies overall. On the one hand people on the autistic spectrum may be more naive in the social sphere, whilst on the other hand their analytic capability allows them to dissect social behaviour with a crystal clear lens from a detached alien/anthropological perspective. Over the course of a life time, forced by the need to survive in a neurotypical world, aspies learn a lot of lessons about human social behaviour that escape the neurotypical majority.

Who is more ?mature?, a 60 year old neurotypical human who has spent 45 years of his/her life playing the social game, or a 60 old aspie who has spent 60 years of his/her life to figure out how the world works, not limiting play and observations to the human sphere, and not being distracted by the social game?

As a teenager I found the behaviour of my neurotypical peers to be immature from my perspective. The label of ?immaturity? can be applied in both directions.

It is time to acknowledge that autodidactic learning and individual creativity and playfulness is a critical element in well functioning human societies, and to acknowledge the risks of a hyper-social culture that is bent on reprogramming anyone who thinks and lives outside the box of established social dogma.

I'm very childish. I have the development of someone between eleven and fourteen. I enjoy things that are for children, sleep with stuffed animals, enjoy kids/baby cartoons... I could go on forever. I don't think it's just because of my autism. My parents didn't quite know how to raise a child with special needs. Plus, my dad was always working, so it was just my mom taking care of me most of the time. I have varying developmental delays that even my doctors and psychiatrists have noticed about me.

I probably have always been rather immature or behind for my age. I am now 47 and still don't feel like an adult many times, at least a middle age adult. I do feel it physically, though, growing up sucks in some ways!