Adult Child.......Child Adult. Feeling like Benjamin Button

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When I was in grade school, I took hell from my peers and teachers alike for acting too much like "a little grownup." If I had a choice, I would much rather hang out with the teacher at recess than play with the other kids. I always wore drab colors to school and dissociated myself in every way from the peer culture as much as possible. All I wanted to do was read books or do homework. I was a roundly unpopular little kid who walked stiff and talked rigidly.

My parents and teachers told me that I had to make more of an effort to "fit in," which of course never came to frutition. Up until my senior year, I always seemed to act like a 50 year old college professor who by some error had been transposed into the body of a teenage boy and attended high school. I always felt as if I was "above" my peers, and they reciprocated their feelings by tormenting me endlessly. I seemed so out of place, like a soldier trapped in a world of color, parties, and fun. I wanted to be stern and hard as a man, not bubbly and social like my parents wanted me to be. It was not until after I graduated and moved into the adult world that I was supposedly finally amongst my own kind.

However, once I was out in the working world I was chastised by my co-workers and bosses for not being disciplined and serious enough. Of course, my mysterious AS traits were interfering with my ability to function at jobs and were making me come off as an undisciplined, lazy, stupid young man getting his feet wet in the workplace. The first jobs I had, I was so eager to show everyone what a hard worker I was, but my first few bad experiences in the workplace mentally turned me on the idea of being employed. Thus, I retreated and regressed into the reclusive state in which I now live.

When I was in the army, my CO and my Sergeant were on me constantly for not interacting enough with the guys in my unit. I was always on notice for lack of discipline, not showing enough effort, entry level performance and conduct.. etc.... In 2005, I kind of thought that this was ironic for me, since my whole time growing up I had looked so forwards to being in the military and wearing a uniform and being tough and disciplined. The more dissatisfied I grew with my situations, the more petulantly like a little child I began to act. All of this was being caused by undiagnosed AS, but I came to the realization last night that as a child, I acted like an adult, and as an adult, I acted like a child. I know now that I will always be an anachronism.

So I automatically polarize myself no matter where I am at. Due to AS, I don't have the mental or social tools necessary to suceed in a producing environment. I suppose I am moving backwards in time, beginning life as an old man and I will die living like a child in the care of others in some group home.

When I was about 8, my mom insisted that I wear eyeglasses because they would make me look friendly even though I did not need a perscription. I didn't want to look friendly, I wanted to look mean. It seems like no matter what situation I am in, I always have to be an outcast on the fringe.

here some perspective from someone who turned 55 years old yesterday.
as a child i was nicknamed "grandpa",was very slow,serious,distant,the best student and out of touch with the rest of the kids,
a traits which as most of us know is a license to get beaten up daily,mocked and ridiculed in every possible way,
today i have to show ID in order to make people believe I'm 55 as i look much younger,
as years passed by the the reasons for giving me hell gradually turned from me being to "old" to me being too young or even childish
it seems that there is all ways good reasons to hate us and discriminate us
i must say this state of affairs gave me not much incentive into integration.
i think AS doesn't change,its the expectations around them that changes and as such they were never,and never will be of any relevance to us.
i feel it all correspond in some way to the way we sense time and space which is very different from that of an NT
perhapes for us time is a field while for them it's a sort of linear thing
this things are very complex and doesn't for very well for the limited space of commenting on a post but it led me to practically live outside society as much as possible and my life gotten to be much better since i gave up the fruitless fight against the stupidity and soulless acts of the so called normal or NT's/

I'm sixty-six years old. The older I get the more I feel like a child. I went to a zoning hearing last night to support a group of neighbors who are against more houses being built/squashed onto our street. It felt like school all over again. I watched and listened to the other "adults" most of whom where much younger than me, as they stood up to present their reasons for opposition. I felt like a child among them, locked inside of my aging body and far removed from the awesome and seemingly mad world of grown-ups. Everywhere I go I find myself looking through the eyes of a little girl, marveling at these adult people and the strange adult world they live in and navigate through so naturally. Even my children seem to be more adult than I am. I do all the things, or most of the things that an adult is supposed to do, and I do these things quite well, with the exception of socializing, but I do them as a child performing as an adult. I gravitate towards kind people who will look out for me, take me under their wings, so to speak.


"Mad World"

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world ... mad world

Ialso feel this way.

It is scary to me.

It's very scary to me to realize I will NEVER know what it feels like to be a "grown up." When I went to a shirnk several years ago, when I was 23, I told him I was afraid of the :scary grown ups" at the college I was attending. Of coure I was "adult" and assured him I knoew I was. But i was to make the point.

He was very curious, but totally missed to dx.

So it hit me. I will NEVER know what it feels like to be an adult.

I take responsibilty, pay my taxes, do my job, and do it well. But I am like a 17 year old doing it on a good day. On a challenging day I am more like a pre pubescent 10 year old.

Interstingly, I get along GREAT with kids and they love me! At the store, I wll smile at them and they grin and follow me with thier smiles. We totally connect, kids and me.....because I really am one.

see i was the opposite growing up, ppl thought i was even younger then i was, at the age of 10 i was seen as a 3 year old, although i was potty trained i still had accidents every now and the, rather play with preschool toys puttin shapes in shape box, spun a lot, screamed as a form of communication, and never socialized, ppl younger then me would tie my shoes, try to hold my hand, accompany me to the potty like i couldnt go alone, tickle me like i was their baby, etc, i never ever felt old, ever, especially how i was treated made it even worse made it feel i was younger as well, but when ur like 12 and watching stuff like rollie pollie ollie as soon as u come home from school wearing shirts with ponys on it, no interest in anything besides your rubber bands, its really sad haha althought i did love the marine life. now as an adult i still see myself lookin up like i never feel equal, and still get treated like a kid, get patted on the head, ppl make funny faces to make me smile, tickle me, sit me on their laps, bounce me, talk in a high pitched voice when i do stuff like tie my own shoes they gave me a high five saying what a big girl u are, etc, yea the babying never stops haha. I always wish I was benjiman button and mysteriously turned into a toddler today it would fit me so well haha, i still play with preschoool toys whever i see them love pushing buttons and hearing the noises they make, still love the chase game, now love peek a boo as i got older weird aint it, as a child didnt understand it haha.

Quoting Sorenna:

I had the same experience, am still having that experience, with my shrink. When I told him that when I go to social gatherings I always feel like a little kid in a room full of adults. He said "But, you do understand, it is you that thinks that, not the other adults."

Well, duh. Of course I understand. That's what makes it a problem.

Same here, I've always felt I had more in common with people quite a bit older or younger than myself.

The poets John Keats, who was himself and aspie, said -- "They who would be young when they are old must be old when they are young."

Oh that one surprised me. I was like that with the difference that I wore such pullovers in school. I just wore what was handed to me. The others kids bullied me all the time too. Might have been the clothes too then.





Anyway,

I felt old and not old. I felt like the only intelligent being from kindergarten on until secondary school, but I had no concept of them vs. me besides that. I didn't feel older in the original sense of the word.

I'm treated like an adult, but I can't really call myself an adult, a woman or think that I'm equal to others adults. It's problematic. Everyone expects me to be adult-ish but I'm just so... not.

I have no intuitive concept of age I think.

I chat with 6yos as if they're not 'children whom adults shouldn't chat with to' as other adults tell me. I don't feel any special stuff towards people who're 2x or 3x my age.

And I constantly say 'those adults' but I also say 'those kids' to people as old as or 1 year younger than me.

It's not like I'm younger I just don't age 'normally' and thus never developed that inner intuitive sense of age.

I'm like an alien.

Really isolated culturally until I was some 13/14 years old though I could talk and stuff.

Benjamin Button, eh? Good movie?

Is it AS????

I get the "old" young person angle as we tend to be more "mature" in our thinking as children.

But I find many NTs, as they age, go back to being kids on many levels. The "wisdom" that comes with age (for NTs) shows them that they are as young as they think of themselves.

Maybe we realize that earlier on in life, but it's not an AS exclusive.

You are lucky. The ones I know... premature grey hair, stress issues, Congestive Heart Failure, overweight (eating disorders). Self abuse is pretty common I suspect.

My relationship with my wife, who is ending it right at the time I discover my undiagnosed AS, is hell. been together 12 years, married for 9. I can't even describe how she has done everything opposite of what my needs are these past 15 months. I wish I could say I was happy to have it end, but I still feel unconditional love - and in a way, it eats me up inside.

Yes, I have one really great friend who is helping me out. But this is not fun.

Arrggh, I hear you Brusilov!! !! As a child I felt that I was so much older than the other kids. They were thinking about toys and latest crazes, I was thinking of spirtuality and other adult concepts. Then somewhere along the line they all advanced past me and my whole adult life I've been called immature. I totally understand what you are talking about.

Like Nara44 said up top, I too was nicknamed derisively "little grandpa" by even my relatives. I couldn't have cared less about things like Titanic, Eminem, or Old Navy(those were the current crazes when I was in middle school.) I always thought I would be so much happier as an adult only now the tables are turned and I have 18 year old boys telling me I am immature. When I was 22 and in the Army I had a 19 year old Specialist "assigned" to me to keep an eye on me. I found that quite degrading although I did not say so to anyone at the time.

I remember when I was in middle school I had someone ask me what I thought of Eminem, and at the time I thought he was talking about candy. I keep zero track of "pop culture" or current trends and that makes it very difficult for me to relate to my age group.

I think it is possible that the aspergers brain matures too quickly and stops growing a little earlier, and that could be one reason for "Adult Child, Child Adult".

When I was in 2nd grade I remember talking about the planets and what not with a kid named Jaremey. I said the the sun was bigger than the earth. But he insisted that if the sun was bigger than the earth, then it would cover the whole sky so from that he said it can't be. So I tried to explain depth perception to him, but it was of no use. I also in 5th grade took some sort of state IQ test and scored in the 98.2 percentile. But after that I don't feel like I got a whole lot smarter.