I conformed well as a child but struggle as an adult

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Looking back, I found I conformed well when I was a child, and went out of my way to fit in with my peers, and I kept this up right up to the age of about 15, then I started having my own interests and finding keeping up with conformity to fit in was too much effort and I stopped doing it (although I regret it now because I hate feeling different yet I'm stuck in this comfortable rut of being a partial non-conformist).

I wasn't that interested in horses when I was little, and lots of other girls in my class were for some reason, and played horses nearly every lunchtime, which I found boring. But I liked skipping and hopscotch and I joined in other games what children played.
But I remember when I was 9 almost everyone at my school were into Pokemon, and they all collected Pokemon cards and took them into school then spent lunchtimes swapping and trading their cards with eachother. First of all I didn't like Pokemon, but I somehow automatically got swallowed up into the craze and begged my mum to buy me Pokemon cards and then I started going around the playground swapping my cards with other kids too. And it was so easy to get caught up in the craze.
Also when I started seeing kids on those little microscooters, I had to have one, so my parents brought me one for Christmas when I was about 10, and I remember playing about on my microscooter with other children in the neighbourhood who also had microscooters.

There were lots of other crazes over certain toys throughout my childhood what I felt comfortable of joining in to, but I can't remember at this precise moment. But when I remember some more I will add some. But all that was practically conforming, in the kid world. But now I find it so hard to keep up with conformity as an adult, no matter how much I still want to fit in.

Did anyone else here find conformity easier as a child, but now struggle as an adult? Is there any reason for this?

The "rules" seemed easier to follow for me as a child. Girls like this girl stuff etc. so if you like it too, then you fit in.
Keeping that going as an adult is harder because the things you're expected to talk about with peers have changed and are very non-specific. I've found that in addition, I have to "look" like i want to fit in: clothes, make-up, etc. That's just been my experience.

For every year that passes, I have increasingly less interest in forcing myself to do things that don't come naturally.

I honestly don't think I really understood conformity as a child, because if I remember right I was terrible at it.......I mean looking back I can see a lot of times people gave me crap for things that came down to me not conforming, but at the time I never could understand I did not quite get that I was expected to conform so if I was intrested in something that varied from the norm or whatever I thought everyone hated me for whatever that intrest was not that it was about the fact I was not conforming. I understand more now, but it does not make it any easier for me to conform so I don't really try to and even if I could I don't know I would want to.

So yeah society sucks man.

I had a Furby, and I wore platform shoes when the Spice Girls were big.

But I didn't really conform to crazes that were social in nature. I did collect Pogs when those were big, and enjoyed playing my sisters and brother to try and win their Pogs, but I didn't bring that into the larger world at all. I was more interested in sorting and arranging them.

I didn't really have any friends as a kid to share things with. I was the weird kid that people pretty much left alone, or teased.

I find less focus on "fitting in" now that I am 28 and have experienced both the working world and the world of higher education. Hell, I flew in the face of convention and completely changed the gender I present myself as, and I find people to be more accepting than the children were when I was in school.

Callista's made this point far better than I am about to, but it's not unusual for autistic children to cope better with the demands of childhood only to find themselves having a harder time as their burdened with the expectations of adulthood. It can look on the outside like you're becoming less capable, but the truth is you may be just as capable as always, but more is expected of you.

Why would you want to be a Audi driver black or silver?

This is a good post. I interpret it as an extension of the vagueness surrounding the terms "sub-clinical" versus "clinical". For me, the question remains; can one be sub-clinical throughout childhood, only to be classified as a clinical case in adulthood when faced with different challenges?

One clause in the upcoming DSM-V would have me believe the above to be plausible. Specifically:

"Symptoms must be present in early childhood (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities)"

In my case, I have exhibited the symptoms of the autism spectrum since time immemorial, but I would have never classified myself as sufficiently impaired to warrant a diagnosis until recent years.

However, having entered the workforce after graduating from university, or otherwise entering adulthood, I think that the associated obstacles have caused signficant impairment when compared to those of my childhood. To name a few of my current struggles:

General Impairments
-Social ineptitude (espcially with opposite gender) causing moderate depression
-Lower-than-average thought processing capabilities causing moderate depression. By this I mean being more "dense" than my peers and colleagues.

Work Impairments
-Shutdowns in excess of one hour resulting from shifting priorities, vague instructions, criticism and unrealistic deadlines
-Excessive attention to detail and meticulousness causing lost time
-Telephone use causing anxiety and significant procrastination
-Difficulty with translating thoughts to words causing signficant lost time (i.e. e-mails, expressing ideas, etc.)
-Misunderstandings and poor communication resulting in monetary losses

With these work-related challenges, I find it a wonder I have not been dismissed after three years of employment. I think that with stricter supervision, I surely would have been fired long ago.

Adults have more responsibilities so it doesn't surprise me to read about people having a harder time as an adult. I think a typical work place has more sensory distractions and the social structure is more complex than a school setting. Also, as an adult we are expected to have better behavior than when we were children.

Things are more complicated for me know because of my depression and anxiety.

When I was a kid I didn't even know what conformity meant and I just got really interested in what other kids had or did. I didn't get exposed to fads from other kids but more through the media. I remember when Tazos were free with chip packets; The Cheetos Cheetah. And I have always been a collector, from rocks to cigar wrappers to cars to lambs to dog toys to dino -- well you get it.
When I would get into a fad I would get into with more obsession than any other kid. I had every single Tazo up to the Star Wars ones. I had the complete set of Lion King cards in series 1 and 2. I had almost every Lord of the Rings action figure and them some. I even had those Golden Books, hundreds of them. As for Harry Potter freaking obsessed. I even dressed like Harry Potter, in Muggle clothes.

I was too old for Pokemon and I wasn't at school when the craze started.

It was never about conformity to me, but more about "that looks cool - MUM CAN I HAVE IT?" It was my choice to get in it and I didn't do it to help me get along with other kids. I never even cared about making friends with them.

You shouldn't want to conform. Be yourself. Not sure how old you are but once you get mid 20's you start to care less about being accepted.
My interests get me a lot of ridicule from playful teasing to scoffs to getting told that's what children are into. I'd never ever drop them just to fit in.

I think this applies to me too. When I was a child it was more acceptable for me to have a very big interest, an this being animals it wasn't that weird and it was easy to involve other children in activities such as catching and classifying lizards. Also, it's acceptable of a child to draw all the time during a dinner in a restaurant or at family friends' house. It's a little worse if a 17 year old wants to catch lizards and draw all the time or spends the christmas lunch making sculptures in babybel cheese's covering wax

I always had problems and my parents always knew I was a little different but as a child it didn't matter. As a few of you have already said it's more acceptable to do certain things or act a certain way as a child then it is as an adult. For example a few times when I was experiencing overload at kids parties I would go and sit in a corner away from the noise and say I felt unwell and be very moody,the other kids would continue to play. My mother would just tell me to stop acting like a miserable cow and go and play with the other kids. At the time I would just sulk about it, unable to explain or even understand myself at the time why I couldn't, why it was all too much.

Then as a young adult (17) I was once again overwhelmed by a social situation, specifically lunchtime in the office cafeteria and as a result I started to spend my lunch hour in the bathroom, eating my lunch in a toilet cubicle. Eventually this got around the workplace and people used to try and catch me doing this, so I stopped eating at work to avoid the ridicule.

So to sum it up, adults can be much more intolerant of odd behaviour, alot more is expected of you and so that's probably the reason why I appear worse now.

I was borderline normal until I turned about 11. Then I became more and more detached from the society.

When I was a kid, I didnt fit in either but it was a lot easier to just follow the rules and keep up with my peers in terms of responsibility and work. Socially I was still lagging. I was quiet and didn't act up so teachers didn't take too much notice to me. But when I reached adulthood, the social expectations become tacked on. You can't just follow the rules quietly and pass. When I first hit college, I was expected to have real social skills to survive. Back in high school, you just needed to have social skills to have a social life not to so called "survive". Then the struggle hit hard. I've learned a lot but there's so much social responsbility, I can tackle the needed things now but then I have to think carefully how to execute things. I don't just go and do it unlike most NTs.

When I was little, I was actually very feminine. I loved wearing skirts and dresses. But socially, I was kinda lost. Kids made fun of me and I didn't even realize it sometimes until later. I said exactly what I thought and got in trouble for it. I tried joining different clubs in school--cheerleading, NHS, acting--, but I never felt like I belonged. Everyone thought I was weird. In high school, I pretty much kept to myself and went straight home after school. When I entered my 20s, I pretty much gave up on conforming. IRL, I still feel like I don't fit in most of the time. But I doubt that's going to change.

I was extraordinarily well behaved as a child. I was more mature than other kids my age and that is part of the reason I didn't fit in very well with them. But as I got older, it got harder and harder to do what was expected of me. I never conformed very well in the sense of being like my peers. But I definitely found it easier to follow the rules and get along when I was a kid.