Does anyone else here have trouble accepting the fact that they're adults (the people who actually are adults)?? Does the way your life is keep you from fully being able to be a real adult & from leading an "adult" life? Does it keep you from feeling like an adult?

That's how it is for me. I turned 28 two months ago, but I still feel like a kid in most ways. I have very little life experience & am nothing at all the way I'm "supposed" to be, according to societies standards.

I can understand your feelings. I'll be 22 soon but I still feel like I'm 10 years younger than I am. If anyone asks me about my age I have always to be like "ehh..... 21?" first.
When I was a teenager I didn't want to be 18 at all, I even hate this number now. And I hated those people who are telling this "it's so great... you're grown-up... you can stay up all night... you can buy hard alcoholic stuff... you can drive with your car..."

Maybe I'll never become the adult the society is expecting from me. And to be honest, I don't really want to become one.
Too bad there is no Peter Pan with his Neverland. If I could I would fly over there.

I haven't felt different age 14 or 16. Perhaps to have a kid would make me feel "grown up".

Anyone wanna breed?

I embrace being an adult.

Sure.

I'm older than everyone in this thread, but I'm not an adult. I don't consider myself a kid either... I'm just "me". I've never wanted to be an adult, so I never will be.

i'm not an adult [i'm close, seventeen], but i don't want to be one. sometimes i even get really scared by it and break down.
they say kids want to grow up as fast as they can and then when they have they regret it.
but i don't even want to grow up at all.
and birthdays scare me.


and i don't know why.

I was the same exact way when I was your age & younger. Everyone else wanted to grow up fast & I didn't want to grow up at all. I knew life would be harder & it is.

I'm the same way, except the first time I got really scared was when I was about to turn 26. I guess because I was closer to 30 than 20?
Now, every time a birthday is coming up, I'm afraid I won't live to see it because I feel like I'm not meant to be that old.

I can so relate to this, even though I'm a decade older than you.

I can remember a time when I thought 6-year-olds were really old! Not big, mind you, but old. Then the next big bads were 12, 18 and 20. As I turned 6 and 12 I had already semi-forgotten that I was now officially old. I found new big bad ages instead.
When I turned 20, I didn't even wanna celebrate my birthday. I really dreaded that day. No longer a teen... I never desired to become an adult. But I was still me afterwards and I have since stopped worrying about my age.

I *still* feel like and identify as a girl, not a woman.
Which is pretty weird since I have never felt like I was a particular age. I've always just been *me*. Though some things have changed, I'm definitely the same basic person as I always was. I was never truly a kid and I will likely never truly be an adult. Or at least not a typical one.

This.

I feel that way myself. I'm 28 & have technically been a woman for 10 years now, but I don't feel like one at all. I feel like the word "woman" should be reserved for someone who has more experience & who is more "adult" than I am.

Me too.

(well, replace "girl" with "boy" and "woman" with "man" =P)

Little kids like me more than people my own age. That's alright though, because adults are evil (except my mommy).

Skilpadde: nicely said... I feel the same way, except "boy" instead of "girl". I am an adult by age, but not mentally. I don't feel any differently than when I was a teen or pre-teen really... sure, I've gotten smarter, etc, but I still laugh at things I found funny when I was 12 and I know I understand a lot less about the world than your average adult. Probably because I have never had a proper job and haven't had to deal with a lot of that boring, not-fun "adult stuff".

On a related note: around the time I got my AS diagnosis, I found paperwork from when I was 9, saying that I had a maturational lag in my brain and it appears to still be there. So my "being younger than I actually am" is actually documented.

Hehe, that reminds me how I liked to play around with the kindergartners in the boarding school and they were always into me, wanting to hold my hands.
The teachers didn't like to see this, they wanted me to hang around with my same-aged classmates.


And about that girl/woman stuff... yes, I can relate to this, too. I feel always awkward when I got told for whatever reason that I'm a "woman". I even hate it when someone is addressing me with "Frau Mikan" (Frau is "woman" and "Ms." in German...) - that sounds kinda stupid to me.

I feel the opposite.

I have felt and behaved as an adult for as long as I can remember, to the point where I couldn't keep friends my age when I was in school because I found them too childish and they grated on my nerves. I feel no transitions of behavior between years or new chemical reactions that come with continuing brain development. I've always felt like a tired person in their thirties, and I only just turned seventeen two months ago.

First of all, I'm still 19.
I feel both ways, although I don't understand very well what you mean by "adult". Maybe to be an adult means being able to protect yourself and the things you care about (sorry if this sounds like out of a dorama).
I feel experienced when it comes to having past experiences from interacting with the "outside world". I've had friends, I've been with one or two members of the opposite sex, I'm fed up with family complications and problems with society in general already. But unlike most people, I don't feel I bear responsibilities towards society. It's very ugly that you are born, then you suddenly realize how not just it, but the people you are supposed to trust most like family try to impose you their concepts of good and bad, and belief systems. Because of this, I don't feel an adult. This is just my oppinion.
Yet deep inside, like everyone else I suppose, I just want to experience freedom and approach things the way a child would.

I'm a kid who can legally watch computer porn.
People my age have run countries, businesses, made important scientific discoveries, and created great works of art. I've...stocked shelves and loaded trucks.

I have to make myself believe I'm an adult "You're a man, you're a man, you're a man" When in fact i feel like a boy.

nah. i enjoy being older. as for the "real" adult part i guess you're talking about bills, living on your own and the like? i don't do any of that the better half takes care of it all. the biggest trouble i have had my entire life with making friends isn't necessarily the shyness it's that mentally i'm ahead of my actual age. my parents were told that i was about five years ahead of my actual age but due to poor arithmetic comprehension i couldn't move ahead a grade. most of the things i'm supposed to be into for my age i find irritating or dumbed down and that makes me look like i'm uppity to them. at this point in life i'd rather not make friends and just be left alone.

I'm nearly 26 and I don't feel like an adult either. Most 16 year olds are more 'adult' than me. It really sucks to feel so far behind everyone else and so out of place.

I'm the same way

ppl who call themselves adults are stubborn persons that didnt learn much about empathy in their lives. take my father as an example: when i started falling down into depressions and reclusiveness i was very angry and aggressive. i fought very often with my brother because he was a ruthless kid. we often hit us hard and destroyed our environment along with us ^^. i was often yelling at my mother and father because they never tried to understand me, calling them dumb persons and useless parents. my father tried to choke me to death once because of this. however i was a teenager and ive learned many many things about this life. now i can understand that they had their own faults and the longer you carry a fault the much more powerful it may become. since my parents are old and still didnt settle their problems i guess they couldnt do any better for me - i learned to compensate that. but now that my mother left us with my sliblings my father is the one sinking into depression now. and hes just acting exactly like i was back then, he didnt learn a fucking thing out of it and i am asking myself who is the adult now?

i could think of thousand more examples like that, you just have too look at your department chiefs or co workers. many of them act like they knew everything yet dont even understand the basics

The twenties are a weird time for many including myself. I hear from a lot of people that you feel legit when you turn 30.

I'll be 30 in two years & I know I'm not going to feel any more adult then than I do now-- unless things drastically change in my life. I think most people my age feel like adults because they're living adult lives. But for me & people like me, I don't think it's possible to feel like an adult, when you've never had the opportunity to fully be one.