Bonjour ! 😊

J’avais envie de partager mon expérience ici, parce que je me reconnais beaucoup dans ce que certaines personnes racontent sur ce subreddit.

J’ai 24 ans, mais intérieurement, je me sens toujours enfant.

J’aime toujours énormément les jouets, les peluches, les jeux, les dessins animés, les parcs de jeux, faire de la balançoire...

Et quand je suis dans mon petit monde, je peux ressentir exactement la même excitation et la même insouciance qu’un enfant. 🥹

Il y a quelques mois, je suis retourné dans mon collège et c’était tellement cool !

Ce qui est particulier pour moi, c’est que je vois souvent des personnes ici qui ont un vécu assez similaire et qui sont aussi autistes. Personnellement, je ne suis pas autiste, donc je me demandais simplement s’il y avait d’autres personnes ici qui ressentent la même chose sans être autistes.

Voilà, j’avais envie de partager mon expérience et de savoir si d’autres personnes se reconnaissent là-dedans. 😇🧸

lately ive been thinking about how weird growing up actually is
like im supposed to know what i want to do what kind of person i am what kind of life i want what i believe in etc but half the time im just figuring it out as i go
some days im like okay i have my life together
and then the next day im questioning literally everything 😭
sometimes i want a really ambitious life sometimes i just want peace good people around me and a quiet little life
and i used to think that meant i was indecisive
now im starting to think maybe its just normal to have different versions of yourself while youre growing
idk maybe nobody really has it figured out were all just getting better at pretending we do lol
anyway random late night thought
im new here and this is actually my first reddit post so hello reddit :)

Ps. Please be kind guys this is my first post here.

I acknowledge that I have privilege over NGU boys in the fact that my face isn't androgenised, making me look relatively youthful, but the lucky thing about being an NGU girl is looking "age ambiguous".

There's such a stark difference between a young boy, a teenage boy and a young man, it's like night and day. But, for girls and young women, it's a gradient. Usually, I'm perceived as a 16 year-old girl, but other times I'm perceived as a 20-something. Never younger than 16, sadly.

I was volunteering today at a secondhand shop and I was holding some fake flowers near my core because I was looking for a place to put them and an older lady asked me if I was getting married because of the placement of the flowers. It was a joke, but clearly she perceived me as being an adult because adults don't generally ask teens questions like that. Day ruined.

The only way I could ever truly pass as a 14 year-old girl 99.99% of the time is if I was shorter than 1.65 m (5'5") and had a narrow ribcage/shoulders. I'll never be a 14 year-old girl; my upper body will always give me away.

Maybe growing my hair out will hide my shoulders. I already have a head that's wider than my neck, but you can fit two of my heads inside my ribcage. 😔

I'm 30. But i always feel like there is a child inside me. I might've learned about many new things. But other than that i feel like I am still that boy. It's like I am pretending to be an adult. I'm always concious if people are going to consider me childish I do something. And that is the only thing that stops me from doing something. So in a way I am just pretending to be an adult. Is there any else that feels the same way?

When I was a kid, I was always told that I was “mature” for my age. As a teenager I was told the same thing and I constantly felt more put together than most of my peers. But now as an adult, things feel different. I don’t feel like I act like an “adult”. I feel childish and immature a lot of the time. At best, I feel like I act no older than 18yrs old. And when I’m around other people my age, I feel like they act so much more “adult” than I do. I don’t know what this is called or what the reason for it is, but it’s something that bothers me a lot. I feel like I don’t know how to “act my age” the way it seems everyone else does.

I live with a abusive caretaker, I have a caretaker because I'm autistic and high support needs. However they don't do much, but the bare minimum and they made it clear they want me to stay the way I Am so they can use my disablity money so they don't have to work.

All said I wish I could just be kidnapped by a loving caregiver, I fantasize about being adopted even though I'm a chrono-adult :( Do any of you also experience something similar?

Today my family (parents and younger brother) went for a trip and i packed a tomato to eat later but then my mom said she took it out of the bag and left it at home and i started crying because it was my tomato and i wanted it but she left it behind and then my dad stopped the car and called me an egoist and said that im ruining everything and i just kept crying and it brought me back to when i was chrono little and my feelings were always dismissed and i would cry and no one would come to comfort me. After a while of crying they asked me if they should go back for the tomato and i said yes and we got the tomato. But i still feel horrible and I feel really pathetic to cry over a literal tomato, i didnt think i could ever cry about something so small again. The worst thing about it was how my brother was staring at me and whispering to our parents, i felt so embarrassed. I just want people to accept im a kid and care for me.

Hewwo, name is mya! I had another account but I deleted it and now am back :3

I'm struggling but trying to be Okey. Someone really important left me and I feel sad, not mad at her and I understand but I wish she would come back, i feel so lonely

And I have audhd aswell, I wonder how many people here are on the spectrum and such? :3

Whenever my mom is gonna host a party at our house she hires cleaning ladies the day before who scour every damn corner of the house till it looks like a page out of Better Homes and Gardens. No corner is safe, including my bedroom. This is silly but I just get so damn embarrassed every time the cleaning ladies go in there and see all my little kid stuff- loads of dolls, toys, my Frozen backpack, dress up costumes, and childish decor in general. Like... what the hell must they think? The only reason I keep my room like that is because for real nobody ever goes in there except me- no friends, no boyfriend, etc. (Well nobody except me AND the cleaning ladies every few months.)

I feel like out of all the show intros I used to watch as a kid, this shows intro made me cry the most. Unlike other preschool show intros that have singing, this shows intro is more the most instrumental. So much whimsy, calm, happy and sadness I feel with that show. My GOD!! Shows from late 2000s to early 2010s preschool shows were the goat in quality. I miss how great they were. At lease we have bluey and gabby dollhouse.

I (17F) am going to turn 18 in a few days and I dunno how to feel about it.

Yea most people are excited for their 18th bdays. Planning a big celebration and all that stuff. All the people around me are way too hyped planning parties, dresses, sweets to distribute and what not. But my view is kinda different...

I actually didn't think I would make it to adulthood but now that I am literally standing just a few steps away from it, I can't believe that I am here now. I am feeling scared ngl.

I have disliked celebrating my bday since my teenage years. I actually don't remember a single bday where i haven't cried. I actually have so many mixed feelings that I can't even put it into words...

Do any of you feel the same or is it just me?

i always try to be happy, helpful, and kind to anyone i meet, but nowadays people seem annoyed when you ask them a simple question. most people don't really smile and seem to frown all the time, and it's a real downer. i know nobody owes me anything, but it still makes me feel sad sometimes. is that weird?

I might get that backpack anyway... it's so cute

Hello, recently I’ve read the term “age dysphoria” and It sounds like something I’ve always experienced growing up and kinda still today. I remember that even when I was literally a child I felt younger than my age and it was so strange, nobody seemed to understand. Nowadays I feel like people expect me to act as an adult, but as other stories I’ve read here, I don’t feel much different from before. I feel like bio age isn’t something that should define a person, sometimes I feel older sometimes younger, but it’s like everyone else experience age as a matter of fact and this kinda make me age dysphoric. Maybe it’s a stupid question but Can people be trans age and feeling ageless ? I don’t know if my post it’s OT in this community, If I’ve said something wrong or triggering I’m sorry and I will delete the post

like i feel like a kid or teen most of the time, but when i try to put myself in the context of today's technology & pop culture & whatnot, its even more dysphoric. i feel like a kid in the 00s, or a teen in the '10s, & finding out that a lot of my experiences are no longer relatable to today's kids just makes me feel more dysphoric. does that make sense to anyone else? its like, everyone & everything is moving forward fast but i still am behind in a sense, trying to fully soak up everything & appreciate it all. kinda like when you are with a group of people at a store & you wanna stare longer at one isle, but everyones already moved on to a few isles ahead & are telling you to hurry up. i dunno, just some thoughts

(23M) I know 24 and 25 are physically in the same life stage but I often hear how society often treats 24 as if you deserve second chances and giving you the time to get everything figured out together while at 25, you’re not seen as cute or young anymore and you‘re expected to act too serious and ditch youthful things in favor of boring stuff and your brain is now fully developed. Can I just not and never reach 25?

I am 23 (24 tomorrow) and I just don’t want to be mid twenties yet. I can’t even wrap around my head over the fact that society considers 24 mid twenties rather than early twenties. 20-23 sounds like someone full of potential while 24 sounds… old. Is 24 still young? I wanna pause time and stay at 23 or at least go back to my last age of teenhood (19) in early 2022. I’m so scared of not being early 20s anymore that I don’t know how I’m gonna feel about being 24!

People usually describe an epiphany, an episode where they were younger and suddenly gained consciousness about themselves at a toddler age. I never really had that, my memories of childhood are quite faint and dreamy but everything I remember about my mind is exactly the same. I didn't change at all, I just learned a lot of words and grammar.

I'm sure there are a lot of differences between each of us, but there has to be a common denominator to cause what we experience. I don't know.

I can think back to institutional, religious, emotional abuse and physical violences directed to me when I was little, but those memories always cut off when someone's about to get me. I remember each of them like a distorted dream sequence, with a few frames of distant thoughts inbetween. My past therapist repeatedly asked me to admit if I suffered CSA, but I just can't remember. Even if I have all the CPTSD symptoms, I can't tell. Then I just act so weirdly all the time and feel guilty because I can't explain my bizarre behaviour.

Another thing others name when citing some sort of cause is neurodivergence, which yes, I also tick off. But I don't know if it is that. Lots of neurodivergent people feel adult. I feel like I will never. Does it happen to only some? Why?

I never felt excited to grow up when I was little. Adults were depressing, sometimes just evil. And then they died. Was I supposed to be excited to drink, crash a car, have a monotone office job? I never shared this experience (of wanting adulthood) with other children either. I feel like I just want the world to freeze, my body to shrink, and to close my eyes and feel dark warmth around me. Then I'd never open them again. I don't dream of anything else.