Published on 12, July, 2020
The older I get the more I notice a difference between me and my peers regarding my social skills, and the more they notice a difference in me too.
I feel like as everyone is getting older and maturing i'm just frozen in time. Forever trapped as a younger person stuck in the body of an adult, no matter what I do. `No matter how hard I mask.
I felt the first big jump when I was transitioning into my teenage years. I just wanted to mess about, play classical playground games, do what we used to do. But girls my age just wanted to sit around talking about boys. Everything was changing and it was nerve wracking.
I'm now turning 23 and I'm noticing the big jump again, except this time it's worse, harder. I don't know what to do to emulate my peers at all. They can just tell that I'm different.
I don't want to get pushed out, I want friends. A romantic relationship. I've been craving more structure relationship wise because of this, a relationship with rules. I've returned to religion, not because I'm necessarily a believer but because religious people tend to have well defined social rules that I can learn, follow, and as long as I stick to those rules I'm less likely to be socially ostracised.
I'm in a lot of distress. I don't know what to do. Everything is changing so fast, faster than I can keep up with.
I read your post and it appeared to speak to me and has some similarity my own situation. I'm 32 (so a little bit older) but earlier this year I also came to the conclusion that I couldn't keep up with my peers or keep up with NT societal expectations and after a meltdown I just said to myself....do you know what enough is enough. I can't keep up with these NT societal expectations. I'm tired of keeping up and I've run out of ideas. I was proud of myself that for 32 years I had found a way to cope and keep going without being diagnosed with autism.
I have subsequently put the wheels in motion now and I'm waiting to be assessed for autism but I am becoming more aware by the day that any thoughts about doing something new or making a big jump in life are incredibly scary for me and maybe now it's time for me to acknowledge that I am different and I won't achieve things at the same pace as my peers or my contemporaries.
Perhaps on the whole I just find this neurotypical world that we live within is just a scary place. I definitely do get similar thoughts about being an adult only in age and that within this adult body I have there is still this child who is trying to exist within an adult world.
Nevertheless, with each day that passes now I am becoming more certain that I am living with undiagnosed autism and I think the only way forward for myself is to just slow things down and accept that I can only now live day to day.