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.
As many have said, you can go through life pretending to be someone else, or you can be the only person you were ever born to be - no one can do it better, no one will ever replace the you that is. Be your unique self, and as you meet other unique people who have similar challenges as yourself as you go through life, you will find your tribe of individuals who will hopefully stand shoulder to shoulder with you in the ups and downs of the world.
There's no getting around it. You are special, so be proud of who you are.
I also wish I'd known I was masking at your age. I just thought everyone was having the same struggles, so I struggled on. Again, like many, it made me sick - mentally & physically, which I now live with chronically every day. Not saying that to scare you, but living under a mask isnt a shelter, it's a barrier to fly to freedom.
Keep breathing, deep and slow, and remember whatever happens, the sun will still rise tomorrow, as the world turns