Published on 12, July, 2020
Have you ever felt that you are not growing up properly?
That other people are more adult than you?
I've often felt that my peers are properly 'grown-up' and I'm not.
It's partly to do with still being in touch with the child within I think, but also to do with reaching the stages we are meant to at the 'wrong' times in life, or not reaching them at all.
I assume now that this is because of autism.
So, I missed out on the having children stage completely.
1st serious boyfriend in my 30s.
Mortgage in my 30s, but only because of the compensation from a traffic accident.
Marriage in my 50s.
Sometimes it's as if life is going on around you and you stand still.
I'm happy with where I am now but am very conscious that I've 'missed out' on quite a lot of life.
I'd have liked to have had a career but then again, maybe that would have been too stressful.
I'd have liked to have studied for a degree.
These are 'life achievements' that have passed me by.
Does this resonate with anyone?
Yes, I do think people are more adult than me - and that I perceive other adults as 'grown-ups' - but not myself. I seem unchanging, in many ways, and think that's important to me. I don't want change, I think, and I don't want to change either. So I suppose the effect of that is that I seem to stay still and the world moves forward?
I have had jobs, been successful at that. I have degrees, been successful at that, I have tried relationships, and that was ok, I have a house, I have a dog.
All that, which could look like a set of adult achievements - except that - it was more curiosity that led me to those things, what was it like, to have a job - a career even, be a student, have a partner. I wanted to find out, more from the information-gathering perspective, now that I think about it, and having done those things, seldom feel the need to revisit them, if at all.
Although I do now have a job, and this job I am doing, not because it pays me, which is incidental, but because I believe in doing it. I wish there were more things like that in my life, that everything didn't feel like a performance - well, not everything, and not everyone, either, but... many things.
I think although I have an appearance of living in society, especially now that I have a job again, that's all it is - an appearance. I'm a very solitary person.
Pegg said:I think although I have an appearance of living in society, especially now that I have a job again, that's all it is - an appearance
A really interesting analysis.
A lot of what you write here I can relate to.
I was, am and always will be an 'outsider'.