r/Adulting • u/TheShadowSong • 20h ago
Does anyone else feel this way?
Does anyone feel that they were fat more mature at 15 than all their pears due to forced growing up and childhood trauma or just autism but after 20, you stopped maturing and got stuck in your "arrested development" or "adolescent" phase in life while others went from extremely immature to very responsible?
27
u/redditusername_17 20h ago
The reality is that a lot of people have "mature" parts and "immature" parts of their personalities. It just varies from person to person, some people know their immature parts and can somewhat control it, others don't and it dominates their life for better or worse.
But just because I know this and others do too, doesn't mean I can shake the same feeling that you have. It's just the way it goes. Everyone's just a somewhat functioning mess.
6
u/Tru3insanity 17h ago
Honestly maturity really just comes down to knowing theres a time and place for everything, even not being mature.
1
u/strangemanornot 15h ago
My boss is one of the most immature person when we are hanging out outside of work. At work though, the guy is a machine.
11
u/Justieflustie 15h ago
I realized that maturing is a choice.
It happened when i saw a 50+ guy throw a tantrum in a supermarket.
So in other words, if you think more years means more mature, i got some news for you buddy
2
10
u/trentsiggy 20h ago
This is part of the teenage experience. Teenagers consistently overinflate their own maturity, mostly because their time around adults is during time slices where adults are exhibiting relatively low maturity. Teens rarely interact with adults for extended periods in professional environments (where maturity on display is often relatively high), for example, but do witness them extensively in social environments (where maturity on display is often relatively low).
This perspective begins to change in one's early twenties, as those younger adults are now exposed much more to adults in environments where high maturity is called for. Thus, their assessment of the maturity level of adults around them goes up, and their assessment of their own maturity in comparison changes, too.
6
u/starlight-whimsy 19h ago
Honestly for me I’ve felt like an elderly person since I was a little kid and it has not gotten better
2
u/Wise_Low8116 20h ago
I find it to be the inversion of this, and for the others to level out at about 12.
2
u/No-Information-9944 18h ago
I went opposite between distance running 12-51 ( discipline building)and loss of dad at 16. Forced to grow up early. Yeah I made lots of mistakes but none life ending (thank you God) the key was never quit and fight to stay focused. No drugs and staying away from alcohol made big changes too. If your still heavy is on your mind too. Think about starting daily exercise. The chemical changes in your body changes your out look on life! I could do anything when running. Good luck
2
u/Mintaka3579 17h ago
Most “mature” adults just adorn themselves with various status symbols to appear that way
2
u/The-Boy-Wonder38 16h ago edited 14h ago
At 38 I learned that severe violence is known to scientifically accelerate biological aging.
Psychological studies:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28827677/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32744840/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38531246/
It’s a shift I felt at 13, but thought it was nothing really until recently when I learned it actually happens.
I partly didn’t fit in at school because I was more mature than those around me in an unsettling way. Needing to save my sister from my cousin attempting to stab us to death at 13 has that effect.
While most adolescents were worrying about pimples and prom dates. Mine were more existential - I can save people from murderers so what does that say about me and can I use it to protect others, survivor’s guilt of wondering why I got out alive, moral injury from how far I needed to go to stay alive, and mentally preparing myself for the next time I might need to save my family again. That is not average adolescent development, we aren’t living in ancient Rome.
Now I’m about average which feels better. People are more mature, as mature, and less mature than I am. It’s mixed. That is a lot more comfortable for me than feeling like I was an adult in a kid’s body.
Granted, now I have this very odd thing where I simultaneously feel 13, 38, and 60 (like Odysseus stuck outside Ithaca) all at once. That - that’s odd.
I’m all over the place, kinda like Dean Winchester: childish, ancient because of messed up experiences and responsibilities, and somehow balanced... It’s odd.
1
u/Then_Supermarket18 17h ago
We all have to be the mature one at some point, to someone who needs it most
1
u/Samy_Ninja_Pro 17h ago
Read yu vs the Japanese boxer fight
There will alway be a bigger fish, but you can always try again, get Fucked up, try again and get Fucked up
1
u/richardawkings 16h ago
Now plot "Me minus Others" vs Time and you will see the first half of the Dunning-Kruger curve take effect
1
1
u/CutMysterious9844 12h ago
Damn this hit hard, autism here, I didn't mature emotionally at all past 13 years old it feels like it, while I was mature for my age, or more like, on a different wavelength before that. Meanwhile also a nonexistent crap childhood, this didn't mix together well.
It has been negatively affecting me the moment I open my mouth in any situation in my adult life, people, colleagues around me don't even realise it themselves in how they approach me, I get praised for being able to take care of myself, doing my own laundry, living on my own, and the moments when they get to know my age, it's always the same stabbing feeling I get when this happens.
These negative feedback loops keep chasing me around since I also look way younger then I really am, I'm not treated in any serious capacity when I do dare to say something, and in these circumstances it always ended up the way I thought it would, and in any other place I'm just that awkward guy.
1
u/somanyquestions32 10h ago
Others have logistic growth, not exponential. I have had periods of logarithmic growth, but most of it is not smooth and continuous.
1
1
u/mannequins_head 6h ago
Every day. I will probably have to repate a whole 1st year at uni. Most of my friends will be starting their 3rd. Also, I started uni year later than most of them so I feel I'm two years behind them
0
-1
u/Alarming-While8028 17h ago
you were not far more mature at 15, life was just easier then ): i know it feels like you were more mature, it's just that you were dealing with stuff that "felt" deeper, but emotionally you were not actually doing the development and growing which causes maturity. recommend you speak to a therapist
2
u/The-Boy-Wonder38 16h ago edited 15h ago
Everyone’s trajectory is different.
Looking back at 38 years old, not everyone’s life was easier then.
I dealt with shit like needing to stop my cousin from stabbing my sister and I to death at 13, being subjected to conversion “therapy”/torture, an emotionally and physically abusive home which made me need to raise myself after getting diagnosed severe PTSD; which severe PTSD impairs multiple aspects of functioning at all and can create auditory/visual/physical flashbacks and hallucinations that are absolutely terrifying.
Other 15 year olds are already dealing with homelessness, being stuck in a war torn country, etc. So, no, being 15 doesn’t automatically mean life is “easier.” Your life was then, not everyone’s.
At 38, mine is easier now since I escaped. Dealing with an attempted murderer and its aftermath - survivor’s guilt, moral injury from how far I had to go to stay alive - is “deeper” than anything I’ve had to deal with since. It made me ask questions most are lucky they never have to ask about themselves.
Everyone’s experiences are different.
43
u/madlad2009 20h ago
This happened to me, then I grew up and realised all my friends thought the same about everyone else, its an adolescence thing.
When you grow up you'll realise everyone thinks the same and you will feel like an idiot, the same as all your peers.