INTL - Want to Know + Wished You Knew

I'm 24 years old, and I wish I'd known that making a career out of a passion doesn't mean you never work a day in your life, it means your passion gets broken down into a paycheck. A question I'd love some insight on is: when do you stop feeling like you aren't a "real" adult? Does "adult" life ever seem less like you're just pretending you know what you're doing?

31-50

There is so much I wish I'd known, but I think one big underpinning thing was that not having any boundaries was normal in fundie culture, so I never noticed that my problems weren't because I was just being difficult. People are just jerks when they want to be and I had no way to know to stop them, much less actually doing that. Anything remotely resembling standing up for myself and saying that I want/don't want is actually selfish and evil, as women are from creation. We just can't help it, y'know.

The flipside is enabling when I was led to believe it was supportive. Anything LESS than enabling was actually a terrible, morally depraved behaviour that makes me into a harpie bitch who just wants other people to act however I want THEM to act (which is totally different from men being in control of everyone and telling us... all... how to.. act... ... .)

But when everyone around you, really, everyone, teachers, bosses, coworkers, friends, their family, etc. is like that to some degree, you can't see it. You can't see it until you get out of it for long enough to be able to see it for what it is. And really, you'll probably never get out of it unless someone wants to help you instead of prey on you. I was very lucky.

What I wish I knew now:

How to get into some of the 'retiree mindset,' letting more things go. Swinging between being incredibly guarded and not recognising people who are terrible in general.

ISpy- That's actually a loaded question with a few different aspects, and more than what I've posted in other comments. <3

From my 85 year old MIL, somewhat never. Sometimes you feel very, very old. And some days, you feel like a very young person trapped in a body getting older.

There is no "real adult" feeling. There is only the practice of doing things required of you at the adulthood stage: paying your bills to the best of your ability, scouting for resources to help you ("it takes a village" isn't just about kids,) dealing with breakups and losses in a mature way that doesn't involve throwing tantrums or blame games. Try framing it as adulthood = actions sometimes.

From me, learning from older people in my environment (and online, sometimes in person, going out of my way to ask questions): there used to be etiquette and social books specifically for that thing where people 35-under feel like they're always pretending. It's because on some level, we are.

We're trying to get by in a generation (or three) where there are no longer social hierarchies the same way there were. Which in a way, is a great thing! And in others, we have not sufficiently adapted any 'rules' to go WITH that. We're constantly just straight making them up. Making things up as we go all the time is stressful and makes us feel like constant impostors in our own lives, like any minute, someone's going to Catch Us, like a 5 year old wearing dad's suit, pretending we're going to drive mom's car.

Some "old rules" are great. These are not just books "written for autistic people," like tumblr says. These books are for EVERYONE. In the late 1800s and even the 1950s, there were specific scenarios and steps to do social things. "Entertaining" was an expectation This was an expected general social code for people to know in advance so people know what to do and why. Regions obviously had their own distinctions, but generally, everyone from a certain culture or area could know to expect some things in advance. This takes away the "pretending you know what you're doing." Because you aren't pretending. You're PRACTICING!

Hosting a party or introducing people who don't know each other used to be easy. In fact, it was your job if you were the common link. Today, we might feel awkward beyond "Hey, this is Sara, she joined the party with me." Cool, Sara doesn't know Steve, Steve doesn't know Sara, they're going to wave hi and never speak again. Awkward. Maybe one of them will bring up the other tomorrow or something.

Before, it was known that you will mentally rack up information about both people as best you can, and have social information about what is likely contextually appropriate. So if Steve and Sara are at a grieving therapy group, it would be more appropriate to say "Steve, this is Sara. Sara is here after her mom died only a few months ago. Sara, Steve is also dealing with the recent loss of his brother." Followed by a unifying suggestion: "I hope you will both join the group this afternoon. We are releasing butterflies in the yard."

If you're meeting at a mall, that information is very inappropriate, right? You're not going to tell someone who just met your friend that their brother died. You're going to say, "Oh, Steve! I didn't think I'd run into you! Sara, this is Steve. He's a big comic book junkie. Steve, this is Sara. She's not a comics person but Studio Ghibli-everything is on her DVD rack." Then, ask a question or offer a unifying suggestion. "Are you going to be here a bit? Sara, do you mind if he joins us? We're going to the food court." Steve now knows for sure that your friend is Sara and has an opportunity to hang out with you without feeling like a burden or like he's inviting himself to hang out with you. Sara knows who Steve is and has an option of saying she just wants a day with you. Social transaction completed!

The second part of "pretending," I have a guess at:

That thing said before, about how being an adult = doing the actions?

It's a little more nuanced than that.

When I was a teenager, I was very much raised in the "you do adult things, therefore you are an adult." 14 is not an adult, no matter how often I have to make SURE water works every day, my mom didn't do something stupid the cops are going to show up for (bipolar,) no one is critically wounded or something. 15 is not an adult, even if I'm paying for all my own food at school, making sure the other kids are fed something besides soda and noodles, and working after school all the time. 15 is not an adult just because I need to keep up on adult first aid certs because I can't trust anyone to fucking function around me. They're either a mess or they're useless, just pick which is more of an obstacle at the time.

What I describe is not an adult. I am describing an adult-ified child. A still-developing person who doesn't even have a prefrontal cortex yet who is being made to perform actions and tasks that people who have life skills and experience are supposed to be in charge of... because THEY are the ones with life skills and experience. And also because LEGALLY, they can make decisions. If an adult wants to go to a grocery store mid-day, they can do that. When I wanted to go mid-day, a cop tried to pick me up as a truant teenager.

All the responsibility but none of the authority.

Notice that some generations, the feeling of pretending, even when not in those exact words but the same insecurity, seems to skip a gen or two. I have a feeling, but cannot prove, it is because of things like wealth. A generation or two back, many families had more wealth. The "middle class" was much larger, whereas now, it's almost non-existent. With that economic shrinkage comes decisions and events that would not happen otherwise.

The line between adult and child blends a LOT when you have more ACE factors (Adverse Childhood Events.) ACEs happen much more frequently when you have more economic adversity. Money can buy you doctors, clean water, reliable transportation, etc. Money can't do everything, but it can do a lot.

If you spent time worrying about if the bills were paid or if you'd have to move again because your parents lost your apartment, you don't have a line between "child roles" and "adult roles." These kids are called "parentified." Adultification. Often these are the ones called the "old soul," "13 going on 30," "so mature for your age!" or "the Responsible One." Bonus points if you are the eldest daughter and/or had very emotionally childish parents.

Children are not supposed to be paying bills or worrying about them. Children might be trusted to work out if $5 pays for McDonalds for a treat they can be responsible for earning, but a child should not be worrying about after school jobs with the threat of not eating that week if they don't clock in. Then, as an adult, that child pays for their own bills and they still have to worry about clocking in so they can afford to eat that week. Nothing has changed. No new social roles have been experienced. Still in many ways a child who is now in an adult body. The anxiety of a 12 year old stuck in a 22 year old, doing the same things as before, just now with college instead of middle school. You might drive a car instead of taking a school bus.

Children who have to stay home from school to take care of their relatives, say, a critically ill parent, may feel like they're pretending to be an adult later because... there's no role shift. They were a caretaker at 15, and they're a caretaker at 25. In fact, they might feel the most security by taking on caretaker roles for a partner, have kids they can't necessarily afford to recreate the caretaker role, etc. to restore "normality." There may not be a sense of self outside of what that person does for others, and outside of specific "doing" roles. They are in some ways still 15, but now they have kids of their own.

They feel a kid pretending to be an adult because on some level, their brain is still operating as a kid who is doing adult things. Even if logically, the person knows they're 28 and they've been working a "real job" for 8 years, you can't just call out of work. Some part of the emotional brain is doing the somatic "You're going to be found out. They're gonna know you're the one calling in absent to school instead of your mom."

It isn't "impostor syndrome," a new therapy word everyone seems to repeat like they know what it means. Impostor syndrome can be linked but they aren't the same thing. Some of us feel like we're pretending because hypothalamus changes during formative years will have us doing that unless our brains are challenged in specific ways. It doesn't have to be this way. If that might describe you or someone you know, there's lots of stuff we can do to retrain that stupid part of our brains. No crystals or yoga or meditation required.