I'm nearly 32 years old and I'm ashamed to say I feel about 16 years old. I don't really understand anything about the adult world or how anything works and learning how to navigate in this world along with all the responsibilities and commitments that come with it are incredibly overwhelming. I guess a lot of it comes from growing up in a controlling environment and not being allowed to learn or make mistakes or decisions for myself. As toxic as it was I kind've miss it because having that control suddenly handed over to me is too much. When things become stressful for me I always seems to go back to this pattern and I can't seem to stop as embarrassing as it is.
Anyone else regress to feeling like a child even though you're an adult?
View all comments
I started to be a full man when my father died. Btw I was already more mature than him.
I have found that my father's deteriorating health while he resides in a memory care facility to be a source of comfort. I suppose that I mean his departure from the world, more generically, and not his medical suffering. Ever since he was diagnosed with Parkinson's I've had difficulty with the realness of my relief - it is his voice yelling at me in my head my whole life, after all.
Still, it can make a person feel as though guilty. I have also felt shame over the fact of this guilt: as if I should not be so compromised nor so available for his maninpulation. Both would mean that I have "failed"! Living with this concept of me having failed or being failure itself has been harmful to me. I have felt like less than a real person and indeed - man - as a result. I'm 50 years old.
The caring part of me will probably not be at peace until he is gone, I expect.
Same with me and my mother. Now I've having to be the adult for my father, who she also controlled and I've afraid to overstep.
I was so fuckin ready for my father to be in the ground.
I’m sorry our shit dads failed us.