Oh, heck yeah. There is almost virtually no difference between my "little self" and my real self. When you are like me and have Classic Autism and ADHD, and function emotionally and socially like a 4 1/2 year old 100% of the time, and virtually act like a well behaved 4 1/2 year old (though you lack certain social skills like being unable to decipher nonverbal facial cues and not being able to gauge the distance of when you talk to someone and standing too close as a result) 98% of the time, you can't really function like an adult at all, ever. Sure, I can behave okay at restaurants for an hour, but I've eaten hundreds (if not thousands) of times in my life with preschoolers and toddlers, and they can hold up in restaurants. No one would ever think toddlers have tantrums only if they saw how they acted in restaurants. But you can only keep up this charade for so long. It's like pretending to be an adult, if you are a child. After a while, it is clear that you actually do act more like a child, even if fairly well behaved.
I don't wear diapers and likely don't even qualify as an adult baby per se (although I have heard of "adult babies" who do not wear diapers, although if the real meaning of an adult baby is someone who regresses or perhaps can't even help themselves when they act like a child, hundreds of thousands of people might qualify, including those who never viewed themselves as being an adult baby). I hate to say it, but the way I am, would make it seem that if anyone actually deserved to be the size of a 3 or 4 year old (even as a proportionate pituitary dwarf that looked like a child), it would be me. Most people here can act like adults when they want to. I can't do a lot of things. I still live with my parents even though I'm in my mid late 40s, I can't hold down a job, I haven't had a girlfriend for 26 years, I have never even taken a vacation alone by myself, I can't even drive a car as my attention span is so short that the most I can concentrate is 25 to 30 minutes. I had lots of issues when I was in school relating to this concentration issue. I have a driver's license and had it for 27 years, but it's an utter joke, as I never have driven a car without one of my parents in the car, ever. I have less rights than a 3 year old has. My brother thinks so too, and he is "normal" and is married and has two sons (my nephews). They are 6 and 11 years old, and my brother thinks they have more rights than I do. I never have even slept in a hotel alone by myself. I've known actual chronological 8 year olds who have traveled on an airplane alone without their parents to visit their grandparents on the other side of the country. Even any average normal 4 year old understands more about social cues than I do. Autism is not called a developmental disability for nothing.
I may end up living with my parents forever. I did go live in a state university residence apartment dorm for 3 years, 100 miles away from home, when I went to university to take upper division courses so I could graduate from university. I never felt like an adult even in university. I felt like I was carrying a child's backpack around even when I was carrying an adult sized backpack. Academic ability is not the same as emotional and social age, and sometimes not even mental age. To be honest, I've seen children who are 12 or 13 years old at many community colleges taking full blown college classes. One of my friends who is an English teacher at my community college, told me the youngest child she ever had in her college class she taught was a 9 year old. I've heard stories of younger children than that.
If there was a Santa Claus, the Christmas gift I deserve the most is to be turned into a preschooler - permanently. I would have nothing to lose. And I can still listen to oldies music even if I were a 4 year old. I was listening to the radio when I was actually 4 years old, in fact. Actually the age groups that like oldies music the most are young children and elderly adults (the elderly baby boomers because they grew up during the 1960s).
- longallsboy
Everything that is me, be it little, bird, hiker, IT sysadmin, DL, cyclist, old codger, aircraft mechanic, kayaker, is my "true self".
