Childhood Ive Been An Adult All My Life. Im Tired Of Being An Adult.

[Deleted member 29899]

Im flipping tired of being an adult. I've been an adult all my life. I've had worries all my life. I wasn't able to be a happy carefree unafraid child. For ONCE, I just want to throw up my arms, lay down and be taken care of. I'm so so exhausted and tired of being an adult. I'm tired of living. I think I'm tired of living because I was never able to be a kid.
For once I just wish I could be taken care of. TAKEN CARE OF. Ahhhhh....what a dream come true that would be...
I know it's a pipe dream. Just a wild thought. But I am exhausted because I started being an adult when other kids were playing with toys, or I was with them, along side of them pretending to be a kid. Playing with dolls and matchbox cars but alwAys worried .... Would he kill her when he came home on Friday? Where would I hide?
I really wonder why the school or the teachers couldn't see how sick and lost myself and my siblings were, we must have really been good at pretending. I wouldn't know. I don't remember. I'm stArting to realize just these past couple days after someone's post, that I've been dissociated the majority of my life.

 

[BrokedownPalace]

Wow. I have had those same thoughts my whole life. I am exhausted. Completely and entirely exhausted of taking care of myself. I was given all adult responsibilities as a child and now I'm 33 and just run down. I really need to be taken care of, it is my life dream. Why do I feel so much shame about it?

 

[Deleted member 29899]

Yes. I do too.

 

[Justmehere]

:hug: imok

 

[Ocean5]

@imok

Can relate too well being "adult as a child." I feel for you. Like you youth was robbed....

My mom was always apologizing what I had to deal with (but it wasn't her fault.) But she felt so guilty....but I know she "tried" to escape... But leaving meant putting her relatives in danger of their lives.

Plus like you...would I come home to "family dead?" Relieved when school bus turned corner...no police cars or ambulances.

I really wonder why the school or the teachers couldn't see how sick and lost myself and my siblings were, we must have really been good at pretending.

I use to wonder same. Now I know relatives knew it was awful....(still digesting this...) Please don't blame yourself. You were a kid.

And hard for me to realize/accept...but Adults knew. They looked other way.

Sure you can relate to these lyrics by Soul Asylum....
"And oh, I am so homesick
But it ain't that bad
Cause I'm homesick for the home I've never had"

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

I'm sick of being an adult too, Imok. I wanna be a kid again except for eating okra and the abuse and the narc-maybe not. I would however like to be thinner.....

 

[ReachingOutJ]

Your post deeply resonates with me. I can't even begin to express the empathy I felt when I read it. It's tear inducing, and intense, and I am so sorry you have gone through this pain.

I was a parentified child, and I did not get to have a real childhood. I was mostly forced to take care of my abusers; I had to do all of the laundry, house cleaning, grocery shopping (I wrote checks at 12 years of age,) I had to cook dinner and serve and clean up after it, several nights a week, change their sheets, run errands like buying booze and cigarettes for their friends who were over doing drugs with them and drinking in front of me, maintain the dishes, etc... and while this was going on, I was being beaten and raped by my mother's husband. I also had a job outside of the house at 12 years old, and today, it would be SO illegal. I delivered alcohol for a liquor store. My mother remarried, and I was then forced to take care of their new children. When I look back on my young life, I just see Cinderella, but I never got to go to the ball. When I had my latest nervous breakdown, because I am stuck living in one of their houses, due to the fact that I am broke and I have PTSD, I would weep for hours wishing I could just go play mini golf. Now I cry just about every day, several times a day, and my therapist says I am like a deeply wounded little girl.

Every single man I have ever lived with has hit or screamed at me, and I continued to help them. I am the poster girl for being a doormat, and I seriously need to work on that. I likely learned how to be one through the way I grew up.

Recently, when I told my mother how another one of my family members had raped me, she blew it off like it was nothing, and went back to drinking her wine.

 

[ReachingOutJ]

I'm sick of being an adult too, Imok. I wanna be a kid again except for eating okra and the abus...

I'd like to go back to being a kid but with caring parents who gave a crap. Yeah, Okra is slimy. As for the being thinner part, please believe me when I say that because I have PTSD, I don't feel any happier than I did when I was heavier; prior to my breakdown. I should also mention that every member of my family constantly focuses on how "thin" I am now; you know, because I barely have an appetite from being emotionally drained and frightened and on meds, but oh how they go on and on... they say things like "Keep the disease, you look great," or "You should be so happy that you're thin. How can you cry when you're thin?" "You look so good." I have pain in my eyes. I don't look good. They just do not f*cking get it at all.

 

[Experience]

I know how you feel. I feel that way sometimes too. You have to fight it though, that crap stole your childhood, don't let it steal your entire life.




My advice? Get some good bud, and let yourself be a child once or twice a month, when you've got nothing going on the next morning. Hit it hard. Just be careful, sometimes you feel so much like a kid that you trigger yourself (Which SUCKS)

 

[Malaenis]

@imok
I understand, I've always felt this way. Then got pregnant shortly after turning 22, and now have no choice but to be the adult my son needs. But I always think when I see other people say they wanna be a kid again, I'd never, ever trade the freedom and safety of my adulthood to be a scared child again. But I wouldn't mind just once someone else worrying over everything for a little while. I don't even know what it would feel like not to worry about every little thing.
I also had the experience of people around me not recognizing what was going on. Everyone thought my mother was wonderful, and scolded me for being such a horrible child. It disgusts me now that instead of questioning it, they took her word.
I'm still new to cptsd, and what it entails, so I have no advice. But wanted to comment that you're certainly not alone.

 

[JessNoOne]

I really really get this. Wow. I'm not even 30 and I'm just EXHAUSTED. I had to take care of my brothers since I was the oldest child, I had to be perfect, excel in everything, just so I wouldn't get yelled at... being perfect was expected but never acknowledged. So I always went above and beyond...
Parents were never home, we rarely had food to eat. We were treated as burdens. Never hugged, never told we were loved, never told we were good at anything. I filled the role of parent for my brothers. I thought (as a child) that if I could just be a good enough parent to my brothers then everything would be okay and our parents would acknowledge us. I would take on all of the duties as far as housework, helping them with their homework, reading to them, teaching them things, playing games with them... I felt they deserved that. We needed some type of structure.
And after that... boyfriends... always taking care of them. I'm so burned out now, I just want to LIVE my childhood. I feel like if I were able to do this, it would give that part of me some closure.
I've done it to a degree... I've gone to some of the childish museums I never got to go to, I've played with bubbles and crayons and roller-skated around my house.
But I would love a year to just not have to worry about finances or anything... to just really have someone who could take care of me while I explore this side of me because it's always yearning to come out.
I think it's more important to embrace this inner child, pay attention to his/her wants and needs, rather than repressing it.

 

[Friday]

I think it's more important to embrace this inner child, pay attention to his/her wants and needs, rather than repressing it.

I know it's not common in all quasi-normal families ... But this is how my family operates. We're silly. We have fun. "Grow old, not up!" could durn near be our family crest. ;)

Now... These are mostly "serious" people I'm talking about; Naval Officers & Engineers & Research Scientists & Doctors... Roasting marshmallows, and putting up tents in the backyard with Disney movies showing on sheets, catching fireflies, building snowmen, building sand castles, blowing bubbles in chocolate milk, paper airplanes, blanket forts, cartwheels, face paint, blowing soap bubbles, catching frogs, flying kites, NERF wars, making faces, bubble bathes, putting chocolate chips in waffles, fancy dress, laser tag, swinging on ropes...

Some of us even have small children ;) Most don't. Either haven't started their families, or whose children are grown.

The vast majority of healthy families I know? Whether they have children (and wink at the excuse) or not, Incorporate a lot of "playtime" into their daily lives.

When my son comes back from his fathers? (Abusive SOB) It's often as if he's forgotten how to play. Playtime can look like there should be a passel of 5yo girls dressed up as fairies about to round the corner, or it can look more "grown-up" (football, say, or game-night)... But regardless of what it looks like? IMO, vital.