Even with a good career and all the “adult milestones” I don’t feel like an actual adult. I feel like I’m pretending to know what I’m doing. Anyone else experience this?
Only when I go to stand up after squatting for a time.
I’m in this comment and I don’t like it…
Yep. I sneezed and now my back hurts.
I weirdly like this experience. All the squeaks and cracks and static legs.
No one has any idea what they’re doing.
I’m 35. I’ve got two kids. I make it up as I go along. There’s no plan, no blueprint. There’s just the day to day crap that life has for us all. I wake up, I go to work and my only real aim is to get home to my kids and partner.
Agreed. I’m 40 and I’ve reached a point where I feel like an adult. The biggest piece of that is that I understand that we’re all just making it up and figuring things out.
Imposter syndrome is also an intrinsic part of feeling like you aren’t an adult. Most of us experience this frequently - we have that feeling that everyone knows more than us and it makes us feel like we are fakes. But in reality, we just know more about ourselves and the gaps in our knowledge. We assume that they they know more than they do because we aren’t in their head and they aren’t expressing all the uncertainty and doubt hiding in there.
I think there is a pretty big difference between hearing people like you and me say “everyone is just making it up” and really internalizing that. I think internalization comes with time - you can believe something conceptually but often need to see it in practice over and over to really believe it in your bones.
There are other factors, too, which come with age and experience. Adults on the younger side are constantly running into new adult things and not knowing how to do those things is going to created this self doubt. “If I were an adult, I’d know how to do an insurance claim” or whatever. With further age, you will learn these things and have fewer of these doubts.
Copium
The problem is the way we are told to treat adults as kids.
We go all the way through school repeatedly being told that the adults have the answers, they understand everything that we don’t, they know how to tackle the things that seem to big for us, and, most importantly, they don’t make mistakes.
So now that we’re adults, even though we cognitively know by now that it was all bullshit, it’s hard to turn that training around. We make mistakes, don’t have the answers, and sometimes struggle with parts of the world that we’d expected would make sense by now. We know that the adults before us were no different, but it’s been so long that it’s hard to internalize that we, now, are just like them.
Your imposter syndrome is programmed. It’s not your fault.
It’s not quite the same but this line of thinking reminds me of a couple of scenes from How I Met Your Mother. Marshall tells the story of when they were travelling as a family when he was a child and his dad was this beacon of heroics who could magically see through the heavy fog. Later we get the story from his dad’s perspective who tells that he couldn’t see a thing, was terrified out of his wits but just kept on going and hoped for the best while keeping a brave face for his family. I know it’s fiction but it’s such a good little story that pulls back that curtain.
Really all you have to do is hang out with some co-workers in their early 20s. Nothing makes you feel like an adult like sitting at the kids table, listening to their problems. Realizing you can’t relate.
Hard agree. Im 52 and most of my friends average about 30ish. Thing is I can relate, but due to extra time in the game of life, I have made a peace with the challenges younger people still fight with. Still the proximity of youth is a valuable perspective. I treasure my younger friends for this and many other reasons.
Early 50s here and no, absolutely not. I still feel like I’m an immature teen inside my head, wondering what the hell happened.
looks in the mirror
…fuck
Im 30, have a full-time salaried job, two kids, own a house… I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing I just want to play games and touch myself.
You are not alone at all.
Same at 40
I feel like we are what we are, and that will probably never change lol
Learning to fake it is part of growing up. Eventually you forget you’re faking.
You become an adult the day you realise that what everyone else was doing all along.
Special milestone the day somebody refers to you within earshot as “that mister”, the fabled stranger-based punishment of exasperated mothers everywhere.
Teenagers have started refer to me as sir and that was it for me 😂
Yes and No. 48.
There was never a horizon or dividing line I crossed between youth and adult. It just happened.
I’m still the same person I was when I was 10/20/30/40. Still like cool things, still confused about why we’re all here.
Other than my body getting real creaky and doing all kinds of weird old things, the only real difference between youth and adult is the realization that this very thread addresses. We’re all just making it up as we go. There’s no such thing as “adult”. There’s no Council of Super-Smart People running the world.
The only thing that makes you an adult is the realization that you have to be the change you want to see in the world. That you have to be the super-smart person running things.
It comes in bursts. Like after doing your taxes or buying a car, you think “That was totally adult of me. Now it’s time for video games!”
Just actually hang around kids that are the actual age you “feel”. You’ll realize some differences pretty quickly. Also, I have this idea that what really “ages” us is all the loss we accumulate. The longer you live, the more death comes for your loved ones.
At about 24 years old I finally started feeling like an actual adult. Living alone, taking care of my things and my pets, having a stable relationship. Part of growing up is just accepting that there’s some of parts of you that will never grow up, I’m still a goofball and that’s just part of me.
I think we’re all taking the “fake it 'till you make it” approach to some extent. I know I am. There is no script to follow.
Remember that part of being an adult is getting to decide what “adult” means.
I don’t really feel any different in my 40s, I’ve just changed my perception of what an adult is.
I find all of this talk about being an adult weird. It doesn’t matter how old you are. What matters is that you can take care of yourself.
None of us know what’s going on. It’s ok.
