Depressed from being an adult and around other adults

There wouldn't be enough spaces available in the title of this topic to give a general summary to how I really feel, but that is what it is.

To be more clear, I have clinical depression, autism spectrum disorder, and lots of emotional and mood issues related to both of those.

I'm a middle school education major, and I'm supposed to start a career in that in just a little bit over a year.

The one problem that keeps me from really being happy with who I am and what I do in life, is that I'm an adult, and I can't be around kids the same way other kids can be with each other and form friendships.

The times I'm truly happy in life is when I'm either babysitting, or I am a counselor at camp taking care of little boys in my cabin and playing with them during the day. Two kids I really love and babysat a few times have moved away last summer and I was completely crushed for a long time. Last summer I took care of a dozen 11 year old boys for a week, and when they were all gone, I went in private so I didn't have to cry in front of other people.

Other people want to teach and volunteer just for something fun to do and to feel good about themselves. I like that part too, but the part I can't really tell other people is I also want friendships, because I am a child trapped inside an adult's body.

I've always got along better with people that are not my peers. Typically that consists of children and teenagers now. However, generally I prefer to work with younger children, because once the teenagers get around high school mostly they want to talk about girls and sexual things, and the two issues are that getting into sex conversations with minors is generally a bad idea, and given I'm about 90% asexual, I would have no interest in those topics anyway. This is also why I am also not much fun at an adult social gathering. I don't like sitting around talking while drinking beer and cocktails. Those are the most boring types of activities ever to me.

Also, there hasn't been a child I can remember coming across in years that didn't like me, but very few adults like me. I have social skills issues, as well as problems getting along with peers, and understanding what appropriate topics of conversation are, as well as very little interest in discussing things most people find interesting as I had just said.

Offering to babysit for people's kids is often considered weird if you're a guy, and especially if you don't know them too well. It took knowing a friend for about a year to work up the courage to babysit her boys, and one of them who was 8 practically admired me and asked for his mom and dad to have me babysit more because I was the best he ever had. They of course had to move away after I established that good relationship that I tried so hard to make with them.

Also, it isn't really just wanting to be around other kids, mostly wanting to be treated like a child again. I sometimes have dreams of someone I observed as a good parent whether passing in public or just seeing a picture of them with their kids where they will treat me like their child, sometimes tuck me in bed and come back while I'm asleep to kiss me on the cheek.


I just don't know what this is or how to cope with it really. They call people who feel they are the wrong sex transgender, so I don't know what I am, trans-aged maybe?

I haven't brought this up to my psychologist yet, because we are still working on anger management and meltdowns. I'm kind of confused at how to feel satisfied with life while dealing with this though.

I'm afraid I don't really have any experience of what you're going through so I am not going to be able to offer much in the way of advice.

I just wonder though whether it might be an idea to bring this up with your psychologist? I think sometimes when we are therapy it's easy just to focus on the major issues and ignore other things that perhaps don't feel so urgent. This is obviously causing you some distress and your psychologist might be able to help you with all of this and find ways of dealing with it.