So I was sitting on my quad bike today - moving some cows in the mud. It was a very slow process. I sat there for a while with my hands resting on my thighs. I turned them so my fingers faced towards me and my elbows sticking out. I looked at my hands...."Wow I have man hands.....huh when did that happen?"

Looking at my hands from that different perspective it was like I saw them for the first time. Like they didn't belong to my body. They look like my dad's hands.

Why did this seem so odd to me? I am a rather masculine looking man and have been since about 18....so nearly 20 years....so I should expect to have big manly hands. Then I realised....

I don't feel like a man! I still feel like a scared little boy!
I don't feel like a grown up....I feel like I am still a teenager on the inside.... sort of emotionally stunted or something.

It isn't that I'm not responsible - cause I am and a good father. I just can't put my finger on what this feeling is.

I am a grown up. I am a 'real' man. So why don't I feel it?

Does anyone else feel like this?

Lee

Farmer Boy MAN

Yes.

I still sometimes do a double-take when I look into the mirror. Not at much as I used to, but it still doesn't seem like me.

For me, at least now it has changed from one of fear (ah!!!! who the hell is that in the mirror??) to one of empowerment. I still think of myself as a boy, but I have this cool MAN costume I get to wear that makes people think I'm all grown up.

Sometimes it backfires, because people don't realize how sensitive I am to things like raised voices. And sometimes I'm incredibly energetic, and that comes off as scary to people who aren't used to seeing a middle-aged man move around so much.

Sometimes I wish I looked more like a kid, because I want to see who would be nice to me if they knew I was vulnerable. But other times I'm glad people *think* I'm grown up, because they are less likely to mess with me.

But yeah, I definitely feel like I'm just in a long-running version of the Tom Hanks movie "Big" (speaking of that, there's some really messed up stuff in that movie, but that's another topic).

Lee,

If there isn't a name for that phenomenon already, you need to create one. I've experienced that while caching a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Even though I have a "professional" office job, I shave my head each summer. I have done it for years---back to high school in the late 80s when it was not as common as it is today.

My family and coworkers expect it. Usually such a move makes one look older, but everyone has said it has the opposite effect on me...it makes me look a kid shorn for the summer.


Last summer, we had new picture IDs made for our building entry cards. In my picture, I have an almost bald head with just a bit of stubble coming back. I had that realization you talk about...that's no kid...that's a man who looks like he means business. Of course the appearance belies my boyish sense of humor and general goofiness. Sometimes I feel like others don't take me seriously at times because I act young---not immature, but exuberant. It's like I hold on to that certain something from a long time ago. The summer buzz, though looks like I'm all business....it's hard to reconcile the two sometimes.

You know Lee, this may be the key. Disarm them with boyish appearances, but unleash the man when you need to.

Will

I get this feeling too. I work out at the university gym in my town. I am an alum so I'm able to use the facility. When I'm there exercising, I feel exactly like I'm back in school. I graduated 30 years ago and the students using the gym now weren't even born back then. I'm not trying to be one of them. I'm just working out. Fitness wise, and physique wise, I could pass for a college student, but my face gives me away, as it should. It has all the lines and wrinkles of a 50 year old guy. However, on the inside, I feel like time has stood still. All the time I was supposed to be maturing, and gaining wisdom, I have been stuck in that time frame.

DavO

This is classic dissociation, and I am there too.

This is our psyches detaching from our bodies at the time of our abuse, so that part of our inner selves feel trapped in amber at the age we were when the abuse happened, even as our bodies age.

Therefore, when those two parts of us encounter each other -- our young psychic selves meeting our current-age physical selves -- there's a moment of disconnect.

Recovery, or part of recovery anyway, is growing into this meat suit we keep packing around, becoming one with our physical selves.

I'm 6'4" and something like 225, so I sometimes get called "big guy" by people. This makes my young self very upset, don't like it at all. And yet, I am a big guy and should be proud of my stature. Working on it.

Cant

.

Wow! You couldn't have put the way I go through life feeling any better than that. Sometimes I feel like such a freak because of this and think I must be the only person who feels this way. I often wonder how weird people must think I am, because I know a lot of my behavior is extremely child-like. Not necessarily child-ish, but child-like. Especially when it comes to my sense of humor and the way I joke around. (Ok, that aspect of my personality may be child-ish.) Sometimes it even seems weird to me that I have a car, and a job, and that I have my own place and pay bills and taxes. The stunted little kid that lives in my head gets pretty overwhelmed by all that stuff sometimes, but he somehow manages to keep plugging right along and doing what he needs to do to get by, somehow. As long as that keeps happening, I suppose he doesn't need to grow up.

Ken

i am no longer surprised by my appearance, but i do feel a disparity between my appearance and my feelings. emotionally, i often still feel like a teen-ager. i guess this is not surprising since i put my emotions on hold at about age 12. i have a lot of catching up to do.

the thing i still find startling, however, is that often when i am with other guys, i will defer to them as if they are older, wiser, stronger, more skilled or experienced - even if they are considerably younger than me - especially if it something that involves mechanics, sports or other "manly" things that i am not good at. it is as if i feel like a child in the presence of men - and afraid of being found out - like i have no right to be included. i am always shocked when someone offers me respect as a competent adult.

lee

To Farmer Boy, traveler, and others.

Yeah, I am now engaging with me. The person who survived not the one who performed as an adult making decisions like whether the college money should be used during the period of my father's unemployment when I was 14, not the monster I thought I was if I ever lost control and expressed the rage I felt, not the parent, son, husband, student, organizer, politician, or whatever role I was supposed to play. Me, I have never thought I existed and have not permitted him to come out for at least the last 43 years.

So I don't know if he is young, but I am scared, Iam needy, I don't know what I am supposed to do, I know I am not very good with my hands or my car or sports, etc. etc.

The person have always been is an old fart. I don't know yet who me is, but he hasn't been around long enough to be as tired as the old man in my body is.

Ditto, ditto, ditto. Another post expressing something that sounds exactly like it came out of my head.