So my bio-age is 34 but mentally, emotionally I never developed past the 14-15 year old period. The big overarching landmark in this time in my life is Linkin Park's first two albums. I was a bible-thumping undiagnosed autistic with adhd, I was depressed, I was in a new town and my hormones were turning on. I was taught to believe sex outside marriage was sinful so in my black n white thinking I believed everything sexual was sinful if not in marriage and all contact with women had to lead to marriage because I felt sexual feelings towards women but I had no social skills and no one in my life to explain things. This was all, of course, overwhelming and It was around this time I split my personality kind of in my head. I now know the term masking but at the time I was trying to survive by finding the adult responses and choices and mimicking those. Over the years, my adult personality grew up, became an intellectual agnostic able to work and drive but the teenage personality is still there and I will frequently flip between them in situations, overreacting in a highly neurotic, petulant way then suddenly apologizing, accomodating and empathetic. My life is split this way too. Im high functioning in most areas except social and sexual. It feels like Im schizophrenic sometimes as the interests and desires of both sides are very different. I only learned about my autism at 31 and spent my entire teens, 20s raw dogging alone through this so Im pretty traumatized. Knowing about the autism though has helped me understand why I reacted the way I did as a teenager. Everything was new and uncomfortable and noone helped me get used to the new experiences and rules. Mental health and autism wasnt a thing in my church then. It was a spiritual battle and the only help was prayer. I didnt want hurt myself so I had to be the adult.

Anyway, Im still obsessed with understanding what happened. It became a special interest and Ill still ramble on about every detail. Linkin parks first 2 albums was the primary means of communicating my feelings as I didnt have the words or communication skills or the introspection to understand what was happening. With the new song Lost released Ive been thinking about this again.