Dear Junerain,

I've pondered over your question for quite a while. This isn't the first day I've seen it. It rings bells with me, but in a way that's hard for me to identify, to put my finger on. I'm going to share with you what I've come up with, but it's not my final, definitive word on the issue. It's just an issue-in-progress.

What I'm going to say may hurt you. It's not intended or desired to do that. You've asked a legitimate question and I'm giving you a legitimate (though tentative) answer. I have no desire or need or intention to hurt you. You do, however, deserve an honest answer. That's what I'm trying to give you.

The adjectives you use to describe yourself seem more appropriate to the definition of a child than to an adult. When they're used to describe an adult (to the exclusion of other, more adult adjectives) it's possible that the image conveyed by such a person is not the positive one he or she may think it would be. You may be "very childlike, sweet, caring, thoughtful [and] empathetic," but that very image may convey to others a passive-aggressive, false and unsympathetically childlike person who is not the adult she should be.

None of us really have the right to be or pretend to be childlike or special when we're no longer children. People around you may feel put upon, imposed on, taken advantage of when they're impliedly asked to treat you as a child (or as a somehow "special" person). As adults we have responsibilities, not only to our own families, but to all other adults, to be serious, responsible people able to cooperate and interact with others on an adult plane .

If one adopts childlike characteristics as an adult one may be seen or experienced as someone who is asking for the kind of preferential treatment given to a child. And that may well be resented by some. Not all, but some. They may feel that you're trying to in some way manipulate them and obtain from them treatment you don't necessarily deserve.

Rather than in some manner feeling yourself to be hard done by, I would suggest that you seek to understand your situation very much as something created and controlled by yourself rather than by others who may in some manner (to your way of thinking) be seeking unjustifiedly to punish or maltreat you. Most of us, as adults, do in reality control and create our own situations. Even if we have mental problems of some sort.

Take care!