I know this thread is a bit old now...but I can completely relate to how you describe not ever really feeling like you know how to act like a real adult. And a lot of the different ways you describe it feeling and presenting... to my understanding of why we never truly "become adults" ..even if we have or are able to accomplish adult goals and lives in someway...it's trauma. (simply put). For those of us who have a history of traumas dating back to early childhood, all sorts of outcomes and presentations are possible. It has something to do with arrested development ....the term not the show...which I love also Basically, as it has been explained to me, when our minds/brains?? (not sure which or both is involved) perceive an event or environment to be extremely traumatic it creates an actual imprint, which acts like a scratch or divet in a record. We become stuck or emotionally stunted...we may or may not remember the reason but the timestamp so to speak remains... I think then when we are young bc our minds are so good at repressing and compartmentalizing....we are able to intially move past the skipping section and progress further..until another perceived trauma occurs which causes another imprint...
Then at some point and time (I don't really know why either)...emotionally we just kinda stop progressing forward.. intellectually and physically we can continue as life and time does not stop neither does our "chemical development"...so the brain and the body continue, but the mind is still playing the same record so to speak. And then when something triggers one of these past traumas, instead of actual memories welling up, ...we experience the "age", get stuck in a skip..until the fear passes. Does that make any sense? I hope so...I know that stunted emotional development is common in many MIs.... and the more complex the trauma or longer it goes untreated, the deeper the imprints become.